I can still remember to this day, the very first sale I ever made. It wasn’t the first prospect I had ever talked to but it was my first sale. I had already been through Apple”s technical training program so that obviously made me qualified to talk and sell computers.

At that time, technical knowledge was literally replacing an IC (Integrated Circuit) for a particular symptom. The trick was knowing which symptom was caused by which IC. Oh, there was the occasional disk drive that was out of alignment, and no video, but those kind of repairs were very mechanical oriented and really didn”t take any ”technical” knowledge.

My dad had literally put together a talking paper. It had 18 boxes on it, with a selling point in each one. I can’t remember what the contents were, but I knew how to explain every single one of those points.

In walked a man and a wife. He was wearing his work clothes, as he worked some kind of a construction job, and the wife was modestly dressed. They were wanting to look at the computer to see if it could help them with her day care business. I can still remember thinking to myself, there is no way these people can afford this $2500 computer system. But nonetheless, I proceeded to explain all the points in the boxes on that piece of paper. As it was so long ago, I can’t remember all the finer points to the presentation, but I specifically remember when they left, my father came out and said that he was impressed by the way that I went through all the features and benefits laid out on that paper. I was of course ecstatic to hear that but told him… they didn’t buy. He said that’s ok, if you continue to present like that you”ll make some sales.

Fast forward to the next Monday afternoon. He walked in and asked for me. As I came to the front of the store I was surprised to see this man standing there waiting for me. He shook my hand and said, “my wife and I decided we want to go ahead and buy that computer.” Flabbergasted of course, and trying to play it off like I had done this a few times, I proceeded to get the paperwork together, wrote up the items he had decided on, tallied up the order form and presented it to him.

At that point without realizing it… I had broken two stereotypes. One, even a seventeen year old can sell… and two and more importantly never judge a book by it”s cover. You see, when I said they couldn’t afford to buy… I was basing it on the fact of the way he looked, and when I was talking to his wife, she had an awful cold, her nose was as bright as Rudolph”s and I just kept thinking to myself… there is no way. So what is the second lesson you ask. I’ll keep you in suspense no longer. When he took out his checkbook and proceeded to write me a check, he was sitting next to me at the table and wouldn’t you know it… he had roughly $57,000 as the balance in his check register. Boy was I ever wrong about them.

The basic premise of all sales has to meet two basic requirements. One is the prospect has to have a need for your product or service. Second, they have to have the ability to buy. Obviously in this case, they had a need when they walked in to the store. I just didn’t think they had the ability to buy.

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