In every profession, you need to be able to sell, and in every sales conversation, there comes a time when you need to close. Needless to say, this represents a critical moment between you and your prospect. 50 year sales professional, and author of 25 books, the amazing Ben Gay III sits down with Rob and talks about a wide variety of subjects from selling, to presenting, to simply living a successful life.
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
• How his actual name, Ben Gay III, has been an asset in his career.
• How he became the #1 salesperson in every organization he worked for, and his secrets in accomplishing that.
• A GREAT story of how Ben beat the great Zig Ziglar himself in a sales contest, and the bizarre prize that he earned in that contest.
• What drove him to the training side of selling.
• How did your first book find you?
• How Ben was trained, and his philosophy behind training others.
• His tips for working through gate keepers, including his, “Buddy the Squirrel” story and message!
• His worst, or perhaps most unusual moment on stage. (You don’t want to miss this story!)
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Originally Published December 22, 2022
Rob Jolles (00:00):
In every sales conversation, there comes a time when you need to close. Needless to say, this represents a critical moment between you and your prospect. Let’s have ourselves a pocket sized pep talk because we’re going to be talking with one of the best sales trainers in the business and hands down the authority on closing. This is going to be fun.
Introduction (00:21):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now, here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:34):
Today’s guest, Ben Gay III, is the author of 25 books on the subjects of selling and living successfully and over 50 years in professional selling. He’s been the number one salesperson in every organization in which he has worked. He has been personally trained by fellow sales legends like Jay Douglass Edwards, Dr. Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Zig Zeigler, and many other sales giants. Ben now writes, publishes produces, the closers series of books, audios, videos, newsletters, podcasts, live seminars, and a series that’s considered to be the foundation of professional selling, what you might not know is that Ben and I worked back to back a few decades ago and I got to watch him work. That’s why he is on the show. I’ve followed his career ever since. I’m thrilled to have him with us. Welcome to the show, Ben.
Ben Gay (01:28):
Thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. Good to see you again.
Rob Jolles (01:32):
Yeah, it is nice to see you again. And we were comparing notes right before we went on. We were having such a good time. I had to tell him, be quiet. We got to start. I warn all this. So let’s, what I thought we’d do is we might compare some notes about sales and sales training and just kind of get into it. I look at Ben and I see, and I think, I hope Ben looks at me the same way. And I sort of see a guy. I think we’ve been sort of working in parallel universes. So let’s start with that name of yours, okay, an asset or a liability. Ben Gay the third.
Ben Gay (02:06):
I’ve had it my whole life, so I almost don’t know. I’ve gotten so used to it after you get, if you’re sensitive, it might not be a good name because everybody has the Ben gay joke. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rub it in <laugh>. How long have you been gay in the service at Mail Call? I hated that because it was last name, first name last. I almost used to pray. Everybody else was hoping they got mail. I was thinking, no, no, because I don’t want to hear Gay Ben, so it can be both. I ran for president of the freshman class at Georgia State University, Georgia State College. Then it wasn’t as big a deal as it is now, and we could put in $50 cash and all the donations you could get. And I was talking to my father who was a food broker, and I said, all the donations I can get. And he said, well, I think I can handle that. Reaches for the phone, calls the sales manager of the Pfizer corporation that made Ben Gay and had a quick talk with him, told him what I was doing. And a few days later, a week or two later, this truck pulls up in front of the house with thousands of tubes, sample tubes of Ben Gay, posters, those of your older viewers may remember that Ben Gay, the product had. He was always after pain, killing pain. It was his ugly little guy with pain on his head. I forget he had an actual name, but pain. There they’d stripped in bad government. Ben Gay wipes out bad government and they sent a couple of people to help put things up. Well, Georgia State University is probably parts of it today that still smell like Ben Gay and they don’t know why because thousand, you know how kids are. You give ’em a tube of product, they look at it, then they put it on the floor and somebody steps on it. But it was a great lesson in when people can remember a name. I got 95% of the vote while running against five other people. And because a couple of posters weren’t clear what I was running for. I came in second for the vice presidency of the senior class, which was funny since I’d been there about a week. And I thought, oh, the power. And then Jimmy Rucker, my running buddy, the greatest salesman I ever worked with It turned out, I said, Jimmy, we’re supposed to, all the candidates are going to appear and give a talk. And he said, “you’re not.” And I said, “why not?” Well, why not? Wasn’t a speaker yet to say the least. And he said, “the whole school smells like the talk of the school speaking will only cost us votes.” So what we do is at the end of the day, right before the rally, we’d get in the car and go home. And I did. And we got 95% of the vote. Wow. So I thought ‘Ben Gay. Yeah. That’s maybe not a problem. Yeah.’ One thing I did do was I put the third on the end, I am Ben Gay the third, but I started using the third to differentiate myself from the product. Right? A little bit.
Rob Jolles (05:23):
A little bit. Well, I will tell you that from my limited appearances where I saw you, I actually remember standing back going, that’s almost unfair because he would, Ben gets introduced and pulls from one of those seven or eight jokes and he’s got that audience warmed up in 35 seconds. And most of us, we could fight a little harder. And I thought, that just doesn’t seem fair. And yet I admired it. And I remember sitting there going, at some point, I’ve got to shake hands with this guy and meet Ben Gay iii. You also did a tremendous job in that seminar. The weird part about the seminar world folks is when people are good and when they’re not good it And you were.
