My first call was terrifying, my worst call almost made me cry, and my first sale was exhilarating. The emotions experienced in one day in sales exceed anything I’ve ever been a part of before (excluding, perhaps, the liveliest games of poker I’ve ever played in.) It’s a mixture of crazy, brutal and awesome all put into a blender and set to “high”. Adrenaline smoothie, anyone?
Each week we sell for a different MLS team, and each day we spend 3 to 6 hours making phone calls to people who recently attended one of the team’s home games. Of course, it’s never that simple. About 5 of 6 calls result in answering machines, and another 1 out of 3 result in conversations that last less than 1 minute (“Sorry, I’m not interested.” *Click*.) For those of you keeping track at home, that’s 1 of 9 calls in which the person on the other end of the line is willing to chat. Of these people, 1 out of 5 is not the person that went to the game, and 1 out of every 2 people that did go to the game seems to have undergone some post-soccer match brain surgery that left them only able to speak in one syllable words. Again, if you’re keeping track at home, that means that only 2 out of 45 calls are with people that show genuine interest. Of them, about 1 in 5 actually likes what you have to say so much that they’ll consider buying right away. The final result? About 1 out of 112 people might buy tickets on the phone. The key word here is might. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?
So each day for a couple of hours, all 16 of us power through our calls, hoping to find diamonds in the rough, needles in haystacks, Waldo from Where’s Waldo, or just someone with the right mix of friendliness, time and patience to listen. Every once in a while you come across someone looking for exactly what you have to offer, and, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles… It’s a sale!
We began the week before last with the knowledge that we would be selling for the Los Angeles Galaxy. For those uninitiated, the Galaxy won the MLS Championship last year and have on their roster the likes of David Beckham and Landon Donovan, possibly the 2 biggest names in American soccer. Having the Galaxy as our first team was both a blessing and a curse, the blessing being that people in the LA metro area were genuinely interested in the team, the curse being that this was our first time selling by phone and our inexperience was sure to show. I think the pure excitement of starting our sales journey made this particular week fly by. Just like with anything newly learned, the first obvious progress is electrifying. But of course the learning curve flattens out soon afterwards, and we learned this the hard way the following week.
The city of Vancouver was our target during the second week of sales (remember, the first week in Minnesota was only training, so although selling for Vancouver was our third week total, it was only our second week of sales.) The Whitecaps entered Major League Soccer at the start of the 2011 season as one of two expansion teams (the other being the Portland Timbers.) Vancouver is home to only the Canucks (NHL) and BC Lions (Canadian Football) in terms of professional sports competition, giving us what we thought was a nice edge. The Whitecaps were fresh and interesting, and I figured Canadians to be too nice to hang up the phone. Although I was right in my niceness prediction, the entire crew of trainees was feeling the effects of a very difficult week by the time Friday evening rolled around. A couple of factors led to the steep drop in ticket sales and morale, but the point is that this week saw everyone in very low spirits, some people even seeming to hit a breaking point, me almost being one of them. I even stooped so low as to make an entire sales call with a British accent just out of boredom and despondency. It went pretty well. Needless to say, the elderly lady on the other end of the line didn’t purchase from the British bloke on the other end of the line.
During the second week of sales (Whitecaps), a pattern emerged in my cold calling. When selling for the Galaxy, I was nervous about stumbling and sounding stupid on every call, but after a couple hundred calls and a change of teams, I began to get nervous only after the other person made it clear that they were vaguely interested. It seems counterintuitive, but only when someone shows interest in buying does the pressure to “close” start to mount. Once a person shows interest, it’s my job to make the sale. The pressure evolves from a hard, motionless cocoon into a furiously flapping butterfly in the pit of my stomach in a matter of seconds.
This week marks our third of selling, and the Chicago Fire are next in line. The team missed the playoffs last year and is in a sports market that is entrenched in their mainstays, namely the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox and Blackhawks. Is there room for a professional soccer team? We’ll soon find out…
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