Grunt to Groan: Sales Lessons Learned from Professional Wrestling

Thank you Mrs. Jean Horsefield for remembering the ten words your grandson spoke as a child I’m going to be a wrestler when I grow up.  A grandmother’s love is special and the bond between grandmother and grandson is unbreakable.

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Thank you to my grandson Skull Krusher for reintroducing me to my first love – professional wrestling.  I believe in my heart that when you grow up you are going to be a professional wrestler.

Skull Krush...er

Skull Krush...er

Skull Krush...er

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And finally, as a sales professional you are the GREAT AMERICAN THUNDER on which this nation rolls because nothing happens until something is SOLD!

Now get out there and sell something!

FOREWARD BY AP3 DREW HORSEFIELD

There are only a few moments in life that truly define you.  These moments, sometimes insignificant to others, shape you in ways that you might not understand at the time.  When I think about the moments that shaped my life there are several that come to mind.  Precious time with my family, the day I married my wife and the birth of both of our children.  However, I’d like to share one specific defining moment with you that had a unique impact on my life.

The story begins at the age of three.  I spent most Saturdays with my mother and grandmother in front of the television.  Every week one program captured our attention.  As we watched, men with big muscles and bigger personalities challenged each other to contests of strength and strategy.  Each week the war between good and evil was waged on our TV.  Men who were driven by pride, greed, vanity, envy or wrath attacked the heroes we grew to love.  With each word, punch or kick they would draw you deeper into their world until you were fully immersed.  Yes, we entered the wonderful world of professional wrestling.

One of my grandmother’s favorite stories revolved around one of these Saturday mornings.  Although the actual wrestling matches from that morning remains fuzzy, be it Ted DiBiase vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan or the Road Warriors taking on anyone foolish enough to get in the ring with them, my grandmother only remembered ten words.  I’m going to be a wrestler when I grow up.

Fast forward to 2006, as I sit nervously in the National Guard Armory outside of Anderson, South Carolina.  I’d spent the last year training at the NWA Anarchy wrestling school in Cornelia, GA (home of AJ Styles, Xavier Woods, Dash Wilder and Gunner).  At this point my trainer Slim J felt confident enough in my ability to send me out to work a show with one of his promoters.  In the wrestling business, just like any business, you don’t just put your name on something.  Slim made it very clear that my performance was a direct reflection on him.  It was my responsibility to represent his brand at the highest level.

Sitting in the ring before the show some of the veterans, Mikal Judas and Jeff Lewis Neal, start throwing ideas around for my name.  My favorite baseball player was Terry Pendleton so I suggested Pendleton as my last name.  They said to use my full first name Andrew as well.  Something was missing, but no one could really put their finger on it.  That is until Mikal suggested we add the third to the end of it.  It sounded fancy enough to get the rural crowd hot against some rich kid from the big city.  That day Andrew Pendleton III, also known as AP3 was born.

At the National Guard Armory outside of Anderson, South Carolina in front of a capacity crowd of thirty-seven paying fans AP3 made his professional wrestling debut.  This moment, although insignificant to most of the fans in attendance and the rest of the wrestling world, was yet again another of those defining moments.  You see, this was my childhood.  I could hardly sleep, eat or do anything else.  It was all consuming and definitely unlike anything I’d experienced before.  I’d grown up and now I was a professional wrestler!

Wrestling began to shape my career as I changed jobs to have more freedom to travel with wrestling.  Like most sports or entertainment professions the money is made at the top.  That left 99% of us keeping a day job or sometimes jobs to survive.  As you begin to navigate the world of professional wrestling you begin to understand the business side of it.  

The promoter looks for dependable talent that can sell tickets.  Are you on time, prepared, in shape with gear and ready to work?  Do you bring something to the table that makes fans want to buy tickets?  Equally as important as a professional wrestler you hold the life of your opponent in your hands.  One wrong move ends a career or even a life!  Working together while working against each other is a common theme in wrestling.  At the end of the day, the wrestling business is just that - a business.  These simple things also transfer into business in general.  Being honest, trustworthy, prepared, equipped.  How you add value.  Your client’s business and your reputation is in your hands and both can be irreparably harmed with a wrong move.  These lessons carried over into my business career.

