Some years ago, I was working on a major software sale with the right-hand man to the owner of a local company.  Both of these guys have now passed away so I’m telling this story for the first time.

The right-hand man was one of those people that salesmen really detest. I say this because he was essentially gutless. He was a guy that couldn’t or wouldn’t say, “no,” but then again, neither would or could he say, “yes.”

So, he ate up that most precious of commodities – time. Time is the one thing that salespeople simply cannot afford to squander. 

I was in my twenties when this was all going on, so I still had not learned a number of very important “life lessons” that all salesmen must learn.  One of those lessons (and experienced salespeople know this) is that you must disqualify leads just as much as you qualify them. In other words, the faster you can get a “pretender” off of your list of potential buyers, the better off you are since you can then spend that same precious time working on real future buyers. 

Anyway, I had this guy to a point where we had scheduled a meeting with him and his immediate superior, the founder and CEO of the company.

As you can see, I have not yet learned another important lesson: “deal only with the top person.”

Anyway, we had set up a dinner meeting among the three of us, plus my own business partner. The purpose of this meeting was to go over any final technical objections and, hopefully, sign the contract right there over pasta and wine. 

But, you know what happened next.  My guy, completely true to form, left me a phone message (this was in the days before e-mail and text messages) letting me know that his boss had been suddenly called out of town and that we would now have to postpone the meeting unless I still wanted to just take him (and probably his wife!) to dinner.

Since this was the last of some dozen similar shenanigans by this dude, I immediately sat down and wrote him the nastiest “go to hell” letter that I had ever written up until that time.  I called him a coward, a jerk, and every other name I could think of.  Then, I furiously grabbed an envelope, scribbled out the address, and dropped it in the mailbox on my way home.  All of this took less than 30 minutes.

As I drove along in my car, I thought to myself, “I hope that bastard opens my letter in front of his wife and the kids.”  I wanted the whole world to know what a weasel he was.  But as I drove along, I started to have other thoughts.  I thought of other times that I had “burned bridges,” and later on regretted it. 

But in the end, I was generally happy with what I had done. 

I waited for his call.  I knew he probably wouldn’t call, but I thought maybe he might.  And two days later, he did.  He could have absolutely knocked me out with a marshmallow when he opened by saying, “I have great news – I just met with my CEO this morning, and we’ve decided to sign your contract. Come over this afternoon and we can get everything finalized.”

You can imagine my horror as I thought of his morning mail, probably already sitting in his company’s mailroom.  I thought to myself, “What have you done Ron!”  I also thought of heading over to his mailroom and disguising myself as a postal inspector – anything to get my hands on their in-bound mail, which, I might add was certainly running late.  (It had technically been three days since I mailed the letter.)

As I walked in tight circles around my office, stomach churning, promising the Great Creator that I would never again send a nuclear-tipped missile to anyone, my receptionist dropped a bundle of in-bound mail on my desk.  (Remember, this was in the day when mailed still reigned supreme.)  And there it was, right atop the whole stack of letters – my hand-addressed letter to Mr. Weasel WITHOUT POSTAGE!   My knees buckled as I fell to a position of supplication. Now, I am not a particularly religious man, but I know I gave thanks to the Great Creator above for giving me both the stupidity to send a letter without postage, but yet the intellect to also include my return address.

Last week on my radio show, I read aloud a letter that my wife’s health club had recently sent her.  Since this letter had been addressed to literally eight or nine dozen people, I felt that it could easily be considered “in the public domain,” and thus fair game for my show.

The letter was from the owner of the club and it described a “squeeze” circumstance wherein his banker had pressured him into having to sell one of his clubs so that he could keep his main core of clubs open. 

But even despite this, his main club still had to close for a significant amount of time.  So, after telling the story of how his bank had done him dirt, he went on to tell all of his members that because he had to close his club to all members for a short while, he was now “making up” for this closure by extending the membership of every one of his customers by a commensurate amount of time.  He also said that he would find other ways to recompense those who were put out by both the closing and the fact that some of the equipment in the club was no longer available. 

In between, his letter talked about the grim financial shape that he was in, but also reassured customers that he would survive. 

I looked at the time-stamp on his e-mail to his members. It was right around 11:00 PM. I’m pretty sure that this was after a day of absolute craziness for this man, as he dealt with creditors, the bank, and upset customers who wanted access to the gym.

So, I commented to my listening audience, that while his gesture was commendable, he would have been far better served to have done one or both of the following:

• First, he should have considered doing something that Ross Perot once told me to do anytime I was stuck for an answer.  Perot’s advice?  “Ask your customers.”  Because I’m sure that, had he asked his customers what to do, they would have likely said something like, “Don’t worry about helping us – just do what you have to do to stay open.”  
• Next, instead of offering to extend their memberships, he should have said to them, “Look, we’re really hurting right now.  We’re ultimately going to win this game and you’re going to have your club for as long as I live, but right now I need your help.  So, what I’d really like is for everyone who is up for renewal within the next 90-120 days (or, whatever timeframe suits) to simply pay your membership dues in advance.” 

By doing the above, the club owner gets exactly what he needs: cash flow. He can always do “nice things” for his customers later on – but for now, the idea is to keep the doors open and the employees paid. 

In other words, “Don’t give away something that you don’t have to (cash) – instead, get customers to help you solve the immediate and pressing problem (cash). 

The above is another example of “counting to ten.”  By writing an emotional letter at the end of what had to be a traumatic and gut-wrenching day, this well-meaning gentleman probably did the exact wrong thing.  And he did the wrong thing by letting his emotional self take over, just as I did when I sent that flaming-hot letter some thirty years ago.

The answer, of course, is time. And, counsel. Time will help you to purge your emotions. A good partner or confidante can also do the same thing, and in fact can do it in “real time” by taking you by the elbow and whispering in your ear “You’re letting your heart make a brain-type decision here.” 

But hell, if I could eradicate emotional thinking from humankind, there would be no wars, and there would be no crime (well, a hell of a lot less crime). 

If you think about it, man has walked upright for something on the order of one ten-thousandth of his total days on earth.  Moreover, man has been “civilized” for only a small fraction of those “upright” years.  So, in effect, we’re all really just cavemen wearing ties.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to think like a caveman. 

Hell, just check out those Geico ads.