Gladiator Sales 101

It’s hard to pick up the phone at 7 am on a Monday morning and dial into a Fortune 500 conglomerate where the company’s left-hand structure does not know what the right hand is doing. The ultimate, albeit futile, goal is to find a decision-maker and secure at least 10 seconds with them to schedule a callback. It is almost like a lab rat running in circles in an experimental maze searching for the bell that would lead to the cheese. In truth, that maze is more like walking through a heavily armed 1000-yard-long landmine. All you can see are dismembered body parts of sales professionals that have previously tried and failed to get to the other side, ruthlessly cut down by a division of gatekeepers trained to eradicate the cold callers. If you are still standing after about 140 dials during which you have been given all the objections available in the English language, you can truly call yourself a Sales Gladiator, but your work has just started.

The seven-second window begins, and the Gladiator must use it wisely to convince the third-level middle manager on the other end of the line that he is more than just a cold caller, which is obviously a blatant lie! By some miracle, he got that person’s attention, and then the big moment—the moment he was hoping to get—arrives, the pitch. As the adrenaline rushes, his vocal cords tighten, but the timing is off. He speaks too fast, missing the sweet spot, and his contact immediately loses interest. Instead of throwing in the towel after hours of dialing, the Gladiator decides to give it one last shot before his day is over. Not discouraged by 185 futile dials, he says to himself, “I’ll get him tomorrow,” as he clutches the phone in frustration. 

After 25 years in this industry, I have come to admire this Gladiator Sales Professional, undervalued from all sorts of creatures who feed on his lead, just as vultures do on a carcass. Undervalued, but so essential in arousing the mob, for they need him for society to work. Like the Gladiator in the Roman Era, this modern-day equivalent faces the Emperor and roars from his cubicle, “We who are about to dial salute you.”  

The mob views this Gladiator as a pawn on a chessboard of corporate business development. Although they know that even a pawn can execute a checkmate, they prefer to keep their eye on the rook or knight, whom they view as the real closers. There is a difference between them—the cold caller lives for the hunt and hopes to run that blade through his opponent’s chest. I have met many who ascribed their closing ability to an innate talent; however, rarely have they picked up the phone and created an opportunity from nothing. If a cold caller can generate an opportunity out of thin air, and that same cold caller can close the deal, he is the true hero of the fight. If you can go through all that pain, manipulation, and agony and do it 140 times over like every call is your first, this prompts the question of whose resolve is greater, the cold caller’s or the closer’s? Who is the true closer? Getting a qualified lead, nice and warm, vetted, with a decision-maker who has agreed to a 30-minute conference call is the best scenario for our pseudo-closer. The Gladiator, manipulated by the mob, while the attention is deflected to an actor who pretends his talent won the day, stands in the shadows, sharpening his battle equipment for the next event.

The heart of the Gladiator is a rare find, and so is the ability to succeed against all odds. It is a skill that cannot be taught, as it stems from an instinct graced by the Gods. A Gladiator leads from the front, rather than dictating from the back. He pursues his mission with real passion and vision and knows that his true strength comes from teamwork. Gladiators are more alive when they take risks and excel when faced with crisis. They are more alive when under pressure and are ready for battle 24 hours a day. Even if you possess these innate skills, you are not born a Gladiator sales professional, for this requires a painful process. To arise as a Titan warrior, you need to transcend into a stray dog and an alpha wolf, before you can call yourself a sales professional.

A house dog pampered by his owners has all the household comfort and is bored with the diet of leftover fillet mignon or porterhouse steak his owners brought home from dinner at a fancy restaurant. Well-fed and content, this dog is not too excited about anything and resorts to licking his balls for amusement. However, stray dog is a different breed. He knocks over the neighborhood trash cans at 2 am, fighting with other strays over who will win the rotten meat scraps. Unlike the house dog, the stray is alert and has all his instincts honed for the hunt because if he is off his game, he will go hungry. One day, he is adopted by a lovely family, with the prospect of all the love and security a house pet enjoys. No more cold or fighting over scraps, but one night, as the stray looks out through the window, he notices a trash can and suddenly feels an irresistible urge to knock it over. This desire for hunt and other warrior rituals is much greater than the pleasure derived from security of a warm and loving home. However, the stray has a long way to go before he can fully metamorphose into a Gladiator, as he still needs to discover a beast within him.

The Alpha wolf, unlike the stray, has a strong sense of self-determination, conviction, and ambition to work hard. Alphas negotiate and persuade others with class and respect. They never try to force their will or demean others for disagreeing with them. Betas, on the other hand, cannot stand rejection and will do everything they can to get their way and prove their worth. 