Ben Gay (06:13):
I’ve been both.
Rob Jolles (06:15):
Well, I got a couple questions lined up about some of our best and worst moments, but we’ll save that. Well, hold on folks. You’re going to get some good ones there. But anyway, it’s also a great lesson in just making something work for you. I mean, you could clearly have gone the other way and become Benjamin or taken your middle name or something, but you owned it. And I wish more people would sort of own those moments because it’s what makes you unique. It became your calling guard.
Ben Gay (06:46):
Cute. Quick story. Senior year in no freshman year in high school, we’ve come from grammar schools all over the place. And so you’re meeting new people and a teacher in one of the classes, I forget which one it was not important. She said, if you’ve ever wanted to change your name, this is the time. 90% of the school doesn’t know you. They’ve come, it wasn’t me. She was talking to about old school or a class. And I said, this is good. This is my opportunity. Well, my name is, it’s worse than Ben Gay. It’s Benjamin Franklin Gay iii. So I thought, I’ll go, you just reminded me of it. I’ll go with my middle name. I’ll become Frank Gay. So she said, she goes around the room calling roll call. What do you want to be called against me? I said, Frank, Frank Gay says, okay. And then the day goes on and I’m saying to this person next to me, because the teacher keeps telling Frank to shut up. This Frank Guy or whatever, apparently can’t listen. And my buddy said, she’s talking to you. So Oh, Frank, no one’s ever called me Frank. I didn’t know I was the problem. So I went up to it at the end of the day, I said, Ben Gay, let’s go back to something I recognize.
Rob Jolles (08:08):
Thats great. Yeah. I was sitting here thinking, I don’t know if Ben’s dad was named Johnny Cash, but I mean he put a name on you and he said, he’ll grow up tough and he’ll grow up strong and he’ll learn how to take care of himself.
Ben Gay (08:20):
That’s right. Boy named Sue
Rob Jolles (08:21):
We could do 40 minutes of this name.
Ben Gay (08:22):
And if you recall, yeah. Do you recall from when we worked together I, I told the audience, I didn’t want my son to go through what I went through. You’re going to name him Ben Gay, the fourth and so on. So we named him Absorbing Junior.
Rob Jolles (08:37):
I tell you folks, he’s just getting warmed up. He’s just getting warmed up. Alright. Right. Let’s move to you. Now you become a salesman. All right. And because both of us, we were salesman, but before we became sales trainers, thank goodness, because I certainly don’t want to hear from a sales trainer who’s never sold anything. But you didn’t just sell stuff. You were number one wherever you went. I kind of give me a sense of some of the secrets. I mean, how do you accomplish that? I get it once or twice, but everywhere you go, meaning you were following a pattern or a process of some sort. Let us hear about it.
Ben Gay (09:14):
Well, among them, my father taught me, first of all, I didn’t know there was any other job other than a salesman. My father was a salesman and owned his own company. All of his brothers and sisters were in sales and owned their own companies. All of his friends own, they may be an exception here or there, but basically all of his friends, his golfing buddies and so on, owned their own company and were salespeople. And if you rise up through a company, selling is a big part of it. Whether your title on the car, just salesperson or not. And I was raised two blocks out the front gate of East Lake Country Club in Atlanta, Bobby Jones Home course. So when I got to caddy for my father or walk around with him, he let me go in the men’s grill with the people and sit at the end of the table and be quiet. That was the rule. Don’t speak unless spoken to. And if anybody asks you a question, answer it yes or no and shut up. In other words, you’re not the annoying child at the table. Well, I’m glad he taught me that. Cause if you were the chairman of the board of Coca-Cola, you got a membership at East Lake automatically. So I was almost always after a round of golf sitting at the table with whoever the chairman of the board of Coke was at the time. The founders of Home Depot, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Winners and all of ’em salespeople at heart, they had to promote their companies and so on. So I almost didn’t know anything else. Yeah. Other than selling. And then at age 10, they had a contest selling crispy cream, donuts and citywide. And I don’t remember if I knew what you won or not, but I do know what I won. I won a bright red Columbia bicycle for being number one and probably gain 20 pounds because one of the secrets of Crispy cream donuts is every dozen you sell, you rearrange ’em. So the customer can’t tell. You’ve eaten one. I eat a lot of crispy green donuts
Rob Jolles (11:23):
And wasn’t a baker’s dozen, you just lifted one out of there.
Ben Gay (11:27):
Right. It was a Baker’s 11 dozen order.
Rob Jolles (11:30):
Oh, Baker’s 11. Got it.
