Three Stooges and Professional Sellers – What’s the Common Thread?

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On a Monday morning after losing an hour for Daylight Savings time, I thought it best to have some fun for our Monday Morning Sales Inspiration Call. Coupled with being in the midst of hundreds of NASCAR fans this past weekend in Vegas, well - I'm seeing a lot of fun things to talk about.

For anyone too young to have seen The Three Stooges - you must be under a rock because their movies and images have been around in abundance for many years - but I'll give a very brief description:

From Wikipedia

The Three Stooges were an American Vaudeville and American comedy act in the first half of the 20th Century.

In a 1992 Seinfeld episode, Jerry explained to his foreign-born neighbor, "Well, they're three kind of funny looking guys and they hit each other a lot."

Parallels to professional sellers: that's easy. It's about entertainment, tenacity, and having fun. 

Entertainment: People choose who to buy from and do business with. Having a positive experience will cause people to do business with you. People want to feel good about their purchase decision, and if all things are equal, will do business with the person or company that makes them feel the best.

Tenacity: Again from Wikipedia -

Slapstick was a mainstay of Stooge humor. The key was that, no matter how hard anyone was poked, slapped, punched or prodded, the pain immediately went away, and no one was ever really hurt by it.

The Stooges were often shown as unemployed or at the least underemployed, working class guys. They persisted and often good things happened.

Having fun: This is the bottom line in professional selling. You need to enjoy it. If you don't - it will show, and you won't last at it. Think of the best servers in the hospitality industries - from restaurants to cab drivers to hotel staff. After spending four days in

Las Vegas

, we got a good taste of people who loved their work versus people who were really bad. More on this later in the week.

Your thoughts on the Stooges? Drop us a note.

We’ve got even more coming

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