Learning persistence

I read a post this morning by Beth Atalay, Stay in Touch till your told to Stay Away; that reminded me of a story my son shared of an experience he had.

Our oldest son when he first started working was a little ambitious. He always felt he should be running the company, probably will one day. So he tended to get frustrated and looked for a new job fairly regularly. One time he took a job in the New York, well Long Island really. This event happened whilst in that job. Later on this job featured as a one line entry on his resume, but it always elicited the most conversation.

Frankly, he worked in a chop shop, similar to the Wold of Wall Street. His job was to call people from early in the morning to late at night and get potential clients on the phone, if they were ready to invest, he handed them over to someone else. One day he hung up the phone when the person he was talking with, just didn't say anything. His supervisor came running up shouting at him asking him if he just hung up and why? Our son said the potential client was not saying anything, to which his supervisor sat down and said to him, if they don't hang up, neither do you. You talk about anything, the score of the game last night, their goals for their kids, themselves etc. etc. 

He eventually moved on, but as I said, this job elicited more conversation at interviews than anywhere else he worked. Usually along the lines of what did you learn. He says he learned persistence, never hanging up on someone, letting there be silence because the other person will eventually fill it, and he learned to sell as well and build relationships.

When I first came to America I was an antique dealer and learnt my own lesson. I had clients who had told me they wanted this item or that, but when I would contact them I never heard back from them. There was one instance I learned from though, and I don't know why in this case I was so persistent, maybe desperation and the need to make a sale. But I sent a letter with the details of the piece, with photos, dimensions, how it fit what the client had said they were looking for and how it compared to pieces that had sold in the past. I didn't hear back. I called and spoke with his secretary, I left voice messages, I was so frustrated and worried I was being annoying. It was totally against my character to keep calling, but this client had said how important this piece was to him so I was somewhat encouraged to keep trying. It took several months and I forget how many calls, but one day I got through. He was so grateful I had persisted, and apologized about having been so busy that he had not got back to me. He did buy the piece and I learned that you have to keep calling until they tell you to go away.

I have brought that with me to real estate, staying in touch with clients over long periods of time and definitely till they tell you to go away because you never know when they will actually need your services.