Driving back home after a day-long business trip to Los Angeles earlier in the week put me right in the middle of rush hour traffic on the 101 and 405 freeways. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of driving this stretch of freeway before, let me offer you this bit of advice: Avoid it at all costs. Unless, of course, you enjoy going 7 miles per hour in bumper to bumper traffic.
Not surprisingly, after traveling 10 miles in a little less than an hour, I was worn out. And I wasn't alone. Looking around at the cars inching along the freeway with me, I saw that every adult heading home had that worn down look. Misery loves company, evidently, because it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one stuck in traffic.
Then something interesting happened. The traffic headed into a tunnel. All of a sudden, a chorus of honking horns rang out. Little car horns. Big car horns. Truck horns.
It was crazy. We inched through the tunnel and almost every driver was sounding their horn. I even rolled down my window to hear it all a little better. When we emerged at the other end, the horns stopped.
OK, here's my point in telling you this story. Actually, my point should start with a question that hit me as I emerged from the tunnel:
"What made everyone honk?"
Afterall, there were no signs at the entrance of the tunnel that said "Starting Honking Now Everyone". And these weren't a bunch of rowdy teenagers driving. These were weary commuters heading home after a long day of work. Middle aged guys and gals like me.
So what made us all honk?
We honked because...
- We knew it would be fun.
- We knew it was something that we weren't really supposed to be doing, but we also knew that there were no consequences for doing it. That gave us all permission to go ahead and throw caution to the wind.
- It was a group effort. Nobody wants to be the only one honking.
Believe it or not, this has great applications to your sales career or business operation. The secret to success in sales and business is to get people to "honk in the tunnel". Here are the laws of tunnel honking that you have to put into play for it to work for you:
- Make your product or service fun. If it's not a traditionally "fun" thing (life insurance, mortgage banking, etc.) find a way to make it fun. How? I have no idea. Only you can answer that. But if you don't make it fun or attractive, you're not going to get anyone to honk.
- Make it easy. Give them permission to have fun.
- Make it something that appeals to the masses. Nobody wants to honk alone.
Get them to "honk in the tunnel" and you're going to have great success.
» More Lessons From Honking In the Tunnel from LandingTheDeal
My original post on "Honking In the Tunnel", and the sales lessons learned from it, got a lot of attention at the end of last week, thanks in large part to the story getting picked up on a Los Angeles... [Read More]
Tracked on: March 28, 2007 11:07 AM | Permalink to Trackback