How did the Elephant Man marry a supermodel?

An Important Lesson in Business

This is not an actual photo of Mike, the Elephant Man and his wife.

This week, I am giving a presentation at the Premier Conference in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The title of my presentation is bound to turn a few heads, but even more so, will help all attendees achieve their goals for 2013 be it business or personal. Read on and get inspired to turn rejection around in 2013!

“How did the Elephant Man marry a super model?” is about accomplishing big goals that you may think are impossible. There is one simple formula for doing anything impossible, which I learned this from my friend Mike or “The Elephant Man”, the greatest salesperson in one of the first companies I worked for.

When I was a kid, my first big job was trading commodities such as sugar and crude oil. I worked at the World Trade Center and because I was a young broker, I always looked to mimic the best broker I could find. This is the same thing that I recommend in all my sales classes. Find who is the best at what you do, find out what they’re doing and then you do it. Anyways, I noticed this guy Mike who was about 20 years older than me. I started hanging around him and eventually, had the good fortune of becoming friends with him.

One thing about Mike was that physically, he was not very attractive. I don’t judge people by their looks at all, but behind his back, other brokers would refer to him as “the Elephant Man”. The best way I can describe him is that he had a poor complexion and a body like the Michelin Man. I became friends with him and one day after work, he asked if I wanted to go out. It was ladies night at this place called Buttle’s Nightclub.

That night, Mike approached the hottest women in the club and proceeded to get cruel rejections from all of them. This continued in every establishment we visited that year. He would always ask me, “Who is the hottest girl here?” and then he would go over there and try to get a date with these women. I would always see the girls wincing when he came up to them. I’ll bet he approached hundreds of women that year.

One day, we were at a supermarket and he asked me, “Who is the hottest girl here?” There was this cute little brunette across the aisle. He walked over to her and from my vantage point, I could see that she liked him. They started talking and she said, “Yes, I’ll go out with you.” I thought it was amazing. She said “yes” to a first date, “yes” to a second date, “yes” to marrying him and today, he is married to one of the most beautiful women both inside and out.

The thing I learned about Mike’s process is that he didn’t feel the rejection at all. He just felt that the right one would be at the right time, the right place and that it would take a bunch of these conversations to get it. Now, take his scenario, crystalize it and then create a game plan to help you accomplish your own goals. If you have a big goal, you need to go out and get it. Understand that every rejection is bringing you one step closer to the answer you’re looking for.

The reason why I am presenting this at the Premier Conference is because I think everyone can relate to it. In business today, getting a customer has become much harder and keeping an account has become harder. Business owners and sales people need to realize, getting rejected a hand full of times doesn’t mean the year will be a disaster, it just means you need to make more calls. For every “no” you get, you are closer to a “yes.”

How many people do you know who have settled? They sold themselves short, have had bad luck and accepted that they would never reach their goal? The only reason it’s not going to happen for them is because they gave up. I truly believe, if the Elephant Man married a supermodel, then you can accomplish what you set out to accomplish and I can too!