The Secret I Learned Selling Baby Grand Pianos
Friday, May 2nd, 2008Summer’s coming - lean times ahead, unless…
You discover how to convert EVERY prospect to a paying client for twice the profit.
Just two spots left in May 14th training:
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Back when I was in college at George Mason University, I sold pianos for a summer - a lot of them.
I don’t play the piano, or any instrument, for that matter. I’m the only person in my family without a lick of musical talent.
My mom was a gifted pianist and singer - she cut a record as the soloist for her Church choir back in the early 60’s.
My dad’s pretty good on the piano (well, he used to be).
My older brother, Mike, went to Berklee College of Music in Boston to play the drums. It’s about the most famous music school in the country with alumni like Steve Vai, Quincy Jones, Melissa Ethridge, Branford
Marsalis and John Mayer.
Now Mike’s a Navy Pilot. Go figure.
My younger brother, Zak, is an alternative rock/metal drummer with a band called Common Effect. He’s also 6′ 4″ and 230lbs of muscle, so he THRASHES the drum kit. It’s something to see.
Me, well - I could do a little break dancing back in the day - but I don’t think that counts.
Every other salesperson at the Piano Shop where I worked was a musician. A couple of them were really, really good.
But they struggled with sales.
Just goes to show you that technical profiency in a particular field has no bearing at all on your ability to sell.
Because sales, like playing music, is a skill that must be learned.
And I learned it from one of the best - the owner of the Piano Shop, an older (60′ish) woman named Phyllis.
She had a beehive hairdo and the heavy foundation makeup, a kinda raspy voice from all the cigs she puffed on during the day…she reminded me of a rougher version of Endora, Samantha’s Aunt from BeWitched (the great TV show, not the crappy movie).
Phyllis was ‘old school’ sales. She got down to business.
And she followed (and taught us to follow) a SYSTEM.
She called her sales system the ‘education.’
“Eric, dear, this young couple would like an education,” she’d say to me when handing off a prospect.
For the first month I worked there, I resisted following the ‘education’ and relied instead on what I thought was a God-given silver tongue. I could schmooze with the best of them, and developed rapport quickly.
That worked about half the time.
But 50% closing was most definitely NOT satisfactory to the old battle-axe Phyllis.
So she watched me like a hawk to make sure I gave the complete ‘education’ to every prospect.
And there was some improvement when I followed the system. Enough for me to get a ‘taste’ of how well it ‘could’ work, if I got better at delivering it.
So I went to Phyllis and asked her for some help - I asked her to work with me on my education. And she lit up like the White House Christmas tree. She’d found her ‘protege’ and she was stoked.
Phyllis coached me and drilled with me. We did a lot of role playing until I had it down cold. And she’d watch me work with a prospect and critique me afterwards. It was absolutely priceless training.
And, well, it worked like crazy. I began selling to every person who walked into the store.
I sold Schimmel baby grands at ten to fifteen thou each, and Weber and Yamaha uprights at three to five. And I sold a lot of them. I made almost 20K that summer.
And the bulk of that came in the second half - when I got serious about getting coaching on how to deliver the education like a polished professional.
If it weren’t for Phyllis coaching me, I would have been an average 50% closer like the other salespeople at the Piano Shop who reflexively relied on their musical skills to sell - just as I had relied on my wits.
Those guys resisted coaching from Phyllis - while I embraced it. They drank Schlitz after work. I drank Heineken.
Getting good at sales was the foundation on which I’ve built my career. Now I just do it more in print than in person. Getting good at sales is the single most important skill any business person can learn.
If I have children, they will be required to get sales jobs at some point. It doesn’t just prepare you for business, it prepares you for life.
And being good at sales is almost always a function of two things:
1. The quality of your system
2. The quality of coaching you get
So it’s no surprise that every fitness professional who goes through our AUTO-CLOSER sales system training just explodes their numbers.
Because Dick and Sean are the two best salespeople and sales trainers I’ve ever seen. You cannot get better training and a better system anywhere, at any price.
And make no mistake, the training and coaching is the secret.
Think about it. You can give some outta shape guy the best fitness protocol ever developed, but if he doesn’t get trained on how to follow it (and have accountability and coaching along the way), chances are
really good he’ll get less than half the results he would were he actually working with you, right?
Now’s your chance to get the sales training/coaching -and the sales system - that is having the most profound, documented impact on the fitness industry than any other.
We still have two openings in our next AUTO-CLOSER live training beginning May 14.
They’ll certainly be gone by the end of the day today, so grab your spot now - and explode your sales just like every single fit-pro has who’s gone through the training. Go here to claim your spot:
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Get trained by the best,
Eric Ruth
P.S. Summer is coming. That’s slow season. Every single prospect REALLY counts. Closing at 50% is a recipe for trouble when you need every single client you can get. Double your closing and double your profits starting now:
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P.P.S. If price is an issue for you, I encourage you to listen to the couple dozen testimonials from your fellow fit-pros that are halfway down the page. When you can close eleven grand in one day like Cliff Latham, or go from 2500/month to 20K/month in 30 days like April Smith, or have an 80 grand month like Ed Downes, close 8K packages like Neil Edwards…the list goes on…well, what’s THAT worth?
There are few guarantees in life - few ’sure things.’ This is one of them. Not one person who’s gone through AUTO-CLOSER has failed to immediately explode his or her sales…to the tune of tens of thousands. Now it’s your turn.
Like we say, “the numbers don’t lie.”