Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector
Got Time for the Movies?
Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.
Did the headline for my post intrigue you? Movies? Selling? Has Peady lost his marbles?
Think about it
Over the years from a solitary salesman lugging a suitcase of merchandise door to door, to desperate real estate sales guys, through to sports agents and slick young corporate raiders trading stocks in a brokerage firm, Hollywood has often visited the art of selling. It seems audiences respond well to our world – that daily “chess game” between buyer and seller.
The list
Here’s 10 great sales themed films. There’s plenty more that I haven’t listed.
- Elmer Gantry (1960)
- Death of a Salesman (1982)
- Wall Street (1987)
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
- Jerry Maguire (1996)
- The Big Kahuna (1999)
- Boiler Room (2000)
- The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
- The Founder (2016)
A special nod goes to “Any Given Sunday” which isn’t about sales (but about American football) simply because of the “inches” motivational speech that Al Pacino gives to his team.
What’s the connection?
Regular readers might be wondering what’s all this got to do with improving selling and sales skills?
As most of us know, or should know; to be successful in our industry you have to be internally motivated – motivated to win, to start again after failure, to keep moving forward to do the job effectively.
Watching any of these great sales movies won’t make you into a superstar salesperson; but they might just inspire you to “hunt elephants” and push even harder tomorrow to exceed your target.
Work an extra hour to find the right prospect.
So, here’s any idea. At this week’s sales meeting suggest to your sales manager that the team selects a sales themed movie and watches it. Then after watching it discuss the learnings. The pro’s the con’s and what each team member can take away.
Until next week good selling…..and good viewing! As Willy Loman said in Death of a Salesman: “The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it!”
About the author
Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