Ben Gay (11:31):
So I remember liking that I got and got to stand up in front of a group somewhere and accept the bicycle and so on. And I hadn’t really done anything except get out early in the morning and work till the sun went down. And my father taught me a little script, my first introduction to sales scripts, which I’m a fanatic about learned the best way to present something and do it again and again and again. We were in the South Atlanta, and they all have screen doors. So stand back where they can see your shoulder, but to see who you are, they will instinctive Southerners being friendly, open the screen door to see who’s there. And because you’re, you’re slightly out of sight. And when they do hand ’em the box of crispy green donuts and say, here you’re Krispy Cranes. No sales presentation. Just hearing the Krispy Kreme in the south, most of them Krispy Kreme or a food group. Yeah. Everybody loves crispy. Starting to drool thinking about them. Yeah. Yeah. So they would usually say, how much do I owe you? And I’d give the price and they’d run, get the money and give it to me. I don’t, I’m sure I knocked on doors that either didn’t answer or didn’t want crispy kreme donuts. But I just remember having to go back to the house several times to get more crispy Kreme donuts. And I did that for a week or two, won the bicycle and never looked back. I owned the lawn mowing service, employed 20, 25 kids in the growing season. When I was 14, there wasn’t any contest going on, but I was making more money than some of the adult males in the neighborhood because my dad taught me a little script which was oversimplified. Hi, I’m Ben Gay, we mow lawns. you’ve probably seen us out working and so on. Here’s the deal. We’ll mow your lawn and when we’re done, you and I will inspect it and if you like what you see, pay us what you think it’s worth. And I remember saying to dad, oh, and he said, I said, I don’t want to mow lawns. He said, fine, hire your friends and pay them half of the collection. And I said, well, I’m not sure they’d work for half. He said, they’ll work for half of what you’re going to get. Cause when you left it to them to pay you what they thought, instead of the $3, I’m making up numbers, but instead of the $3, we were used to begging for it, they’d give you 10, 15 or 20. And they split that and you’re still ahead. So again, scripting built a business. And then I went to Macy’s my senior year, which is called Davison’s in Atlanta back then, but went to Macy’s my senior year in high school, trained for two weeks, taking back returns the day after Christmas. Trained us for two weeks to work one day. But I picked up all sorts of sales training there, believe it or not, always have, always know something about four or five of your favorite products from there. Always have an up sale. And our multiple choice option at the end was, will that be cash or charge just before credit card? So you either had a Davidson’s card or you wrote a cash cash or a check. And then at the end of, I was to work one day, but I heard during the job interview, Barbara Franz, I’ll never forget her name, say the head of employment, that she was going on vacation the next day. And I thought, oh, there’s an opening. So I worked the day after Christmas and came back the next day and they all said, oh, we didn’t know you were going to be back again. I said, yeah, yeah. What do you want me to do? Oh, why don’t you sell on the floor? You seem to have a way with people. And so on. Two weeks later, when Barbara Franz returned from her vacation, I was head of stock, their number one salesman on the floor in housewares to start with. And shortly thereafter became the youngest assistant buyer, Macy’s Then 100 year history. But I, I’m working in the stockroom doing something, and Barbara Franz came in behind me because I’ve been sort of dreading this since she hired me for one day. And I said, Ms. Franz, how are you? And she says, nicely played Mr. Gay. Nicely played. So number one at Macy’s, and then on manufacturer’s rep, food broker, so
Rob Jolles (16:18):
Well, it sounds like you are, I kind of like survivor, outwork out hustle. But you know what, Ben, when I pull from this, and again, you and I have never talked about this and I’ve never talked about this, but I’m listening, I’m going, boy, that sounds really familiar. Oh yeah, that’s me. I was in Boy Scouts. I was in Boy Scouts. We sold light bulbs door to door. Yep. Who’s going to turn down a boy scout with a light bulb, particularly when we used to go through light bulbs and we sold not Krispy Kreme, we sold Dunkin Donuts door to door. And who’s going to turn down on a Sunday? Boy Scouts standing out there with some donuts. Sure, we’ll take donuts. But the big picture on our story here is that both of us learned to be not afraid to sell at an age when we didn’t know enough to be afraid.
Rob Jolles (17:07):
And so it became, I had a dad that sold too, so it was somewhat instinctive, but I remember when I got into high school and the track team was selling toothbrushes and people were very concerned. I was like, what are we afraid about? I’d already been knocking on doors. So I would hope people listening think that it’s not just these isolated stories you’re hearing that maybe it’s not such a bad thing for a kid to get a taste of selling because they don’t have to be a professional salesperson. They may be a manager. They may be wherever they are. As you mentioned, same thing. I’ve never met a high level manager who didn’t have some sort of history or background in selling.What a coincidence.
Ben Gay (17:50):
Absolutely. Yeah. Among the, it’s not a big deal because it doesn’t come up that much. But all things being equal, if there’s a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon applying for a job, all things being equal, I would take them first. Why? Because they’ve been knocking on door and being rejected their whole life, and they consider it a sport, right? Yeah. It doesn’t phase them at all.
