• November 15, 2018

National Close a Deal Day: It’s Time for Salespeople to Celebrate!

Even though salespeople make up the largest segment of the workforce, with some estimates putting it at close to 13% of all U.S. employees, there is little in our culture that recognizes their achievements and contributions. Salespeople work hard to bring in new business across the globe, can be the frontline of the economy, and in many cases, the reason why everyone else can stay employed.

So we here at Spiro have decided that it’s time to recognize the achievements of salespeople by launching the first ever National Close a Deal Day. This year, National Close a Deal Day will fall on Thursday, November 15! National Close a Deal Day was created to celebrate the achievements of people in sales over the past year! We encourage salespeople to share their favorite closing story from the past year on social media and to use the hashtag #CloseADealDay so that you can share your achievements with others in our community.

In honor of this holiday, here are some examples of great stories about closing deals that members of the Sales Humor community have shared with us:

“I was talking to a prospect over the phone, pulling out all the stops to get him to commit and he was convinced I was pulling his leg in order to get him in the door. So I asked him, “What can I say to prove to you that this is the real deal?” He proceeded to say, “There is probably no way to convince me you’re not lying. I’ve been burned by people lying to me to get me in the door in the past.” I replied, “If it turns out I am lying to you, Mike, you can come into my office and punch me right in the face!” In less than 1 minute he pulled out his wallet and gave me his credit card number to give his a deposit. I had another salesman come in to my office after I hung up the phone and say to me, “I really thought you had no chance of getting him to commit. That you can punch me right in the face line had me laughing pretty hard.” Sometimes the craziest things actually work!”

“I had a customer that was interested in a car on our lot. He wasn’t ready to make a decision, wanted me to hold the car, but wasn’t committed enough to put money down to hold the car. I was a little frustrated because I had spent so much time with him. I placed a bag on the counter and stapled what paperwork I had on it, opened it, and told him “I’ll hold the car for a couple days if you place your sandals in the bag. I will hold them as collateral.” To this day, I don’t know how I said that with a straight face. The look of confusion on his face will never be forgotten. I really just wanted to see if he’d walk out of the dealership barefoot after burning 2 hours of my time. Well, he did and two days later he returned and rolled off the lot with that car.”

And this absolute gem:

“I cyber stalked a prospect and over a period of months I sent him an escalating series of emails/voicemails that were Terminator themed, pretending to be him from the future. In the future, the technology that his company was standardized on was destroyed when lizard men invaded and his company’s stores color scheme was the only color scheme that was invisible to the lizard men. So if he standardized on our technology now we would have the advantage in the future. Because in the future he was the sole leader of the resistance and he was trying desperately to get a message back.

I even went so far as to include sound effects in the voicemails. It was a huge hit because he was a huge nerd like me and loved Terminator. When we connected he had moved in the company and was no longer the IT decision maker but promised to get me a list of the current IT decision makers. He then went dark and I proceeded to hit him with a series of Fast and the Furious voicemails where I was Paul Walker’s character in every movie and I needed the list of IT decision makers in order to solve the plot of the movie and to get Dominic Toretto to trust me, I had to get the list… we ended up becoming friends and the reason he went dark was because he left his company. To the day, we still chat.”

I recorded most of the Vmails here:”

https://soundcloud.com/sheppards-voicemails/sets

So today, Thursday, November 15th, make sure you celebrate National Close a Deal Day by first, congratulating yourself and celebrating your successes, and then by going to National Close a Deal Day and adding your name for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card, and lastly, by sharing your favorite closing story of the past year on social media with the hashtag #CloseADealDay.

Here’s to many more deals closed and many more years of success!