Selling is Not For Everyone

Dear Dad,

I hope all is well. I have been working on my book, “The Mechanics of Selling; The Best of Me and the Best Salesmen I know.” Whenever I think and write about sales you obviously come up in my mind. The basics you taught me, both by what you said and what you did, gave me the foundation for the life I have now. Writing about the beginning of my career, going out on sales calls with you and then alone, learning about business itself and our company in particular seemed like a monumental task then. And as I train your granddaughter, it seems equally huge now. There is so much to learn and a lot of what is relevant changes from person to person and company to company. The variables in all situations and parts of our business, and often making decisions and judgments with only part of the needed information available make it so daunting, but also equally challenging. 

This book helped her when she first started. So I decided to formally publish it to codify what grandfather, you and I created to become our system. It has been fun to go back and remember the good and tough times, learning how to sell and the various printing processes, while at the same time how our business runs and how the world affects us. But the overall, overriding priority was and still is learning to deal with people. Relationships are everything, not just in business but everywhere and the better we can handle those the more successful we become. A reality that I continually reinforce with Kayla. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about family, business or other personal relationships; they are all the same thing. Learning to interact with people in a positive way so that everyone benefits, most of the time, is the ultimate goal because that means everyone wins.

I chose three people for Kayla and I to interview for the book. You knew them and they definitely remember you. The first is David Williams, the son of your best friend who was also in the printing business. David switched very successfully to Real Estate about a decade ago and he is still the best “Cold Caller” I have ever met. He has incredible success knocking on doors with no appointments and getting business. The second interview was with Lou Beckerman, you were one of his first customers when he opened his own insurance company. He has done extremely well, his son is also in his business and he too built his sales from scratch knocking on doors. The last interview was with Jerry Levey, he is a third generation paper and printing supplier for us and his son is also in their business. He is bright, articulate, loves to sell, built his own customers from scratch and runs a big company. We are all roughly the same age, we grew up selling together and it is an honor to know them. They have a lot of good advice and I am sure you would agree with almost everything they said. 

Being able to sell is a universal brotherhood, only open to those who are able to create something from nothing. It does not matter if you graduated from college, it doesn't even matter if you graduated from high school. You can be any religion, come from any country. You just have to be able to sell. Part of the reason for my book is to help those who want to try sales. For those who can do it my advice will hopefully allow them to avoid some of the mistakes I made, move faster than I did in certain areas and make more money earlier. However, an even bigger reason is to dissuade those who should not be salesmen from spending endless years of frustration because they should not have tried it in the first place. The vast majority of people cannot sell, should not be in sales and are wasting their time when they should be doing something else. I am hoping that my book can show them that sales is not the path for them and have therefore done them a great service.

I dedicated the book to you Dad, you taught me so much and for that I will be forever grateful.

Love,

Andrew