Every time you write a cover letter, every time you send a resume, every time you get on the phone for an interview, you are selling. You are working in a sales job with the most important product in the world to you: your talent. While it might seem obvious to you why you’re the perfect fit for a job, chances are the person on the other end probably isn’t aware of that. Your job is to guide them into that decision, and to do that, you need to learn how to sell.

Here’s one of the biggest, most obvious, most blatant missed opportunities for a shot at a job: the closing sentences of a cover letter/email. I’ve lost track of how many cover letters end with this stupid statement (or variations thereof):

I look forward to discussing the opportunity with you at your earliest convenience.

This is epic failure, because as a hiring manager who has other crap to do, it’s never convenient to talk to you, the candidate, and therefore you won’t get a call back.

The antidote to this failure is the alternate advance close, a simple close in which you provide two options, both of which result in a win for you.

Christopher, I’d love to discuss the opportunity with you. Which is better for you, a phone call on Thursday at 2 PM ET or a phone call on Friday at 11 AM ET?

Either answer results in getting the appointment set up, which is the goal!

Suppose the hiring manager says, “neither is good for me”? I’ve seen people stop the conversation dead at this point and lose – they stammer out a “uhhh, okay, well, whenever is good for you…” which is equivalent to saying, “don’t ever call me back”. The right way to respond is the porcupine technique (in which you toss back the question immediately, as if someone had thrown a porcupine at you): “I understand. When is good for you?”

Be politely persistent with your selling. Keep tossing out alternate advances and porcupine responses until you’ve got your shot in the spotlight for the interview – and then keep selling in the interview. Sell in your followup call and email. I’ll leave you with this YouTube clip from the Boiler Room of a high pressure, super hard sell.

Should you sell like that? That’s up to you and your style, but let me leave you with this thought: if you’re talking about putting food on the table for yourself and for anyone you have responsibility to care for, how determined would you be to learn how to sell, in order to buy them the future they look to you to provide?

3 Comments

DJ Waldow on October 1, 2010 at 8:03 pm

My old boss (VP of Sales) taught me this technique for following up with sales prospects. Worked brilliantly! I still use it today…
Anonymous on October 2, 2010 at 2:01 am

Love the technique. Push for something beyond confusion and wonderment. “… epic failure”, in bold, was a bit superlative, though…
Anonymous on October 18, 2010 at 2:12 pm

I wish I’d known this stuff well, before the turn of the century 🙂