Sales Tips from “The Pursuit of Happyness”

The clip above is taken from the 2006 biographical film The Pursuit of Happyness (yes, happyness spelt that way) that starred Will Smith as a homeless salesman trying to make it in life. When sitting down and trying to come up with an idea for this blog post I was reminded of this scene and how it perfectly showcases some of the best aspects of a “good salesman.”

Firstly, we see how Optimistic he remains, even though he’s under the realization that no matter how hard he works he still can’t get the number of sales calls that he makes. Very often we encounter sales persons who’re angry or bored or frustrated and as customers it immediately turns us off; but here is a man who even through countless hours of frustrated efforts still maintains the positive, cheerful optimism that in the end lands him the sales opportunity.

Secondly we see his Creative Thinking, in that once he realizes calling his way up the list seems to be a dead end, he opts to call the highest person on the list; and because he thought differently he ends up landing a much better sale than what he may have ended up with had he not. Even for us in the sales world, this means sometimes we must be prepared to go against the norm (and even our own comfort zones) and try something that may seem crazy to us.

Thirdly, we see his willingness to be Flexible with the client he has on the phone. As sales persons we often have to put aside our own pride and choose to satisfy the needs of our customers first. He realizes the importance of this client (given that he is at the top of the list) and seizes the opportunity by making time to help the client.

These positive characteristics we see here reflect some of the lessons we learned in class this week; a good salesperson is Helpful, Low-Pressure and Customer Focused – and that is exactly what we see here.