In the fall of 1970, I was in my second year at WPI. For those of you who don’t know, WPI is a highly rated engineering school. I was also a social brother of ∑¶ fraternity. The lesson starts on pledge night in the fall of 1970. Pledge night is the night that all 12 fraternities at WPI throw parties to celebrate all of the new students that ‘pledged’ to join their respective fraternies. We need to give you the picture. In 1970, their were two girls at WPI and 1,000’s of boys. So, girls were in high demand and short supply for parties. There also wasn’t an all girls school right next door to balance things off. To make the job even more difficult, these were math, science and engineering students. We had pocket protectors, slide rules, very few social skills and Nerds weren’t cool.
Long Term Relationships
So, back to pledge night. I had filled my funnel well and our party had lots of girls and was going well. So, I figured that I’d take a walk down the block to Steve Brennan’s fraternity house (Phi Sig) to see how his party was going. As I approached the house, three girls were walking down the front stairs leaving. I probably asked something like, “Where you going?” and I remember that they said that they were going to Lambda Chi because Lambda Chi had a reputation for having great parties. So, I tried to convince them to go back in. No dice. They left.
I didn’t know at the time, but one of those girls was Elaine.
Two weeks later, Elaine and I ‘officially’ met at another party and I can’t remember anybody else since. We got married 39 years ago today on April 7th, 1973.
Thank you, Elaine.
The sales lesson? Your process might start with a, “No.”, but keep getting your message out there. It may turn into the longest relationship of your life.
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 
Happy Anniversary and cheers to many more!
Rick, great sales lesson at the end. Wishing you and Elanine the best! Wow, 40 years next year that is awesome! I’ll be 75 when I hit 40 years with my wife.
A good example of how a “Buy Cycle” issue can delay success!
I typically speak about the five major weaknesses impact on sales effectiveness, but this is another example of the way that they can impact our lives.