Although written in 1968, Og Mandino’s sales advice is timeless. Here, Mandino tells us how to become a successful sales person in the form of a parable.
The Story
Around 2000 years ago there lived a man named Pathros, who is widely recognized as the Greatest Salesman in the World. He has a single employee named Hafid, his adopted son, who takes care of his camels. Pathros wants more. He wants to start a family and become a salesman himself. Pathros agrees to give Hafid a test. He is to sell a fancy robe in a city where no salesman has been successful in a very long time.
Hafid fails to sell the robe. In fact, he gives it away to a family in need. However, a bright star follows him all the way home. This star was so bright that Pathros was compelled to turn over his secret scrolls to Hafid. These scrolls come with three conditions. First, he has to follow the instructions contained in the scrolls. Second, he has to give half of his earnings to the poor. Third, he can't share what he learns in the scrolls with anybody, until he receives a sign that he is to pass them on to a "chosen" person.
The Scroll Marked I - Today I Begin A New Life
Failure, in almost any circumstance, can be defined as our inability to reach our goals in life. Scroll I tells us that there's a method to overcoming this common problem. Specifically, you have to leave behind your old ways of being and habits, and adopt newer and better ones. The scroll instructs us to read it silently when we wake up, in silence after the midday meal, and out loud just before going to bed. The goal is to repeat the words daily so that they become part of your conscious thought, and through repetition that they will also become part of your unconscious thought. One of the secrets of becoming the Greatest Salesman of All-Time is patience.
The Scroll Marked II - I Will Greet This Day With Love In My Heart
Scroll II has us pause and consider something critically important. If we don't wake up every single day with love in your heart, what will you fill it with? The world is hard. You will likely continue to face rejection on a daily basis. You'll fail much more than you succeed. If you aren't careful, pretty soon your heart will be filled with bitterness and despair. So, what approach is going to help you make more sales? With a heart full of love, or a heart full of bitterness? Do people want to buy from salespeople who brighten their day, or darken it?
The Scroll Marked III - I Will Persist Until I Succeed
What we need to understand is that success takes time. Success doesn't come to the smartest, the most talented, or the best looking. Success in sales comes to those who can stick with it the longest. Who can fight through the failures the longest. Who can deal with the most pain, and wake up the next day ready for more.
Conclusion
These are just three of the ten total lessons learned from the scrolls. But even with just these three we can see just how useful these lessons are for reaching our goals as salespeople. focusing on strategies and techniques alone is a recipe for failure. Those things may be important, when you combine them with the right mindsets and behaviours, your success becomes inevitable.