Rob Jolles(18:17):
Right. I refer to that as being able to take a punch. That’s really what separates it. I wish more of the universities would offer selling programs. A few of them do. Because as said, everybody’s brave till they get punched in the face when you. Selling may look glamorous. It’s not for everyone. But when you’ve been knocked down and you dust yourself off and say, that wasn’t so bad, and I’m feeling kind of competitive about this. I don’t care what you’ve sold or what you haven’t sold. Just like you, you’re becoming attractive to me to hire in sales. I just want to know that you can get knocked, because you will get knocked down that when you get knocked down, you, you’re okay about getting back up and knocking on the next door. We can train you everything else. But that’s a tough one to teach. It’s a little instinct. So I’d like to get at it young like we did.
Ben Gay(19:08):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m very grateful. I have a son adopted who was, he’s black, was a drug dealer. I met him when he came to a class. I was teaching the federal prison in Lock, public speaking, oddly enough and so on. He was finishing up a five year sentence, and he’s 19, I think two years to go or something. And he said, I, what’s the difference between us? Because he was a sharp guy, not educated. He was a high school dropout. And I’m not kidding. I said, don’t think you ever dropped in. So I don’t know how you drop out. Had been in a gun battle with his father, his biological father. They swapped shots over something. That was long before I met him. Append to that story, by the way we help getting through co get his G E D, getting him through college, getting through law school. And he’s a successful attorney with three offices, Los Angeles, Dallas, Washington, DC and one of the finest people I’ve ever met. He wrote a book called “Don’t Let Your Past Hold You Back.” And that’s Lamont our
Rob Jolles(20:25):
Wow.
Ben Gay (20:25):
When I said he’s our son. Yeah.
Rob Jolles(20:27):
You ready for this? Again, we’ve never talked about this. Met a man. I’m going to name one of my friends, Ron James. 25 year repeat offender reached out. It was actually reading my book on seminars. And Ron James and I connected, and Ron James wrote his book. And Ron James ended every letter for years that we wrote while he was still incarcerated. See you in the pit. See you in the pit. Ben knows what I’m talking about when I say the pit. That’s what we trainers call that little U-shape area that we’ll wander in and keep that class with us and alive. And would you believe I know in 2019, 140 presentations a foundation that bax him a movie on his life that’s out there. Beautiful story. So I guess once again, Ben and I had this a beautiful journey we’re on right now. We had no idea we were going to go here little bit, but let’s remind everyone, reach out your hand. Extend your hand. You never know. My dad once told me you give with your time, not your checkbook. So it’s not that foundations and places don’t need your money. They do. But when you can give ’em your time, and that’s what Ben’s story is about, is give. And it doesn’t always work out quite the way it works out. But we’re going to try anyway. <laugh>,
Ben Gay (21:42):
Right? Yeah. All right. And as long as you’re working with the groups, I don’t care. I give the presentation to the group. And if somebody l Lamont gets hooked, yeah, then great. If others don’t, that’s not my problem. Just finish up with that one moment. Lamont said, I, how come we took such different paths to be successful? I said accident of zip code birth. Yeah. I was born to, I wasn’t born there, but raised two blocks outside of East Lake Country Club. He was in a gang in San Diego in the Barrios. His idols wore white fur coats and had Lincoln Continentals with a fake Rolls Royce grill on the front. My idols, their wife wore fur a coat, and Rolls Royce was a real one right
Rob Jolles (22:33):
At the club. Well, you’re speaking to systemic situations here.
Ben Gay (22:37):
Yeah. There’s a certain amount of luck, but once you know where you landed, get to work. Yeah.
Rob Jolles (22:44):
Yeah. But we have a responsibility to reach our hand out and help those that don’t come from our zip code. And I, it’s an honor hearing your story. Truly. All right. Terry
Ben Gay (22:57):
Commo, the old singer told me one time, yeah, we were talking about something at a seminar, and he said, Ben, when you get to the top, yeah, it’s your duty to send the elevator back down.
Rob Jolles (23:11):
Wow. Wow. That’s very cool. I like that. I’m going to write that one down. Well, well said. All right, boy, it’s funny. I know you and I could do 20 more minutes on this and we might get back on and just stay here. But I want to get the rest of, I want to keep going. I also want to remind people, jump on Amazon. You’re going to see all those books there. Look for that closer series. I know that’s a big hot button, but all you need to do is jump on Amazon. You’re going to learn plenty about our guests today. But you went into the training side of it, now you’re out of sales. What the acorn hit you on the head? What got you into the training side of this sales world?
Ben Gay (23:58):
Well, first of all, I’m not out of selling. I sell all day long. Yeah. I’m our number one salesman here.
Rob Jolles (24:05):
Right, right. No, you and me both. I’m coming on my 30th year. These gigs don’t fall out of the trees.