As I progressed my career to multiple NWA tag-team championships I had yet another defining moment.  I was brought up by the WWE to work a [Monday Night] Raw and Smackdown show as extra talent.  This is a common practice for WWE, but to an independent wrestler like me it’s like getting called up from Triple-A to the Major League.  As great as this opportunity was, it was not my defining moment.  My moment was the phone call I made to my grandparents when I got the news.  I told my grandmother that I had an opportunity to wrestle in the WWE and this was my shot at the big time as a pro wrestler.  Yes, the same wrestling company we watched together every Saturday when I was a kid.  My grandmother said she knew this day would come since I was three years-old and then proceeded to tell me the same story I’d heard a hundred times and you’ve now heard twice.  This moment was defining because it was the last time I spoke with my grandmother.  She passed away suddenly and unexpectedly less than two weeks later.  Although my big break did not turn into a dream job I received my WWE paycheck which was more than most wrestlers ever get the chance to experience and shared something extremely special with my grandmother that I’ll cherish forever.

A back injury, one wife and two children later my professional wrestling career simply turned into a professional career.  As a leader of multi-unit leaders in a dynamic retail sales organization I’ve taken much of what I learned in wrestling and applied it to my business.  In my current role, I often speak to large groups including various executive leaders.  Colleagues and clients often ask how I can be so calm in front of such intimidating audiences.  I tell them that once you’ve fought another man in your underwear in front of a live crowd on TV you feel at ease in the toughest rooms.

When I first read Benjamin’s book, it felt like he had written it for me personally.  However, after reflecting on my personal experience, I realize how transcendent professional wrestling is.  It’s amazing that when someone finds out about my former life they love to tell me about their connection to professional wrestling.  Wrestling tends to consume the conversation from that point on.  Fans of all ages, genders, nationalities and walks of life connect to professional wrestling.  Ben’s passion and attention to detail for both subjects is evident in every page, in every story and within each lesson.

Being both an experienced professional wrestler and a sales professional I enjoyed the book but also found it useful in my daily business.  Using his extensive sales experience and professional expertise Ben makes a compelling case for personal selling.  Utilizing the strategies outlined in the book as I have, will improve you and your team.

In a world where business culture dictates that anyone can succeed by reciting a sales script and following a meticulously defined process Grunt to Groan contends that it takes much more to create a successful sales professional.  As you’ll find out it takes your natural born talent, God gifted personality, learned skills and those darn professional wrestling tights.

Introduction

"Pro wrestlers share such an insatiable passion for what we do that most of us look past meaningless things like race, sexual orientation/preference, nationality, etc. We just see each other as brothers and sisters.

What is the rest of the world missing? What is that one thing that the world can become so passionate about, it makes us see past our differences, and realize we are all related?" – Roc Richards, Independent Professional Wrestler [1]

Thank you for making the choice to buy and read my book Grunt to Groan: Sales Lessons Learned from Professional Wrestling!

Rarely, if ever, have I picked up a book where the author thanks me for my time, support, attention and consideration before ever reading a single chapter.  Sure, in the back of the book, after the deed has been done and the pages have been read I see thanks and gratitude, but never right from the get go.  Isn't that a microcosm of the game that we as sales professionals are involved in.  We love our clients, most-of-the-time, but we really love them and really thank them when they give us the order – and the bigger the order, the bigger the thanks! Oddly enough we rarely thank them before securing the sale. I am guilty of this!

With this writing I want to try and reverse this trend.  I want to inspire you to love and thank your clients whether or not you get the order.  My hope is that we as sales professionals can bring a passion, joy, fun, honesty, success and humbleness to our profession. So for me, it starts right here, right now, with you.  Thank you for picking my book up and Thank you for reading this first paragraph and if by chance you make it to the back cover Thank you again!

Since you have made it past the first four paragraphs I am now going to request a simple task of you.  I am requesting that as you read this writing that you keep a yellow highlighter within arms-reach.  I wish I could say that having the highlighter is to help you mark the wisdom that inspires you, but I am not sure that would be factual! As my wife reminds me daily, I have a tendency to ramble and that I am often boring!  So with your highlighter please highlight my ramblings that bore you!  That way if you happen to re-read this book you can skip the boring highlighted parts or if you try to get rid of my book by passing it on to a friend you can warn them that the highlighted areas are the dull and uninteresting parts.  Understanding that you were not prepared for this request I will stop writing now in order to give you time to find a highlighter and Thank you for reading paragraph five.

