Transmuting Failure Into Philanthropy

I had a most unpleasant correspondence over the phone with a prospect today...

Let's call this gentleman "Bret". I found Bret on linkedin. He was listed as a salesman for a large local company of which I thought would be a great candidate for an out-of-the-box approach to prospecting.

I noticed that Bret placed the role of "Philanthropist" before his role as a salesman...

"That is awesome!" I thought to myself as I am currently working on making regular donations to charities and non-profits with the hopes of getting more and more involved with Philanthropy and just generally helping people in need.

However, my idea (which I thought for sure was a good one mind you) how to approach this man failed horribly...

Despite this fact I stand behind my actions as mentioned below....

I thought to myself that Bret's company would likely be a perfect candidate for a managed print services contract and I figured that if I did in fact sign them, I would donate my FULL commission to his non-profit organization which is called Saving Teens In Crisis and is a non-profit that upon reading about, found to be truly awesome.

I called Bret and told him about my company, who we are, what we do and said that I was hoping he could put me in touch with his IT manager so that I might do a free managed print analysis for his company with the knowledge that if we ended up doing business together I would donate all of my commission from sales with his company to the non-profit he runs.

At this point Bret was clearly using intense restraint as he basically accused me of being the absolute worst kind of human being on the planet...

I was shocked, confused and tried to reply as he explained to me that using philanthropy to garner personal gain was a great evil (which I agreed with) as I went on to explain that the motivation for this call was again to donate in full my commissions from business should it transpire between our companies to his non-profit.

He bocked at me and said "yeah that's a nice angle", Click...

In retrospect I can understand what happened  He works in sales and knows there are in fact super low-life, scumbag people who work as sales professionals. I am sure there are in fact people who actually scam non-profits with similar tactics.

I was absolutely horrified, hurt and at a loss for words.

I took twenty minutes to think things over and regroup my mind and spirit. I then texted an explanation to him as well as a justification for my approach (which I stand behind because my intent was fully in the right place) and notified him that while I understand we will likely never do business together I was going to donate to his non-profit as a sign of good faith, imploring him with many words to give me the benefit of the doubt and listen to me as a human being rather than a salesman.

I do not doubt that he will likely never speak to me again however, I promptly donated to his organization through their website and volunteered to donate time as well if needed (as I had planed on doing anyway before this debacle occurred).

So as a believer in emotional alchemy, I sat and pondered all that had just transpired and meditated on how I could transmute these negative emotions and actions into gold....

This is what I came up with:

I have decided that from here on out I will donate 100% of my commissions from managed print services contracts signed with non-profits/charities (who do not discriminate against any social groups of any kind) to said non-profit/charity.

While this was a highly negative experience it has lead to what I believe is an answer to how I can help more people which is something I have been pondering as of late.

It is my hope that this post will serve as both a reminder of caution in how one approaches a prospect (even when the intentions are good) and also as a catalyst for a seed which will grow into financial benefits for multiple non-profits and charities.

Please share this post if you have read it and thank you for reading. 

Qabalistic Sales

The above diagram is the tree of life, taken from the Jewish mystical tradition of Qabalah. The original use of the diagram was to help one "know thyself" and unite with God via the meditation and visualization of different aspects of God as they divide into the ten sephirot laid over three pillars connected by twenty two paths. 

In the above presentation of the tree, you will notice that I have transposed my own approach to the sales process in place of the traditional God names associated with each Sephirot.

While gazing upon the tree one day, I began to imagine the tree with the left pillar (severity), the middle pillar (mildness) and the right pillar (mercy) as a template for the sales process. Over the past two years, I have developed my own style of sales which being mostly the product of psychospiritual introspection, found the tree would make for a perfect visual representation of my approach.

 I believe that sales is first and foremost a game of intentions rather than one of numbers. It is this distinction within my perspective however, that has allowed me to win within the numbers game that sales is...

Via the combination of creative visualization, cold calling, sigilization, emotional alchemical marketing and a continued drive to serve others with the intent of helping and improving the lives of other human beings, I have been able to sign two companies that have eluded my sales team for over twenty years over the course of a one week period.

What am I doing differently? 

I am looking at the sales process as a psychological and spiritual/emotional pursuit rather than that of a financial goal. It is not the commission or the size of the sale that I focus on, but rather how well the customer is being taken care of. 

By showing a level compassion inherent within my elevator pitch, daily cold call routine and mannerisms when in a live meeting, I have found that in light of hard work based upon an intent of love projected towards prospects, I am able to naturally attract business to my client base.

I hope that this graphic is of some use to your own endeavors.