Ben Gay (24:10):
Exactly. Yeah. Somebody calls up and you have to talk ’em and is sending you $12,500 plus airfare in a hotel and you’re going to talk. Yeah. For an hour. Somebody wants a little cha. Yeah. Yeah. No, somebody wants to try that on for a little challenge, have at it. But I do more of the, I can close more of those than I’m willing to do. So anyway, I still sell. But to answer your question about how I got into sales training, it’s typical for many of us in selling one Saturday morning at the sales meeting, my sponsor in Holiday Magic Cosmetics than the largest M MLM direct sales company in the world. Were quickly becoming it. I’m not sure it was the day I joined, but I guess ran out of things to say, or Jimmy Rucker and I, my partner, were starting to move up and we were number one in Atlanta. And Bill said, Ben, won’t you get up and tell ’em what you’ve been doing? No warning, no nothing. But there’s the distributors of the company sitting in a training room in Atlanta. So I got up to the front. I wasn’t good. I, I’m sure I don’t want to see a video of it as good as they are for training, I really wouldn’t want to see the first one. But I did well enough where people applauded, and a little girl who was there with their father came up to me and said, would you give me your autograph? And I thought, whoa, I didn’t have anything to sign. I didn’t have a brick. So I said, you’re, you got a piece of paper? I will. And she went and got a piece of paper and I signed it. That was my first autograph. And
Rob Jolles (25:45):
You got a taste of it
Ben Gay (25:47):
And some applause and so on. So I just said, well, I’ll, I’ll get good at this. And then we had a distributor who joined the same day I did in the same meeting Wednesday, September 15th, 1965. He had a funny name, Zig Ziegler. So we were competing. Wow. And I won <laugh>. Oh, really? He won a Rolls Roy. Yeah. He won a Rolls Royce, which was second prize. I won the mystery prize. And that which was presidency of the company. This is about 18 months, two years after we joined. But I won the presidency of the company. And Zig would call sometimes, how’s it going, Ben? I said, well, Zig, I’m going to make you a deal. You bring me the keys to the rolls, and I’ll give you the keys to the front door. Being president of a growing company wasn’t all that was cracked up to me. And he said, oh no, you won Fairen Square. He wanted nothing to do with the presidency. And we didn’t know that was the prize. It was the mystery prize. Right. So I asked the owner of the company, bill Patrick. Yeah. Why’d you make it a mystery prize? He said, in case somebody won that I didn’t, like, he said, fortunately, I liked to, by the way. Yeah. Talking about coming in, number one. That was a year long contest coming in, number one. There again, Zig and I didn’t know where we were. I’m, I’m not a competitive person. I’m number one because I come early, stay late, learn the scripts, only sell quality products. They’re competitively priced and so on. I sort of load the deck, stacked the deck. Ben Gay (27:29):
So anyway, Zig, who was much more competitive technically than I was, thought he’d won. So the last night of the contest, he had a victory party in Columbia, South Carolina. I knew we were doing well. I was making more money in a month than anybody I knew was making in a year. So I had a meeting, an opportunity meeting scheduled. I did the meeting. I had later found out when I was president of the company in the home office with access to the books, almost to a dollar. The amount I beat Zig with over a year’s time was the amount I sold that last night while he was having his victory party.
Rob Jolles (28:15):
Wow.
Ben Gay (28:16):
Come early, stay late.
Rob Jolles (28:18):
I was a runner. You take it across the finish line. You don’t pull up short of the finish line. You go through the ribbon. You went through the ribbon that day, jump back on your and oh, by the way, I love to pat these stories around. I never went head-to-head with Zig, but I did a program years ago, 30, 40 years ago, something, all I can tell you is the year before me, they had Ronald Reagan is the speaker. The year before that, it was Ted Koppel and my knees were shaken. But I got a card for the next 10 years saying it was the highest rated seminar. Now that doesn’t matter, or keynote. Only reason I’m bringing it up is I put it in a few books that, well, technically, I out communicated the great communicator you Yeah. Out. You beat The Greatest Sale, one of the greatest sales guys that ever walked the planet. But that’s as close as I can get. I outpointed Reagan. There might have been some Democrats in the audience who knows <laugh>. But again, I wasn’t
Ben Gay (29:13):
Pulling was the Democrat. Reagan was a Democrat first. Yeah. Then yeah. Yeah.
Rob Jolles (29:18):
Publican. That’s right.
Ben Gay (29:19):
That’s right. We ’em both going,
Rob Jolles (29:20):
And I’ll go back to something else because I love pulling lessons from what you’re saying and reminding people. Ben’s modest and you hear his story about just getting up and not really knowing what he was doing and doing it. But I’m sitting here a little older now and looking at it and going, oh, I’m completely predictable. Because what you forgot was what you lacked in skill and talent and knowledge. You made up for an energy, I guarantee you. Yeah. Was Bengay III was flying around that room attentive, locked in on that audience, giving them something that, quite frankly, when we get grizzled as speakers, we have to remind ourselves, don’t forget to bring that level of energy. It’s hard to duplicate it, but I would’ve loved to have been in that audience or fly on the wall because I’m quite sure that you made up for it with just sheer hustle.
And we call that the great equalizer. So I don’t think it’s as it’s lucky. All right. I want to get one more piece out of you on the sales side, because you know how this is a piece. I don’t talk about a whole lot, and I should, because if can’t get through a gatekeeper, the rest of my four hour program isn’t going to help us a whole lot. So we’ll get to trust. We’ll get the urgency, but gatekeeper, and that’s something that you kind of like talking about. So I’ve read a little bit about of you online, and I’m reading about the yellow door and the buddy buddy, the squirrel, talk to us about gatekeepers and somehow tie that into your answer. Good luck. And so it’s on you now.