Sales professionals and professional wrestlers are a lot alike. When you see your favorite professional wrestler in the ring performing dropkicks, suplexes and choke holds you see a polished athlete who makes these moves look so fluid, simple and slick, but in reality professional wrestlers spend hours practicing and honing their skills so every move looks natural and believable. Sales professionals must do the same – they must practice and hone their craft. – Gunner Haskins aka the Wrestling Sales Professional [2]

Hopefully you have not highlighted any of the first five paragraphs so let’s move forward.  My experience and belief is that God has purposed you and your clients for a great and specific journey on this earth.  There is no coincidence that you were paired together in life and in business with your clients.  There are over seven billion people on this planet and somehow, someway you and your clients discovered each other.  In the United States alone there are over 320 million people and the chances of you randomly meeting a new client, associate or friend is 1 in 28,000. Understand, I do not know who or how this number was calculated, but the point is that the odds are not in your favor of establishing a new business client.  With-that-said, I would argue that the establishment of a new business relationship is ordained and not by chance.  This means that you must be diligent in your passion and perfection of your profession.  Professional sales is not a hobby and should not be treated as such.  Just like a professional athlete you must plan, practice and prepare spiritually, mentally and physically to fulfill your life’s purpose.

With this understanding I propose in this writing that Personal Selling is the ultimate key to professional sales success – just like in professional wrestling.  In professional wrestling to survive it is vital that your professional wrestling character connect with professional wrestling fans on a personal level.  Every professional wrestler I interviewed for this project was adamant that successful professional wrestling characters are an extension of the real man or woman portraying the professional wrestling character. This means that success in professional wrestling is highly personal.  I contend it is the same in professional sales and that is why I have developed and practice what I call Personal Selling.

In a sales world where many sales organizations are promoting the sales process instead of the sales professional I contend Personal Selling is the ultimate key to sales success.  For example, I worked with a sales organization that adopted the sales process mentality and developed a highly defined sales process.  The thought and goal was to create a sales process that would allow the sales organization to insert any warm body into the process and be successful.  In-short, the sales organization believed that their sales process was more important to their client-partners than the personality and professional experiences of seasoned sales pros. As an executive vice president representing this sales organization told me We can insert anyone into the sales process and still be successful!  Unfortunately this did not prove to be true as the sales organization failed to meet their sales projections three years in a row.

Personal Selling is about how important you are as a sales professional to your client-partners and to the success of the company, products and services you represent.  I contend that Personal Selling is by far more important than the sales process and crucial to sales growth and success.  You as the sales professional are the unique and defining factor that separates the products and services you represent from the competition and a wild-card factor that no sales process can replace!  But, more on that as we progress through the pages of Grunt to Groan.

Remember God made you unique to any other human on the planet and it is your uniqueness, commitment, drive, experiences, successes and failures that make you the X-factor in your profession, in your life and in this world. – Gunner Haskins aka the Wrestling Sales Professional [3]

This writing is going to hopefully take you on sales journey that is enlightening, inspiring and educating. I have separated what I call Personal Selling into key components that include; Your Character, The Power of Positive Speaking, Understating your Role, Selecting Client-Partners and not Customers, Eliminating the Competition, Creating the Experience, Closing the Sale and the Branding of You.  I am hoping you are reading and not highlighting.

The basic foundation for Personal Selling is built on four pillars – Natural Born Talent, God-Gifted Personality, Learned Skill and those damn Professional Wrestling Tights!

Natural Born Talent for Sales

As we embark on this journey let me convey that I am honored and humbled that you have included me in the fulfillment of your life’s purpose – honored and humbled that you included me on this journey known as professional sales.  I suggest that just as you have been born to be a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a father or mother, an aunt or uncle, a grandfather or grandmother you have been born for sales!  You did not fall into your professional sales career by mistake and it is not a stop-gap measure as you search for another profession.  I contend that your natural born talent led you to right here and right now.

Think about it, since the day you were born you have been selling yourself to this crazy world!  As an infant if you were hungry you cried – this is nature’s way of selling to your parents on the fact that you are hungry!  As a child when you wanted a new toy you embraced your natural selling talent convincing your parents that you need that new toy even if that meant jumping through the hoop of sitting on Santa Claus’ lap or having your picture taken with the Easter Bunny.  As a teenager you talked your parents out of issuing you a curfew because surely they didn’t want you speeding home at five till midnight risking life and limb to meet curfew! You see you have been selling your whole entire life.