My cousin Tony, a part-time truck driver that sold pillows on the side at a Walmart parking lot, was that Alpha wolf. I didn’t know it, but I was that Beta, still a stray, knocking over those trash cans. I was broke, finishing the final year of my undergraduate degree at USC, and my cousin could see that I was struggling. I had only two pairs of jeans to my name, and I’d just sold my car to pay rent to get me through my final semester. Seeing me in such a desperate state, one day my cousin barked, “Bitch, are you going to roll over and die, or do you want to make some ends?” I recoiled when I saw the pillows in the back of his van, but I was willing to do anything at that point, for like the Beta wolf, I needed to prove myself. I meekly joined six guys already crammed into his van, who were presumably already recruited by Tony from the neighborhood as pillow sellers.

The Wolf drove us to the Walmart parking lot and handed me several pillows. He pointed to the Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella pillows and told me to target parents with toddlers. Before sending me on my way, he also suggested offering flowery pillows to young couples because they’re probably dating, and the guy will want to score points with the new girlfriend. There I was, in the middle of the parking lot on a hot summer day, clad in jeans and my USC cap, holding the Winnie the Pooh in one hand and a flowery pillow in the other, while worrying about the 300 lb. security guard. I made 140 dollars by the end of the day, and my cousin smiled and jokingly said, “I bet you USC didn’t teach you that Dogg,” as he drove off to the horizon. This was the first lesson the Wolf taught me about the art of the hunt and the pleasure of closing the deal.

There are a series of closes, including closing the gatekeeper, closing for the appointment, closing for the 2nd meeting, and closing the deal. A person with an Alpha mindset lets go of control and stays in the moment, knowing that he can handle anything that happens, as things always work out at the end. You will learn and grow from anything that comes your way. I learned that day at Walmart that my qualifications were not going to feed me, and if I wanted to take control of the situation, I had to be more than a stray. Like the Alpha, the Gladiator must rise to the occasion and thrust his sword with the intent to kill.

The first time I stepped into the coliseum, I was a 14-year-old Coca-Cola vendor at Dodger stadium. My heart was pumping, as I was both afraid and excited by the out-of-control roar of the mob. It was the 1981 World Series when Fernando Valenzuela was pitching against the Yankees. I’ve been going to that park ever since. I remember wondering what it would be like sitting in the field seats. I couldn’t go down the aisle because I was too afraid of the mob. I couldn’t yell out, “Hey Cokes, here, get your icy Coca-Cola here!” I was still that stray, and it would be years before the Wolf would take me under his wing. I remember that my back was against the wall next to the men’s restroom, as I was struggled under the weight of the Coca-Cola tray, praying that I could muster the courage to go to that field aisle and say those magical words. Then, out of nowhere, the mob started approaching me asking for a cold beverage. All night, I stood next to the men’s restroom.

When I turned 17, I got my first sales job at Start Now Personal, the mother of all boiler rooms. I was still a stray, but I loved knocking over those trash cans. I didn’t freeze anymore, by now it became easy. However, after all that hard work, I noticed that those leads that I worked so hard for were given to the sales manager, who called prospective clients after I’d vetted them. He was treated like royalty despite never making a single call. I disliked him right away, but I was still too young and new to the business to challenge this long-established order. Several boiler room jobs later, I became that closer and started consulting companies on developing smart and aggressive cold calling centers. However, the leads were mediocre, and there was no consistency in the qualifying process. Already a Wolf, I decided to start cold calling, even though it was frowned upon by the mob and earned me several reprimands from my superiors.

Suddenly, a thought struck me like a thunderbolt. I decided to reinvent my cold calling methodology and make some adjustments. I realize that I was working with many people who called themselves gladiators, but they were slaves to that check. These so-called closers gave business development a bad name. It was pathetic, as most were too lazy to follow up on their leads. “What the fuck?” I thought to myself, realizing that a drastic change was needed. I noticed that each one of these kids pounding the phone relentlessly was a beast, an Alpha wolf. I decided to take three of these wolves and have them take over the entire sales processes, and quickly noticed something extraordinary. Like in cold calling, they looked for the “yes” in every “no” unwilling to accept rejection. With this attitude, they converted gatekeepers into tourguides. I taught them how to leverage referrals by calling the wrong department on purpose to get a referral from the CEO. It became apparent that I had a room full of Gladiator sales professionals doing what they did best on the phone.

            Sales professionals have asked me numerous times about my client portfolio and inquired if I was related to someone in politics or a Fortune 500 executive. When I tell them that all my relationships began with a cold call, they are in disbelief. I then ask them if they have ever knocked over a trash can. Sometimes I still feel like that 14-year-old kid at Dodger stadium who was too afraid to walk down the aisle, and yell out, “Hey Cokes here, get your ice Coca Cola here!” or a confused and impoverished undergraduate standing in the middle of the Walmart parking lot. Still, over the years, I have learned that not everyone can be a Gladiator Sales Professional, as this requires willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone to get the deal.