Is Mentorship Dead?

I have fond memories of my first year in an office. Green was too ambitious of a word to describe me at the time. I sat in a wide-open office straight out of the movie Glen Gary Glen Ross armed with a phone and a photocopied Dun and Bradstreet NYC business directory. I had just come out of a five-day VHS (back in those days) fueled training session with six other people confined to a tiny conference room on the 39th floor at 535 Fifth Avenue. The actor in the training video was dressed in a cheap suit and had a bad fake British accent. He also had a poorly concealed man-bun that sometimes came into view during the video. Today this would be a Tic Toc satire comedy video of a sales training, to me, it was the beginning of the entirely new and exciting world of corporate sales (and more importantly a means to get the hell out of my mom's studio apartment).

The "sales trainer" in the video demonstrated a proper sales call introduction (in 3-4 sentences tell the person why you are meeting with them), a sales probing where you asked questions, a benefit statement, and a sales close. I find it interesting that despite attempts to "modernize" the sales process over the years, these old school sales basics still remain just as relevant. A potential client needs to know A) who the heck you are and B) how you can help them solve a problem. In fact, I find myself on the other side of these (increasingly Zoom sales calls) and find myself wondering what the heck happened to the probing section? This guy just jumped right into the benefits and never asked me a question. Must have had crappy sales training and no mentorship!

But the part of this on the job training that was of most value was sitting next to the veterans in the salesroom (think Ricky Roma from Glengarry Glen Ross or Matthew McConaughey from Wolf of Wall Street). Now, most of these guys were not near as generous with their time as Mcconaughey was. The high achievers spent every waking minute either in front of a client, on the phone, or trying to get them on the phone looking for new clients. They weren't advertising the fact that they were the best to the newbies, you just sensed it. They wore the best suits, wore Rolex watches, came and went when they wanted, but above all, MAN were they good on the phones. To me, success (and survival) dictated that I mirrored what these guys did and tagged along when they would let me. I didn't really let them, volunteer, I'd kill them with kindness until they couldn't say no. Not something that you can really do if you've never met someone in person.

You needed to be near them to pick up on what made them so good. The subtle inflections in the tone of voice at the onset of the call (these were almost always cold calls). The slight chuckle at the end of the opening corny joke "I finally got the worlds busiest man on the phone, I better be quick about this, or I'll never get you again (chuckle)". Corny, but incredibly effective at getting the client to let their guard down enough for a quick pitch. The top salespeople typically used headphones (huge ugly wired ones at the time but still effective) to walk around because energy is contagious and leads to more appointments booked. The subtle way of letting a prospect feel like this is not a cold call "you probably know Susan the VP of graphics at Random House, she's a long time customer and I often hear your names mentioned in the top of your field". The way that a sense of urgency is developed at the same time using a laid back approach "I'm in town for a 15 minute for the head of Fixed Income trading so is it ok if I stopover for a quick hello afterward?" The timing, tone of voice, energy level, all of these things could not have been taught in a training video or even by an in-person trainer. I needed to be on the job, in proximity, and constantly listening to these sales masters doing their thing. There is no master class that you can pay for that comes close to the on the job training. I've read countless books and watched way too many sales videos and none could ever come close to that training you get being around the masters of the universe. I learned most of my sales skills from listening and asking questions (yes some were more charitable than others in answering) during those early years and the more that things change, the more I realize that the basics remain the same. We now just have better tools.

My point here is that with rare exception if you want to be the best at what you do you need to mirror the habits and ask questions of the highest achievers. My personal experience was sales but this applies to any occupation. Nobody taught me to do this, and no one was necessarily volunteering it. I was driven to succeed and realized that the best way to do it was to be like the best. You don't become a baller by playing scrubs or watching ESPN highlight videos. You need to be in the trenches mixing it up, bold enough to ask questions, and smart enough to know whom to get close to. Can't be done virtually and obviously requires those high achievers and their management to be in the office. Don't we have an obligation to mentor others just as our predecessors did? Knowingly or not? I certainly feel an obligation and although the tools are there to help facilitate a more flexible training environment, nothing will ever replace those early days of in person on job tricks of the trade I picked up from the masters of the universe.