A great example of this is my seven year-old grandson the Skull Krusher - his pro-wrestling name.  Skull Krusher wanted a new PlayStation gaming system for Christmas, but of course his parents told him no!  Mom and Dad insisted that he was not old enough for such a mature gaming system. Now understand Skull Krusher comes from a family of sales professionals, his father aka Maddogfred the Ugly Monkey Boy is successful in sales as is his grandfather aka The Great American Thunder, so this Christmas request was the Skull Krusher’s test for a close. His parents stood firm and told Krusher he was too young for the new, advanced gaming system and that he would have to wait until he was more responsible!

Understanding that every no puts you closer to a yes and with his eighth birthday coming up in August Skull Krusher started talking about getting a new PlayStation for his birthday only this time he approached his parents with the responsible idea that he wanted to earn the gaming system and not just be given a gaming system!  In his slick little sales approach the Skull Krusher told his parents that he would pay for the new gaming system with the money he would earn.  Falling for this close hook, line and sinker my son and daughter-in-law thought this was the greatest, most responsible thing in the world – a seven-year wanting to earn his birthday gift.

Now Skull Krusher is going on eight years-old so how would he earn the $290 needed for this new gaming system? Well, for starters he talked his parents into paying him to do chores he formerly did for free!  Yep you read that correctly. Up until Krusher announced he wanted to earn his new gaming station he did household chores for free! Take out the trash – free! Feed the dogs – free! Pick-up after his little brother – free! But now Skull Krusher was taking on the responsibility of making his own purchases so he convinced his parents that now was the time he started getting paid for completing his household chores!

He also convinced his grandmother aka Grandmala-Kamla to pay him for things like brushing his teeth and cleaning his room.  He even convinced his wily old grandfather to pay him for help with the cleaning of the swimming pool and of the pool decks!  I must admit, I just gave him money because of his natural born salesmanship and quick wit at such a young age!  Needless-to-say, at seven years-old Skull Krusher embraced his moment as a sales professional and he made the most of it!  He needed $290 for the PlayStation –on his eighth birthday he had $390 so he treated the family to dinner.

You see the Skull Krusher embraced his natural born talent to close the sale – as a sales professional are you embracing your natural born talent?

As a side note, eight year-old Skull Krusher has asked for an iPhone 6 for Christmas and of course he was told no too young!  Knowing that every no gets you closer to a yes Krusher has started his sales descent to have an iPhone 6 by his ninth birthday!

God-Given Personality for Sales

If God blessed you with natural born talent for sales and I think you can see He has, I also contend you have been gifted by God with an individual, distinct and unique personality – an exceptional personality that is your very own.  This God-gifted personality makes you uniquely qualified to be a talker, a listener, a leader, a follower, a lover and a disciplinarian.  Your God-gifted personality has designed and allows you to do great things for your family, for your church, for your town, for your county, for your state and for this great country we are honored to live in. As a sales professional your God-gifted personality affords you to serve your clients with passion, with love, with wisdom, with honor, with success and with humbleness.

Back to the Skull Krusher, his natural born talent afforded him the ability to close the sale with his parents on the argument of responsibility by earning his prize instead of being gifted his prize, but it was his God-gifted personality that allowed him to sell this idea.  Now understand, the Krusher is the middle child in his family.  His older brother is twelve years older (nineteen years old) and his younger brother is five years younger (two years old).  As the middle child of such a big age gap the Skull Krusher is challenged to act more mature like his older brother at times, but he still wants to cuddle and play like his younger brother – at times.  So, with his God-gifted personality he positioned his sale of responsibility and earning as that of a middle child maturing, but with a boyish grin and charming eyes! He also used his God-gifted talent to persuade his Aunts and Uncles to give him cash for his birthday and not a gift.

The Skull Krusher embraced his God-gifted talent to close his sale – as a sales professional are you embracing your God-gifted talent?

Learned Skill

As important as your natural born talent and God-gifted personality are there is a third pillar to success for a sales professional and that is learned skill.  You see, the skill we learn as sales professionals and how we use that learned skill will define our success.  A baby sells its parents on the fact that it is hungry by crying or needs a diaper change (Natural Born), the parents learn by the tone or volume of the babies cry whether it is wet or hungry (God-gifted personality) and the baby learns to cry for what it wants through communication with its mouth (Learned Skill).