Ben Gay (30:59):
Well, I believe that when you’re selling a product or service first you sell yourself. So I might talk to you for 30 minutes before you even know why I’m there. I’m selling Ben Gay, right? I want to get in a position when Ben Gay puts his seal of approval on it. It’s okay. Whatever it is. People buy a coin I term years ago, and I just added it because a friend said something really hit me. But people buy from people they know and trust new phrase, dot, dot, do and feel safe with whom they feel safe, right? No proposition being no light trust and with whom they feel safe. And people say, well, yeah, but you’ve been at these for years. And so I can establish all of that in five to 10 minutes with a brand new person. They will know and trust me, and then I endorse the product. So the product, when you’re calling on a company, trying or phoning or whatever, trying to get the base past the gatekeeper, the product is an appointment with a person you want to talk to. That’s a sale. And so you always have to know where you are in the sales process. You’re not selling your widget yet. When you’re talking to the receptionist or the gatekeeper outside the boss’s door or whatever. You’re talking to someone who’s going to let you in. That’s the sale. You may, my old executive assistant now retired, Martha Conley, her nickname was Marty. I don’t know if she’s still doing it. I haven’t talked to her in a few years. But Marty was doing seminars on how to get past the gatekeeper because she was the best gatekeeper on earth. She judged. She told me, everyone that ever came into your office, Ben, I felt would make me look good.
Ben Gay (33:00):
In other words, you would be glad I let them in. So they had to make sure if I let ’em in, and they were a bozo selling an overrated overpriced product, you would think less of me. So they really were selling a product to get past me and did gatekeeper seminars. You go allude to buddy the school. Let me run that by your group real quick. A friend of mine is a billionaire, B billionaire and he’s an investment banker among other things. And when I work with his group, if you’re not a millionaire, really a multimillionaire, you’re not sitting at that table. There’s usually 12 or 15 of us in the room. And they were talking about how to get past the gatekeeper and so on. And then in a casual conversation at a break, they said, we wish you I won’t name her. We wish you’d had an opportunity to try and get past.
Ben Gay (34:00):
And so she’s the toughest gatekeeper in the world. I said, really? Well, unfortunately, that’s already behind us because my friend brought me in. I didn’t have to get past her, was talking, I’m looking over their shoulders, and here comes a squirrel out of a tree across the little railing around in the courtyard, and the squirrel picks up a salting cracker and begins eating it, which means since he didn’t buy it at the store, somebody gave him the salting cracker, right? And I said, whose pep squirrel is that? And I said, oh, that’s buddy. It belongs to the gatekeeper. I said, really? That’s interesting. So when I got home that night, next day I went to our local feed store, walked in and said, by the way, is there such a thing as gourmet squirrel food? Not Peanuts Gourmet. I said, oh yeah, we got the best.
Ben Gay(34:51):
And I said, show it to me. And it looked like something I take home and eat. Looked like something you get in a bar. It was good looking, right? And so I said, well, give me whatever five pounds of that. I put it in the priority mail box and wrote a little note on it and addressed it to Buddy at the company name, but I knew she’d see it buddy, at the address company name, address, and so on, and sent it down to him. And the notes said something like, whenever you’re hungry, buddy, I hope so and so gives you some of this. And I waited. Of course I had tracking, so I knew when she got it. And I called back probably the next day and I said, hi, this is Ben Gay, how are you doing? She says, I’m fine. And before I put you through to the boss, let me tell you something.
Ben Gay (35:44):
Whenever you need something done at this company, you call me. It’s handled. Wow. And I remember coming out of his office one day having just finished something, and I hadn’t had time. It was short notice to bill ’em in advance. So I handed her the invoice and she looked at it with travel and all, I’m guessing 50, and they’re in Pasadena, 15, $16,000. Handed it to her. And I said, I should have mailed this in advance, but I didn’t. She looked at me and says, oh, easy peasy. Click, click, click, click. It’s in your PayPal account, attached to your email. And I thought, that’s interesting. I thought, oh, five pounds of squirrel food. Right, right. What did that, yeah,
Rob Jolles (36:32):
Yeah, buddy. The squirrel was looking in the window waving at you like, , thumbs
Ben Gay (36:36):
Up. Wait, me.
Rob Jolles (36:38):
Exactly.
Ben Gay (36:39):
<laugh>
Rob Jolles (36:40):
Hysterical. So just
Ben Gay (36:41):
Find what find you’re selling. Understand you’re selling when you’re getting past the gatekeeper.
Rob Jolles (36:47):
And when I was at Xerox, what they were teaching us was not quite as what you just said, but I remember we would fall in love with wms. You know what’s in it for me? But we would fall in love with a whiff M of I’ve got a product that’s going to be more productive. It’s going to do this. It’s going to sing dance and crawl in’s belly like a reptile. It was wonderful. But what we forgot was, well, wait a minute. What’s in it for the gatekeeper? Not what’s in it for the boss? Because as you said, we have to sell the gatekeeper. So sometime squirrel food was in it for this gatekeeper, but sometimes it’s, I remember selling for Xerox and saying, we we’re working with the products that will make getting out of here at five o’clock a reality. And that rather than tell ’em how much money I could save the company, it was how much easier I could make his or her life. And that was my best shot. But that was trying to do what you are describing, which is say, okay, I got to retool my wiffle here. Cause becoming more profitable isn’t necessarily on the mind of every gatekeeper,
Ben Gay (37:53):
Right? Yeah, absolutely. All right, I’ll give your phone number. You might remember (800) 824-7888. The reason you might remember it, from 1976 to 1986, that was the number you dialed to buy or get into the lead system of any Xerox product. When I invented the call center business, Xerox was my very first clients.
