Episode 426： My First Sales Manager
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
206.91876
Summary
In this episode, Pat talks about how one of his best sales guys, Cisco, taught him how to sell memberships in a mall in order to make it in the sales business. He also talks about the time he almost quit sales because he was too nervous to go to the mall.
Transcript
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Let me tell you about the call I got yesterday.
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Yesterday, one of my associates that works with us, Craig Thomas,
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this man here whom he just met, he says he trained you when you were new in sales.
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Cisco was my general manager when I first started working with Valley Total Fitness,
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I don't even know when it was, 99 when I got out of the Army,
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probably August, September of 99 when I started working there.
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And he says, Pat, I run into so many people from PHP and from Valley Team and all this stuff.
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And every time I tell them I trained you, they don't believe me.
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I think there's a lot to learn here because either you're going to be Cisco having Patrick's
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in your life or you're going to relate to me having a Cisco in your life.
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Both ways, someone's going to relate to the story.
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So I start working on Valley's and he's training me and he's very calm, very encouraging, very
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And one month into the business, okay, I'm working at Valley's, I have sold a whopping
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zero memberships after being at Valley's Culver City for one month.
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I said, look, I'm one of the most in shape guys in here.
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The only guy that's more in shape than I am out of the sales guys is Dexter.
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I know more about weightlifting and nutrition and all this stuff than any of these guys
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I says, Cisco, I don't know why you're saying this.
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He says, I don't want you to sell memberships at the gym anymore.
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I said, where do you want me to sell memberships?
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He said, I want you to go to Fox Hills Mall, which Fox Hills Mall is like Culver City area.
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He says, I want you to go sell memberships in the mall and test that out for one month.
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I can't sell memberships in the gym with all the equipment here, the weights here, the
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You want me to sell memberships in a mall where there's nothing there?
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I said, I don't think this is going to work yet.
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I go to the mall and there was this escalator in Fox Hills Mall and we would set up a booth.
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Like imagine a table like this covered with a black cloth.
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And I would stand literally right behind it because I didn't want to go around and talk
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to people that are walking in front of me at the mall because I was so nervous and shy
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and worried about what if they got a prospect and I said, no, we're not into it.
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I was kind of concerned a little bit because I'm this guy, big ego, got out of the military.
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So, but there was three other guys that were selling and I was watching them and hey, how
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Are you going to let somebody talk about belly, total fitness and all this stuff, right?
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I would say, hey, would you, would you, and they would walk off.
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Next thing you know, I came across and I came to the edge of my table and I stood right here
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a little bit closer to people, but still safe because I'm touching the table.
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Then I, yeah, yeah, yeah, excuse me, excuse me.
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One lady finally said, yes, Bally's, Cobra City, yes.
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The laziest questions you could ask somebody that has no clue what to ask.
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She says, yeah, I'd like to buy a membership from you.
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I said, you would like to buy a membership from me right now?
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I've never filled a contract before with Bally's, and it was a contract you have to give a printout
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A quarter later, the smallest gym in Bally's, Culver City, in a basement.
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It was not the most sexy gym that they had, but the team was the sickest, best team we had.
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Cisco, Joe, Danny, Ruben, Dexter, Silvio, Leigh, Donna, we had the best squad.
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Triple crown is if you're number one in nutritionals, number one in personal training, and number one in sales.
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I got a promotion, went to another gym, and then obviously years later, I continue to go do financial services, and the rest is history.
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And Craig Thomas calls me and says, do you want to talk to Cisco?
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I talked to Cisco, and in that conversation, I just went back 20 years.
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You know, some of you may have somebody on your team that's kind of like Patrick B. David, rough around the edges, military, maybe athlete, maybe a tough guy, maybe big ego guy, maybe big ego, yet at the same time, his ego is so, you know, like crystal.
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It can break if somebody hurts it because that's what this kid was.
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This guy was all military, tough guy, all this stuff, and it's like a persona, but at the same time, he doesn't know if he can sell.
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He just wants to go out there and find some kind of money.
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I'm going back into the army because the sales thing's not working out.
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I'm telling Cisco I'm going to go back into the army, and Cisco says, Pat, I believe in you.
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By the way, there's about 10 Ciscos in my life.
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One day I'm going to list all these names for people to know who these people are in my life and the kind of impact they made.
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But he was one of the biggest ones because he kick-started my career.
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He was my first sales manager, and he treated me gently.
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He wasn't afraid to say, hey, you can't sell over here.
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Go sell in the mall and shadow three other people and see what they're going to be doing.
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I'm going to put you in a tougher place because if you can hang there for the rest of your life,
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you're going to learn how to feed yourself because you have to generate customers there.
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You're not waiting for people to come to the gym.
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I say this to you because either be a Cisco or if you've got a Cisco in your life,
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respond to the challenge they give you to be a Patrick.
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Either way, pick one of those two because at the end of the day, if that doesn't happen,
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And when I go back into the Army, I would have retired three years ago.
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Two and a half years ago, I would have retired.
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Okay, with $3,000 a month, I would have done 20 years in the Army because
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There would have never been an insurance agency.
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There would have never been the three kids I have.
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There would have never been all these other stories.
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Your story is this close to just being a regular person, this close between being a regular
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person and this close for the world to know your last name where legacy is being left behind.
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And sometimes you got to listen to the people around you because for many years, I was afraid
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of praying as a kid because I used to go to an Assyrian church in Iran and the pastor would say,
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If you pray, he will answer your prayer, but he is so powerful.
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If this guy answers my prayers, his voice is going to be deep.
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But later on, even as an atheist later on in my life, I looked at the way God answered my prayers
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So, Hafiz once said, I can't say the exact words, but he says, God uses people as a flute
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It's just on us to catch the words that are coming to us.
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Maybe this is a message for you this morning to realize, either be a Cisco or go lift the
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next Patricks in your life and you'll be life-changing because for the rest of your life, you can look
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back and say, I made an impact in the world because Cisco did on what he did with this 20-year-old
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Patrick, and obviously I did because I listened to his challenge and I responded to his challenge
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and I took the initiative and the rest is history.
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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Just search my name, Patrick Bid David, and I actually do respond back when you snap me