But I’d started a family and already had 2 kids…now I have 5.

I had to figure out sales.

Being a very shy engineer I just didn’t have the personality to become a salesman…or so I thought.

I wanted to continue to work for myself but didn’t have the money to pay a salesperson to sell for me.

In looking around my friends at church I found that instance salespeople seemed to have the personality that I thought was needed.

So I began to sell life insurance.

I remember the company suggested I make a list of friends and family and start calling them about insurance.

I remember the agony I felt with my hand on the phone practicing in my head what I was going to say to my next-door neighbor.

I finally got the courage after an hour of tormenting myself and picked up the 500 pound phone and called him.

I said,”Hi Joe, this is Dan Swanson your next-door neighbor, you don’ want to buy any life insurance do you?”

You know what the obvious answer to such a well-crafted sales pitch might be…he said NO of course.

My next calls didn’t go any better.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that I never sold a single policy.

Over time I was able to get enough word of mouth marketing business to feed my family.

I accidentally created a system that fit my personality. since I was a natural consultant.

I could solve complex problems for companies and I did it by asking them probing questions about what their problems were and helping them solve those problems.

Over time I naturally started using that technique when I was forced to sell them something. I later called it Consultative Selling.

I’ve taught it to 1,000s of shy people and it works for them to.

Many years later I discovered a great book by Mack Hanan called Consultative Selling. He’s done an excellent job of describing the sales method in great detail and would highly recommend it even if you’re already great in sales.

Anyhow, a few years ago I sat down and list all of the 290 projects I’d done, their overall cost, and how much I had to persuade clients to move ahead on the projects. It was $890 million in sales. So consultative selling really works, even if you’re a shy person.

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The general consensus among sales experts is that(1):

• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made after 2 contacts
• 5% of sales are made after 3 contacts
• 10% of sales are made after 4 contacts
• 80% of sales are made after 5-12 contacts

How many times do you follow up?

Over the years I’ve landed $890 million dollars worth of projects. I can only remember one instance of selling a company the first time I approached them. Most of the time it required quite a few follow-ups.

I attended a $5,000 per person marketing seminar a number of years ago. The seminar leader was talking about the importance of following up repeatedly. There were about 200 people in attendance.

To drive home the point he asked everyone to stand up. Which we did.

He then asked all those who signed up for the seminar after the first email to sit down.

A few people sat down.

He then asked them to sit down if they responded to the 2nd, 3rd, etc.

He stopped asking after he got to the 7th email response.

He then said look around the room.

Half the room was still standing.

He would have lost half of his revenue had he stopped at 7 emails.

He sent a total of 15…I actually responded to the 12th email.

Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up…

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