Rob Jolles(38:16):
Wow. Did you ever get to Leesburg where the training facility is?
Ben Gay (38:19):
No, no,
Rob Jolles (38:21):
No. That’s after I sold for ’em. That’s where I worked. And in Xerox fashion, it was, we slept 1100 people. It was the sec, second largest in the world 2,400 acres. That was quite the company. And I owe a lot of, at least my education to one of the greatest sales training companies in the world, Xerox. But they didn’t do anything on a small scale, unfortunately. They also didn’t know how to sell a mouse or <laugh> or pull down menu or a few other things, but great company and produced a lot of great consultants. All right. One last thing, and I’ll let you go. You and I share these moments on stage, not once or twice, but thousands of times. Give me the funniest moment for you, and I’ll bet I could speak to you five days in a row and this would change. But what’s hitting the radar screen right now? When you think, well, you want a funny story, I’ll give you one. Give me one I’ll, and I’ll swap you. I’ll give you one when you’re done.
Ben Gay (39:19):
Okay. It may sound like it’s not funny, but it was, and it taught me a whole lot. First time I addressed a big crowd, I’m saying big 5,000 and yeah, had much bigger ones. But I went from Atlanta 300 a night to maybe 500 occasionally till they said, go to New York and do this regional thing. And it was 5,000 people. I remember walking in the bar, the grand ballroom of the park, Sheridan Hotel, looking at 5,000 empty seats thinking, my God one, why am I here be, how are they going to fill this up? And then I met, I guess they had a little coffee suite or something, I don’t recall. But I met the vice President of Beauty and fashion of Holiday Magic Cosmetics. His name was Earn Westmore. And you may not remember him, but your mother does. The westmores of Hollywood were the deans of makeup.
Ben Gay (40:16):
There were five brothers and the father, and each of ’em was head of makeup at a major studio at one time or another, and briefly at every studio at the same time. That’s how dominant they were. If you look at the credits occasionally to see somebody, a lady who’s the makeup artist, and her middle name might be Wes Moore, but she’s still using it because she’s saying to the old guard, hello, I’m a Westmore. So anyway, he invited me to lunch for some, I ever went to the Carnegie Deli in New York that an experience. And we was just very nice and gracious to me. I called my mother when I got back to the room and I said, I had lunch with I Westmore. She said, no, you didn’t. I said, yes, I did. I had lunch. Now you talking about I Westmore in the Art Link letter show?
Ben Gay (41:08):
Yeah. No, you didn’t. See, because she worshiped I Westmore. And I said, he’s my friend now. He’s going to introduce me tonight at the meeting. Now he’s not. So anyway, I had asked during the lunch, he said, I think you’re going to go places in this company. It would be my honor, after I understand you’re coming on after me, it would be my honor to introduce you as I finish up. Would you mind? I said, mind. No, my mother won’t believe it, but I’m willing, <laugh>, give it a shot. While we were talking, he kept getting out a bottle and popping some pills in his mouth, and I wasn’t old enough or wise enough to know what it might be. Maybe drugs would’ve crossed my mind. It was nitroglycerin, tablets. Oh, he had a heart problem. And which led us into a conversation about earn. If he had to go, I know you’re not going, but if you had to go, where would you like to go?
Ben Gay(42:06):
He said, on stage, talking to a big crowd of women about beauty and fashion, he was really into it, right? I said, great. So I come down from the room, come in the side door. There are 5,000 people standing room only, not an empty seat in the house. And I’m thinking, okay, do I just go back up to the room and pretend like I couldn’t find the room or whatever because I was out my league. I had a script to give the opportunity meeting script, but that hadn’t set in yet, that I had a way out. Earn gets up, knocks from dead, does his thing. And then just as I’m thinking about, all right, I’m getting close. If I’m going to run, now is the time a pin light hits me. Now I’m lit up like a Christmas tree in front of 5,000 people. There’s no way out.
Ben Gay(42:58):
Earn wraps up his talk with “And now, ladies and gentlemen, I had lunch today with a young man, I believe is going to be a big deal in this company. So on. If you don’t know him, you soon will my good friend. And soon your good friend Benjamin Franklin Gay, the third.” And as the D on third came out, he dropped dead on stage. He’s been shot with an elephant gun. I don’t mean fainted, Let’s go save him. There’s a look to someone who’s dead right to learn. Had it. Yeah. Yeah. And the spotlight’s on me. Yeah. And the crowd is had just started to cheer in anticipation of, that’s the end of the introduction. So what do you do? Well, I went up on stage. Is there a doc? Got the microphone out of his dead hand. Is there a doctor in the house?
