The Young Paint Salesman

The young paint salesman

Now this is a very interesting story that teaches us so many things.

There was this little factory in a small town which belonged to an old man who was quite knowledgeable. He took great pride in what he manufactured - paint for use in specific industries. The old man took great pains to produce what he considered the best quality of paint.
He, however, had a problem with the sales of the paint since most salesman would come, work with him for a few months, and then go away complaining that either the price was too high, or the customer was too fussy, or the quality was a problem…….
One day, in a desperate move, he hired a young, inexperienced and absolutely wet-behind-the-ears salesman. He hoped that at least this young man would bring some luck and therefore, business.
Within four days of hiring the young man, the old man called him into his little office and told him-“Look, young man. I have given you all the training necessary for you to be able to sell our paint. You know exactly what goes into our product and what exactly the customer can get out of it. you know the pricing, you know the delivery schedules, you know everything.”

The young man nodded and said, “yes, I think I know everything”.
The old man then pointed out of his window and said, “across the hill is this factory that needs our kind of paint. I am sending you there to make your first call in this job. The guy out there is a bloody *#***##. He will not let you sell to him. He will run you down. He will call you names. He will call ME names. He will tell you that our paint is the lousiest in the world, and the costliest. He will tell you that we don’t deserve to exist, and that our paint should be trashed………
But there is one good thing about him. He does all this, but finally buys. He always buys our paint.”

Armed with this brief, our young friend wended his way across the hill to meet the customer who sounded tough. He entered the premises with fear and trepidation,
Now we don’t have a close circuit TV fixed at the customer’s place to know exactly what happened.

But we do know what happened when the young man came back to his aged boss. He walked into his factory and entered the office of the boss. The boss asked him how the experience had been.

The young man said- “this is amazing. This customer actually was a bloody *##**##. He also did the same things that you said. He called me names. He called YOU names. He trashed our paint. He said we didn’t deserve to exist.
And you were so very right. After all the drama, and all the shouting and all the cuss words, he bought. He gave me an order".

The old man rose from his chair. His jaw fell a few inches below. And he exclaimed “WHAT !!!???? He has never ever bought even a teaspoon of paint from us before!!!!”


Now my friends, tell me what exactly does this story mean to you. What is the lesson for us here?


I am thankful to my sales guru Zig Ziglar for sharing this story. It is from him that I learnt this story to share with you all.