Sales Lessons from the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’

The other day, I re-watched the famous 2006 biographical movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ based on the life of a multi-millionaire Chris Gardner’s early struggles battling homelessness with his 5-year old son while searching for success in sales and brokerage.

The Pursuit of Happyness stars Will Smith who has undoubtedly given a stupendous performance accurately capturing the real-life Chri Gardner’s trials and tribulations he faced during cold calling and door-to-door selling an expensive medical product to doctors during the 1980s.

If you’ve already watched this movie, you would know how many life and sales lessons are spread out during the entire stretch of the movie. A highly recommended movie one needs to watch when they’re struggling with motivation, or those who want to find their next level of success in sales.

Below are some of the sales lessons I would like to highlight in today’s article. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you’ve learned any lessons from the movie. Do leave a comment below, I would love to learn from you as well!

1. Positive attitude:

Whether Chris was cold calling prospects as an intern or running around the streets trying to sell his medical devices — he never failed to have a smile on his face. Sometimes, when clients or prospects treat us disrespectfully or are frustrated, we feel discouraged and our outlook changes immediately. However, despite the circumstances, given the number of curveballs his professional and personal life was thrown at him, Chris never failed to maintain a cheerful look and a positive disposition. He always believed that a cheery attitude will land him good clients which did happen eventually.

2. Don’t be afraid to be different:

Oftentimes, we’re scared to take an alternative route. As salespeople, we usually play safe and stick to our scripts or protocols. But most of the genius work happens when we dare to go against the norm and do something completely out of the box. Chris Gardner from the movie was cold calling his way up a call sheet of prospects. When he was not getting good responses from any of the prospects at the bottom of the list, he thought he’ll do something different and opted to skip the rest of the prospects and just proceeded to call the first person on the list. 

This first prospect ended up giving him a green light to set up an appointment with him. And he happened to be a very important man — a top-level pension fund manager. This manager ended up taking Chris and his son to a 49ers game where Chris was able to network with high-ticket prospects who eventually converted to clients that contributed to his overall sales target at the company and eventually gave him a promotion, from being an unpaid intern to a full-time employee. Just imagine how that one unique phone call skyrocketed his career!

3. Create a schedule that focuses on quality, not quantity:

If you’re a busy salesperson, it’s possible that you might be struggling to make time for your family. Since Chris was a single father, he had to cut short his office time to 4 pm which gave him only a total of 6 hours as opposed to his colleagues who did 9 hours of daily work. Once he wrapped up his work at 4 pm, he would immediately catch a bus to pick up his son from the daycare. That was his daily routine. But how was he eventually chosen for promotion even though he worked only 6 hours while his teammates worked for 9 hours? Quality. He focused on taking almost zero breaks, not drinking water so he wouldn’t waste time in the washroom, not hanging up the phone in between the calls. By doing some of these activities, he was able to save 8 minutes — which was definitely something. Combine this with his high-quality work, creative thinking, doing his sales differently — he eventually was able to reach his sales targets and be the best fit to become a full-time employee. 

4. Know when to bend the rules:

Despite being a mere unpaid intern who is only supposed to cold call from a call sheet, Chris didn’t hesitate to bend the rules. He once left his office to meet a prospect who gave him a green light. As an employee or a salesperson, as long as you know that you’re not getting in major trouble with your superiors, taking calculated risks will do wonders for you and your company’s success in the long term. If anything, at least your manager will witness your grit and determination and assess that you have what it takes to be a successful salesperson!

 5. Resilience to hardships:

Chris Gardner is shown to face endless hardships from his partner leaving him to becoming homeless to getting arrested for a night to struggling with taxes to raising a 5-year old child all alone. Despite all this, he had to reach his daily cold calling target as an unpaid intern while studying for a final exam competing for a position as a full-time employee in the brokerage firm. That’s a lot for one person to handle. Yet Chris didn’t lose his positive side, he treated everyone with respect, always had a strong work ethic, and didn’t play a victim card or be hard on himself. 

And today his net worth is USD 70 million

This movie only re-affirms the fact that all bad things come to an end. If you’re struggling with sales or life in general, remember this phase is just character building. This is the phase where you get to learn how strong you truly are, how this is going to end soon and I promise you, the other side is going to be so much better. Just hang in there, keep working hard, smile, have fun and I’m sure you’ll appreciate the next phase even more!