So what do movie quotes have to do with Social Selling?
If you scroll down to the additional info: interests section on my LinkedIn Profile, you will see Movie Quotes listed. Much to the chagrin of some family members, I have an almost eidetic memory for movie quotes and an irritating fondness for latching onto them and beating them to death. I love them. I have some real faves from a wide variety of film genres providing hours of amusement.
My brother and I once managed a whole summer of mileage out of Jeremy Irons' perfectly delivered Claus von Bulow line from Reversal of Fortune to Ron Silver's (as Alan Dershowitz) question of whether he was a "crazy guy." "You have NO IDEA!" said Mr. Irons with a evil subtlety that was unparalleled. It became the answer to any and every question that summer. You have to see Iron's art. He is that jaw-droppingly good.
Still waiting? What does this have to do with sales and building meaningful relationships with customers?
My advice: use something you love to create more meaningful and memorable conversations with someone. Interests are naturally social in that they are shared. I love movies and am blessed/cursed with having countless quotes buzzing around my head. I cannot help it. They pop up mid-conversation like some kind of Joycean Stream of Consciousness. So why not use that positively, exploit it, and endear myself to others with it. Almost everyone loves movies, they associate a time in their life (usually fondly) with a movie and in my experience it always makes a conversation more engaging.
Movie quotes are a great tool to have a shared chuckle if perfectly timed. Shared laughter definitely makes a sales engagement more social.
Movie quotes can also defuse an awkward conversation by finding common ground through a point put forward by a sage 3rd party. Apologies to my American friends for this strictly British reference, but I call this "pulling a Parkinson" (British chat show host). You can say something slightly uncomfortable, get your point across, but not come off too heavy handed or arrogant because someone more reputed actually said it for you.
The hook of a movie quote can make your point and perhaps you more memorable. I also use movie quotes to inspire myself how to act, how to view a situation - I ask myself what would DeNiro, Duvall, Brando, Denzell, Hanks, or DiCaprio say?
Last year, I was watching the opening scene and song from the movie adaptation of the DC Comics graphic novel Watchmen. It did more to inspire me to change and socialise my selling ways than anything else. The movie opens with one after another of the washed-up superheros being marginalised. The soundtrack plays Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin. Wise Bob says "You better start swimmin or you'll sink like a stone." A 200W lightbulb switched on. I thought, ouch that's me, a (slightly) aging superhero not fully adapting to the new ways. I tackled the following Monday with a new sense of vigour and immediately put together & executed an action plan to up my game in terms of social selling . It has paid off handsomely for my own pipeline and the practices I have shared with the junior salespeople reporting to me.
Sometimes I feel there is a movie quote from the mind catalogue for every situation in Sales:
Need to find a positive in a bad situation with a client: As Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) says to Captain Miller (Tom Hanks): "Someday we might look back on this and decide that
When I/We have been awarded with a big deal or a new client and want to have a mini-celebration I usually perform a bit of office Tai Chi and spout a line from Rat Finch (DJ Qualls) from The Core: "This is my Kung-Fu and it is strong!" (Not the best movie but just a great line.)
When on a rare occasion a situation requires a bit of ruthlessness, Lawrence of Arabia or Prizzi's Honor always inspire as in "NOOO Prisoners!" shouted by sword-wielding Peter O'Toole or Don Prizzi, half-dead with emphysema in a hospital bed saying to Jack Nicholson's Charlie Partana character, "We forgive NOTHING!" referring to whether they should forgive Kathleen Turner's character for ripping them off of $900 grand.
When I am talking about an opportunity that is going to take more time and effort in a forecasting call, I might say as Jimmy Cliff sang in The Harder they Come, there are "many rivers to cross" on this one.
To inspire myself and the team to execute on an agreed plan, Yul Brynner's Ramses from The Ten Commandments is always good value: "So it be written, so it be done!"
If we need to get a team together for delivering a project on time and under budget, Inspector Renault from Casablanca always delivers the goods with "Round up the usual suspects."
The best example I have of movie quotes and social selling delivering concrete commercial benefit is a good story. With one of our key vendor partners, I had been crafting a reputation as a strong closer and someone who was not shy in the face of competition or a tough situation. One of my colleagues at the vendor partner (also a fan of movie quotes) took to calling me Mr. Wolf, as in Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction. He is the man you call when you are in an impossible jam. I loved that and he was telling others my new nickname. It was a memorable hook on which to grow my "legend" with the vendor team. But I thought it might be a real opportunity to engineer even greater advantage. I called him and asked if I could choose the movie character to be known as. There was only one choice: Hyman Roth, the Jewish criminal rival to Michael Corleone in The Godfather series. In the movie, things were tense between them. There is a scene where Roth's Sicilian liaison and right hand man Johnny Ola laments to Michael , "Hyman Roth always makes money for his partners...." Then I made it my mission to spread the word about me being the Hyman Roth of our little universe. With my colleagues help, it caught on, my reputation grew, and people called me to new business opportunities My sales increased, we gained new customers from this social selling network and further enhanced our credibility. It worked and it was fun.
Movie quotes are my thing, they could be yours, or it could be something else. It is an old saying: people buy from people, but it is so true. I think people engage and buy from interesting and interested people. Your thing could be sailing, cars, fashion, show tunes, home renovating, it doesn't matter - it might be a hook or a shared interest.
Find something that you genuinely like about yourself and deftly weave it into the conversation so that it might be meaningful and memorable to them. If you go to your next meeting thinking you need to talk more about what you like, you have missed the point. However, if you can make an interesting and relevant analogy to your commercial objectives from your "thing," it will come off as genuine. E.g. We have a saying in archery, baseball, rock climbing etc. It might lead to what they enjoy and then you can be interested and relate to that too.
Interests are inherently social and with today's social media it can be dead easy to do some research and find out something interesting about people in your first and second degree networks.
It wouldn't be right if I signed off without a good one. I have 2: as Ron Burgundy would say, "Stay Classy" readers or even better as Dabney Coleman's obnoxious self-help writer in the forgettable Modern Problems (1981) says "Read my books (blog) or be a victim all your life.
Which movie quotes inspired you in your career or have you used in a sales situation?