Ben Gay (43:53):
All the stuff you would do. And then soon the ambulance people came and knocked open the doors and came in the side door, and they worked on him for a minute. And then they looked up at me and said, sir, he’s dead. And they put him in the stokes litter and started wheeling him off stage. And I’m thinking, God, don’t fail me. Now, what do I say? And the only thing I said all night was unscripted was ladies and gentlemen, I had lunch with Earn westmore today, as he just told you. And I asked him, because I found out he had a heart condition. If he had to go, where would he like to go? He said for a large crowd of women, and I said, sorry guys, but a large crowd of women. There was about 2,500 of ’em in the room talking about beauty and fashion.
Ben Gay (44:43):
Earn got his last wish. Let’s give him one last standing ovation, Rob. They almost tore the ballroom apart, yelling and screaming, and I don’t know what they were banging on, but banging on things and out the door he went. And then that settled down spotlight came back to me and I’m thinking, okay, that was dramatic now. And it dawned to me the script. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben Gay. I’m a general distributor with Holiday Magic Cosmetics. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to tonight’s special meeting. It went on that talk word for word for 47 minutes. Wow. I introduced the film Rand starring. It’s funny, a, we can’t do it today, but remind me sometimes to tell you about when I introduced a very famous person, couldn’t remember his name, I can’t remember it now. He was the star of the new holiday magic movie, played Christ in King of Kings and starring so and so.
Ben Gay (45:45):
They ran the film at the end of the film and said, turn to the person who brought you here, asked how you can get started in holiday. Magic Lights came back up, distributors went into their scripts, right? Drawing circles on the legal pad. Our normal closing rate in a situation like that would’ve been 30 to 40% with adjusted for inflation, a 25 to $50,000 tab. That was pretty good. We were happy with that, right? That night, I figured half the room was prospects, half were distributors. 2,500 people that night. We closed 90%. Wow. So what I’ve always said is, if you want to do group closing, find a famous people, a person who’s willing to introduce you, drop dead on stage, because if you got a good script, you’re going to do well that night. But it’s been a problem. I haven’t gotten anybody else to do it, but earn.
Rob Jolles (46:41):
Yeah. Thank God. I have to tell you, I had a pretty good story locked and loaded. I’m going to leave it in the bag. I’ll give you, please and gentlemen, I’ll give it to you another time. I’m not like Ben Gay opening up with the gay jokes. I’m not touching that story. I’m not going anywhere near you. Thanks a lot. An amazing story. The show does go on. I am, my mouth is open. My jaw dropped on that story. I just, what I’m impressed was with was your ability to make that work. Because if you were too funny, if you were too anything, yeah, you were going to be in some big trouble up there. Yeah. But that’s incredible. I, I’ll throw one thing. It’s not a funny story, and then we’ll go. But I do live auctions for charities, and I know what the close ratio is and what the donation ratio is on that.
Rob Jolles (47:39):
But I did one for a particular disease of the eye that creates blindness. But what they did was right before the auction, they said, now at your table, everybody’s got Sha Nightshades, you’re going to put that on. We’re going to drop, drop the lights, serve you dinner, and you’re going to eat in darkness. And just to let them experience just a little bit of what they were there to try and help solve in a sense. And I want to tell you, I’ve done a lot of auctions. I never saw paddles go up so fast. And I’m not talking about the five or six items. I was auctioning. If you’ve ever been to a charity auction, we have sort of different names, but it’s a fund in need, raise a paddle. But something where we just go at four or five different levels and you just give and I got to tell you, we couldn’t catch all the paddles were up in that air just to allow, maybe there’s a message there of allowing somebody want them to empathize. They were truly walking in those shoes that night. Not funny, but I will tell you, it certainly helped with my clothes. Right? Yeah.
Ben Gay (48:49):
Anyway, effective. Yeah. There’s a restaurant somewhere where all the waiters are blind and they serve in the dark. I’ve never been to it. Wow. But my reaction, when I saw that story of Right, something on television about it, I thought, my God. Yeah. If you didn’t know what it was like to have a thing that would get you close to it, which is what you did, that’s magnificent.
Rob Jolles (49:10):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, and I owe that to the people who are putting together. I was sort of thinking, do you think that’s going to work? But oh, it worked. It worked. Listen it’s called Pocket Size Pep Talks, and you are on the verge of setting the record for the longest podcast I’ve had, but we’re just scratching the surface. I have enjoyed finally being able to sit down with you and talk to you, and listen to you and learn from you. You are a Treasure Ben Gay iii, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to speak to you today. Truly, thank you for being on this show.
Ben Gay (49:45):
Thank you, Rob. It’s an honor to be with you.
Rob Jolles (49:46):
You bet. Hey, listen, folks, remember you’re going to go to Amazon. You’re going to look for that note series of books. I don’t need to convince you anymore. If you listen, if you made it to here, you’re going to Amazon. Oh, and by the way, when you get that book, don’t forget to put a review on there. Ben won’t tell you, but I will means a lot to us authors. We’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Everyone. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (50:13):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcasts, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.