At this moment I challenge you to use your learned skills to move forward in your professional sales career.  Use the lessons that you have learned in life, love, profession and hobby to help enhance your position with your clients.  Use these learned skills to help your clients move forward in their personal and professional goals both individually and corporately.  Again, I contend that your learned skills were not and are not haphazard.  You learned these skills for a very unique and specific reason – I argue that reason is to build and establish relationships with your clients.  Use your learned skills to coach, mentor, teach and sell!  And, do not rest on what you have already learned – continue to grow and learn in your skills.  For example, I play music, but I am not a life-long musician.  I did not learn how to play music until I was forty years old. I desire to learn something new every day – how about you?

The Skull Krusher learned that his nineteen year-old brother often failed to display the maturity and responsibility befitting of his age.  At times the nineteen year old did things that did not display responsible thinking – like running stop signs (and getting caught), speeding (and getting caught) and texting and driving (and getting caught)!  Learning responsibility as a learned skill allowed the Krusher to use this as a closer for his new PlayStation gaming system proving that lessons can come from every life and professional event.  Learned skill is a continuous process and should be embraced as such.

The Skull Krusher embraced his learned skill to close his sale – as a sales professional are you embracing your learned skills?

I contend that these three elements combined - your natural born talent, your God-gifted personality and your learned skill - are designed and purposed to allow you to be the sales leader in your industry with knowledge, talent and truth.  These three elements are the very foundation of Personal Selling.  Again, I am honored and humbled that you have included me in the fulfillment of your life’s purpose – that you included me on your journey as a sales professional.

That was my heart that was my passion. All I ever wanted to do was wrestle. I never wanted to pitch in games seven of the World Series, I never wanted to throw a touchdown in the Super Bowl, I wanted to wrestle...be a professional wrestler. – Tommy Dreamer (former ECW World Heavyweight Champion, ECW World Tag-Team Champion, WWE Hardcore Champion and considered the heart and soul of hardcore wrestling) [4]

I understand that this is somewhat of a strange way to introduce a motivational sales self-help book, but this is not your typical motivational sales self-help book.  This book is a combination of a boy’s passion and a man's profession mixed with the bumps and bruises of both boyhood and manhood.  This writing is my Frankenstein - an experiment of what happens when a man's life-calling collides with a boy's innocent love.  The Bible reads "When I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.  But when I grew up I put away childish things" I Corinthians 13:11 (NLT).  I believe in my heart this scripture is very true and real with words inspired by a loving God who desires that you mature as you grow, but this does not give you free license to forget the teachings of your upbringing.  I believe that God wants us to grow in life's process with mature and rational thinking.  He wants us to use the lessons of our youth to be better men and women and to better the world around us.  In-short, He wants us to never forget the scraps and scratches that molded us into the men and women we are today.  God’s desire is for us to embrace our youthful teachings and employ them in our everyday life. Then he said, 'I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven Matthew 18:13 (NLT).  This writing is about never forgetting the lessons of your youth and the teachers who taught you those valuable life lessons.

Life lessons from our youth can come from many different teachers and many different experiences.  Naturally, your family is instrumental and influential in your upbringing as the first and consistent teachers you will encounter and so are your educators, community leaders, church family, coaches, mentors and for me public servants - policemen, firemen and JANITORS.  I want you to think about that last influence - JANITORS. Growing up one of my greatest life lessons came from the janitor that cleaned my middle school.  I watched this middle-aged gentlemen, day-after-day, struggle to clean a building that we as middle schoolers spent day-after-day carelessly and recklessly trashing.  I watched as he meticulously worked room after room sweeping, mopping and cleaning so that when we came back to school the next day the building was fresh and new. I watched as some of my classmates were challenged to defeat the janitor like they were in a war and they used tactics as vial as urinating all over the restroom stall or walls just to see if they could break the janitor, but every new day brought a new and fresh building.

I grew to respect our janitor for his diligence, work ethic and humble approach to successfully cleaning our school day-after-day. Looking back, I am grateful for the fact that he was so diligent in his refusal to be defeated and when my older sister married his son I got to know and understand what motivated our janitor.  I decided to model my life after him.  Mr. Claude Cain was my middle school janitor and his life passion was not in cleaning our school – his life passion was his love for the students of the school and he showed his love in a most humbling way.  You see, Mr. Cain’s purpose on earth was not to clean my middle school, his life’s purpose was to love young people.  Mr. Cain found a way to partner his life’s passion with his professional career - even if that meant cleaning urine off a bathroom wall. As I have matured I fully appreciate every hour Mr. Cain spent cleaning our school not because the building was always new and fresh, but because he loved me enough to make the building new and fresh. I am calling you to partner your life passion with your professional career.

"I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one in your life's blueprint, should