A year or so ago, I was recommended to a sales director called David. He needed sales training for his team.
He turned up ten minutes late to our Zoom call, then asked what the meeting was about.
That's not a great start. But it got worse. He spent most of the call putting his staff down - blaming them for results that, in my experience, almost always trace back to leadership. He had a high salary, a track record of past success, and the kind of certainty that comes with both. Nothing was his fault. Nothing was ever going to be his fault.
I didn't want to follow up, honestly. But we all have off-days, and this had come through a client recommendation, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. I put the work in, sent a proposal, and we agreed a follow-up call the following week.
I sent a diary invite. He accepted it. I sent a reminder 24 hours before.
He didn't show up. I followed up several times over the next month. He never replied.
What happened a year later
Yesterday, out of nowhere, he got in touch. He'd lost his job and wanted my help.
Here's the reply I wanted to send:
"What goes around comes around. You were horrible and now you'll get a taste of your own medicine. Hurts, doesn't it? Maybe now you'll learn some manners and treat people with respect."
Luckily, that stayed in my head. It's good to get things out of your system sometimes.
Here's what I actually sent:
"I lost my job in the 2010 recession and know how awful it feels. How can I help support you?"
That one line took me five minutes to write.
He needed help with his LinkedIn profile and CV. So I spent 20 minutes going through his LinkedIn profile with him, made several recommendations on his CV, and wished him well.
Why I helped him anyway
I had every right to be angry. What he did was rude, unprofessional, and a waste of my time. There are people in business who will take advantage of your generosity, and it isn't always easy to respond with patience when that happens.
But two wrongs have never made a right, in business or anywhere else. As the late Wayne Dyer said, given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind. That's stuck with me for years.
There's also something practical in this. The best response to someone who treated you badly isn't to hurt them back - it's to keep doing good work, keep building your reputation, and let that speak for itself. I've seen enough of sales over the years to know that how you treat people - especially when they can do nothing for you - is what people actually remember.
The world tends to be better when you support others rather than satisfy your ego. That's true in sales, and it's true everywhere else.
Sales isn't just about closing. It's about mindset, emotional intelligence, how you handle rejection, how you handle difficult people, and who you choose to be when nobody's watching. If that's the kind of approach you want to bring to your team, I'd be glad to talk - get in touch and let's see how I can help.
DM me if you want to generate more sales, improve your mindset/confidence or get better results on LinkedIn.
Everybody Works In Sales and my other books to help you generate more sales are available on Amazon
Generating sales is hard. Whether you work for somebody else or run your own business, knowing how to sell is vital. It’s not 10 ways to close a deal that counts. What matters in 2024 are:
💪 overcoming imposter syndrome
🤝 building confidence
❤️️ having emotional intelligence
💯 resilience
✅ listening
👉 sales strategies
👍 LinkedIn sequences and LinkedIn branding
💡 psychology and so much more.
If this matters to you, and you want to work with someone who cares about you and your success, get in touch to see how I might be able to help you.
