“It’s my form of painting. My form of photography. My form of being somewhat different.” – Mitch Alfus

The Selby does a day in the life of Mitch Alfus, owner of Libra Leather, covering both the quiet intimate moments as well as a tense sales meeting where he had his sales team on the hot seat.. one moment that rolled out like this….

Mitch:” I’ll tell you one more thing. You guys have to think, when your are working with accounts not to be wasting time. I’ve heard how you sell. For one I’d like you to know more about the real leather…But you know more than the customers so thats a plus. but another thing I think you spend too much time chit-chatting…you rmbe on and on and on. and the laughter and the joy and the pleasure.”

Nervous Sales Rep (retorts): “but that’s what keeps them back. I think that my charm and my talking to them and knowing their line is helping me sale a fuck ton of leather. I have almost 2million dollars in sales.”

Mitch: “If you’re selling 2million a year with talking that much, imagine how much you’d sell if you talk less… And you knew what you were doing?

We’ll never know the back story behind this exchange, but from my days as a sales rep, I sense that she’s the type of rep that is comfortable knowing she’s earning good money for the company. However as a business owner I could tell he’s good with her progress but doesn’t want any of his reps comfortable. Push it harder, get ALL the money, don’t leave nothing on the table,and you cant do that with all that chitter chatter…I also know, a Sales rep has to have tough skin-tougher than leather.

what do you get from the exchange?