Seagulls: I just think they’re neat

“Don’t paint a seagull in your prospect’s picture” is one of the sillier-sounding Sandler rules, but it’s definitely got a validity to it. The idea of not painting a seagull is basically not telling your prospect what to do or how to see something.

But Elise, not even suggesting something?

Well okay, you can have a little suggestion. As a treat.

Haha, kidding. No suggesting. The point of the metaphor is to let your prospect paint their own picture—seagulls or no. If you can find a roundabout way of suggesting something that makes it seem like the prospect’s idea, go for it. Usually you can do that with questions.

Now here’s the thing. I like to think I’m a pretty good listener; I listen, I ask questions, and I’m pretty okay at keeping a conversation running with that. But I’ve been finding myself painting a lot of seagulls during conversations. Not in sales, of course, seeing as I don’t do sales in my everyday life (unless we’re talking about non-sales selling, but I’m putting that aside for now. Yes I do non-sales selling. No I’m not going to talk about it again), but just talking to friends. It’s not that I don’t listen. I do; I sit down, I listen, I ask questions to understand the context of a situation, but then… I just can’t… help myself…

“Here’s what you need to do…”

ELISE NO!

Now it’s out. My big problem. I just can’t stop painting seagulls y’all.

Okay, so its not a big problem, but it’s definitely something I’ve noticed since reading about this rule. And if my friends ask for advice (great idea by the way. I give awesome advice. Boyfriend got you an ugly hat? Throw it in Wolf Creek. Computer not working? Wolf Creek. Professor won’t give you an extension?… Maybe don’t go with Wolf Creek immediately but you can keep it as a back up for sure.), it’s free game, but until then I’ll be working on keeping the suggestions itch under wraps.