The Story of Zusia and How to Sell YOU!

Many salespeople ask me “What techniques can I use to increase my sales?” I tell them that they have to start with being themselves. Some people have read too many books, attended too many seminars, and have created a sales caricature that feels false to the client. I can’t tell you the number of salespeople that enter my business door look frantic and feeling distant from their own message. Likeability is one of the most important factors in influence. As noted in a quote book offered at http://www.highfillperformancegroup.com/tools/ even Clarence Darrow said “The main work of a trial attorney is to make a jury like his client.”

Following is a Jewish teaching tale that I find in Jack Macquire’s book The Power of Personal Storytelling. It can be used in a sales meeting to remind everyone the importance of staying true to themselves:

Once the ancient Rabbi Zusia appeared before his disciples crying and wringing his hands. Alarmed, they asked him, “Why are you so upset, Zusia?”

Zusia replied, “I have just had a vision telling me the one, all-important question the angels will ask me about my life after I die!”

“But Zusia,” his disciples exclaimed, “you have led such a noble and exemplary life! What question could possibly scare you so?”

Zusia heaved a great sigh. “I have learned that the angels will not, after all, ask me, ‘Why weren’t you a Moses, delivering your people from bondage?’

“Very well,” said his disciples, “so what will they ask you?”

Zusia, still lost in his grief, cried out. “And I have learned that I will not, after all, be asked, ‘Why aren’t you a Joshua bringing your people into the promised land?'”

Frustrated, the leading disciple stepped forward and, grasping Zusia’s shoulders to calm him, spoke more sternly, “Tell us, I beg you! What exactly is it that the angels will ask you?”

Zusia answered in a chastened voice, “The angels will say to me, ‘Zusia, there was one great being that you could have been, and that no power in Heaven or on Earth could have kept you from being but yourself.’ Then they will ask me, ‘Why weren’t you Zusia?'”