Selling is like playing a 1980s video game

Video games certainly have changed since I was young.  Today’s video games have over-arching stories, character development, video interstitials, plots and sub-plots, awards and minigames, social integration, challenging gameplay, and certainly lots of amazing graphics.

In the 1980’s, video games all nearly had one objective, and then you got to repeat that objective over and over again, at an increasingly quickening pace, until you lost.  You couldn’t “win” at any game because these games didn’t really have an end.  And, when you did lose, you threw in another quarter and tried again – trying to get further and further along.  Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, etc.   They all operated like this.

Sales is kind-of quite like that.  You repeat your pitch over and over again, trying to get better and better with each attempt.  When you lose one or win one, you do it again.  And no matter how many times you do it, there are more dots to eat, and more ghosts chasing you.

This isn’t meant to discourage anyone, its just a simple fact of the persistence needed to keep going.  Even though you KNEW you had to do the same thing over and over again, you still wanted a portion of your allowance in quarters.  You still wanted to try to beat that game.  That’s the fire that every salesperson needs in their belly.

 

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