Does Showing Up Still Pay Off?

April 18, 2025
Phil Krone

Sometimes I find myself with a lump in my throat  over a story I occasionally tell in our consultative selling course, FOCIS®, about a vintage United Airlines TV commercial.

The commercial shows the boss, apparently an owner or CEO, talking to a room full of executives. He’s telling them about a phone call he received from a customer they all know to be rock solid, practically part of the family.

As he walks deliberately around the room  handing out envelopes, the boss quietly explains that this “old friend” has just cancelled an important, long-running contract. In the envelopes are airline tickets. The goal: Put the executives back in touch with their customers  face to face. The meeting ends and one executive asks the boss where he’s going. “To see that old friend,” he replies.

Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success is showing up.” Experienced sales professionals, like me and many of you reading this column, know the heart and soul of business-to-business selling, especially, is just that: Being there to show you care. A lesson the TV boss and his company learned the hard way. It took a punch-in-the-gut phone call before they got this powerful, human message from the marketplace. They never saw it coming.

But they should have, right?  And I think that’s why the commercial strikes such a chord with me. As a salesperson, the importance of “showing up” is that much a part of me. In addition to “Fly United,” the commercial is telling us that business is nothing if not personal and you ignore that fundamental truth at your peril. When the ad aired in the 1980s fax technology was booming. The commercial resonated with many businesspeople excited about the possibilities of technology but concerned about its pitfalls. The message may be even more powerful today when time constraints prevent us from meeting with all the people we would like to, and conversation through technology is even more prevalent.

Yet  just  showing up doesn’t get the sale, does it?  It can open opportunities, however, that calls, e-mails, Tweets, Facebook, LinkedIn, and, yes, faxes do not.

Phil Krone   is president of Productive Strategies, Inc., a marketing and management consulting firm specializing in consultative sales training, lead generation and appointment setting, and marketing and marketing communications. Phil can be reached at  pkrone@productivestrategies.com  and 847-446-0008.

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