Rules Of Gambling, Rules Of Selling

One summer during high school, I was working with Dad on a small remodeling project -- we were enclosing the back porch of a single-family flat in the city. Our customers were a young, recently married couple. He was a Lutheran pastor; she was a nursing student.

My first task early one Friday morning was to remove the door from the back of their house -- turning it into an open doorway -- and reinstall it at the entrance to the newly enclosed porch. The door opened into the kitchen, and as I began my work, I noticed the couple was having coffee at the kitchen table and discussing the pastor's sermon for Sunday.

I had long before learned that the best way to avoid the appearance of eavesdropping was to point out I would be unable to not hear what was being said. In this particular case, the pastor replied, "No problem. In fact, I'm creating a sermon on gambling and struggling to decide how much money is too much to bet. What would you say?"

I offered to share Dad's rules of gambling; the pastor eagerly accepted.

1. Never make a bet you can't afford to lose.
   I once heard a story that Michael Jordan bet one million dollars on a golf game. Whether he actually made that bet or not, I'm sure at any given moment he could easily part with that much money. So while this may be an absurd bet for most of us, for him, it's actually reasonable.
2. Never bet into the other man's game.
   Amarillo Slim (a famous poker player and gambler) once challenged tennis pro Bobby Riggs to a game of table tennis with the caveat that he (Slim) could choose the paddles. Riggs, an experienced Ping-Pong competitor, jumped at the chance to take Slim down a notch -- immediately accepting the challenge. Slim chose iron skillets for paddles and promptly cleaned Riggs' clock.
3. Never bet against the odds.
   Casinos are virtual money machines, because there is not a single bet that can be made where the casino does not have the odds advantage. And when someone develops a system that will flip the odds into his or her favor, the casino will not only ban that person from the building, it will warn every other casino in the world to be on the lookout for the individual. (The one time I ever entered a casino, I went with the express purpose of either having fun losing $100, or walking out with $1,000. I spent three and a half hours at the $10 craps table. I got to $850 before I experienced a meteoric series of bad rolls that completely wiped me out. It's the most fun I've ever had spending $100.)

But what does this have to do with selling?

1. Never go on a sales appointment you can't afford to lose.
   You can't negotiate from a position of power unless it's easy to walk away. If you've ever purchased a car, then you know the best way to get what you want is to walk out of the showroom. Imagine how less powerful that tactic would be if the tables were turned, and the salesperson simply did not care whether he or she sold you a car. (I know a car salesman whose marketing efforts produce more than 10 sales opportunities a day. Threaten to walk away from the deal he shows you, and he'll smile while he opens the door.)
2. Never sell using the prospect's buying system.
   While I'm all for matching your sales process (the order things happen) to your prospect's buying process, I don't advise changing your sales system (what happens) to the prospect's buying system, lest ye find yourself hitting Ping-Pong balls with frying pans. So if you've decided to never submit a proposal without speaking personally to the decision maker, for example, then stand your ground when a prospect asks you to do exactly that. (Note: Following Selling Rule 1 makes this a lot easier to actually do.)
3. Never bet against your own odds.
   The best reason to carefully track every aspect of your prospecting, marketing and selling efforts is to determine your personal odds, so you can make smart choices. Suppose, for example, you close only 5 percent of the deals for which you submit proposals without first speaking to the decision makers, but close 75 percent when you have those conversations. When the prospect demands the proposal without that conversation, reply with "I'm not willing to create a proposal without first speaking to the person who will actually sign it. Where do we go from here?"

I've spent more than 40 years applying variations of Dad's gambling rules when betting on business, on love, on life.

And, I've won far more bets than I've lost. (Thanks, Dad!)

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association