If a closer's spot comes up in the batting order, the manager will often pinch-hit for the closer. Most closers go the entire season without an at-bat. For example, Aroldis Chapman tallied just two at-bats over the first six seasons of his Major League career. Closer Closers stand on the pitching mound, which is located in the center of the infield and 60 feet, six inches away from home plate. But when he did, he made a slowly rolling ball start careening.
Firpo Marberry's save season in didn't open the floodgates for more save seasons, presumably because nobody at the time knew what the hell a "save season" was. It wasn't until that the next save season came, and it was Joe Page who accomplished it. In and of itself, that makes Mr. Page an important part of the closer saga. But there's a lot more to his story than that.
The season was the last of three straight dominant seasons for Page, a left-hander for the New York Yankees. Managed by none other than—you guessed it—former Senators skipper Bucky Harris, Page compiled 60 saves and a 3.
By WAR, Page was the best reliever in baseball in that three-year span. He also compiled nearly twice as many saves as the next guy on the leaderboard, which would be yet a sign that, like Firpo, Page truly was a one-of-a-kind species in his time. Matthew Callan wrote in a piece for Baseball Prospectus earlier this month that Page was the first real "crazy" closer to ever arrive on the scene.
In addition to having a live arm, Page was a live wire. And this reality wasn't lost on the contemporary press. Before Page came ambling unconcernedly over the bullpen fence, relief pitchers had always been in the shadows. There had been a few who had taken positions occasionally in the spotlight. But they were comparatively few Joe was the fellow who dramatized and glamorized the job as none of the others ever had done.
He became as important as any starting pitcher, maybe even more important. The others had been, in effect, mop-up performers. He opened a new vista for every pitcher and reluctance to become a relief man disappeared. Firpo Marberry may have been the first star relief pitcher in history, but Joe Page holds an arguably more important claim to fame: He was the guy who made being a star relief pitcher cool.
Page faded into irrelevance in , but he wasn't really needed by then. The trail had already been blazed, and many pitchers found themselves walking on it in the s and s. After Joe Page snapped the string of consecutive seasons without a save campaign, it didn't take long for it to happen again. Jim Konstanty did it in , saving 22 games for the Philadelphia Phillies. It was a proper start to a decade that would see star relief pitchers pop up all over the place. There would be six more save seasons before the s were out and eight seasons that featured at least seven pitchers who finished 30 or more games.
For some perspective, there had been just one such season in all the years before: However, there was something that the star relief pitchers of the day had in common. Most of them were older guys, veterans who had been around the league for a while and knew how to handle themselves. For all the games-finished seasons that were happening, relatively few of them were being turned in by pitchers aged 27 or younger.
The perfect man for the job at the time was a guy like Roy Face, who was already 30 when he established himself as baseball's best relief pitcher in with 40 games finished and 20 saves. He went on to save 99 games between and , his age season. But something happened in that changed everything. A young right-hander named Larry Sherry burst onto the scene with the Los Angeles Dodgers, winning seven games in only 23 appearances during the regular season at the age of When the Dodgers found themselves in the World Series, Sherry played a starring role.
He appeared in four of the six games the Dodgers needed to defeat the Chicago White Sox, allowing one earned run in He won two games and saved two others. The next year, in , four of the 10 pitchers who finished 30 or more games were aged 27 or younger. But it also punctured the generally accepted theory that only grizzled, crafty veterans can be entrusted with so vital an assignment….
But wherever managers look, they had better peer well, knowing that baseball has now reached such a point of specialization that pennants are won or lost in the bullpen.
When the Bambino moved to the outfield on a full-time basis, his home run production greatly increased. And when it did, more and more fans came to see him. That gave baseball owners the idea that the ball should be juiced and that ballparks should be smaller. These changes benefited all hitters and made pitching a nightmare. The increased strain on starting pitchers created an increased need for talented relief pitchers.
Baseball, as it is wont to do, just took too long to come around to this reality. By the end of the decade, star relief pitchers were commonplace. He was quite clear — telling was a waste of time! As soon as I started applying it my sales skyrocketed! Example Questions:. What concerns do you have? Why are you looking for a new car today? What prompted you to look into this? If you are selling offline and responding to an Internet inquiry ask:.
How did you find our website? You then ask, what search term did you use to find us? Above all, asking questions removes pressure in face-to-face selling. How does this apply to selling online? Clever copywriters ask questions in sales copy. However, there is one important distinction…. Only ever ask questions that prompt your prospect to give the answer you want. Here is one particular style of questioning you will often come across….
This type of question works because it implies lots of people are already getting X results. Questions need not be exclusively about making sales. Tools that allow you to do this include Survey Monkey — but there are others.
Be a good listener. Before you tell someone what you think, ask him what he thinks. Then restate what you heard as precisely as you can. It makes a difference when I want to get someone to understand my point of view.
The best salespeople LOVE to tell stories … and they are great at telling them. People remember well-told stories and in a competitive sales situation, the best storyteller wins! Telling stories sets you apart from your competition and makes you stand out. All the most successful companies have a great story or two. A great place to start is with a Founders story….
How the founder came to create the product. Richard Branson is a great example of this. Stories allow your prospect to experience ownership of your product or service in the present moment. Stories give you the license to say things to your prospects that might otherwise be risky or too personal that in turn trigger powerful emotions that motivate your prospect to buy.
Stories allow you to make a personal connection with your potential buyers. How does this apply to Internet Marketing? Every great Internet Marketer has their own unique Founders Story. Why did you create your product? What is the pain are you are fixing?
If you stop and really listen the prospect will tell you why they should own your product. Especially so if you guide them with the right kind of questions. Importantly, the less you talk and the more you listen, the less pressurized the sales environment will be.
If I had to define one key attribute all great sales people have, I would say they are all good listeners. In selling there is a say that goes: He or she who speaks the least earns the most. The top sales closer is clear and concise in their communication. The best sales closer talks low and slow. They are not the fast-talking salesperson that popular culture would suggest.
Talking calmly and slowly makes it easier for your prospect to listen and believe you. If you talk too fast and in a high pitched voice, you will come across as pushy and not trustworthy. The top sales closer takes the time to explain everything in detail and clearly before asking for the order.
They use questions to discover what the prospect already knows and tailor their presentation to the prospects particular need. If they use an acronym the top sales closer makes sure to explain what it stands for.
Above all, the top sales closer knows their product back to front and enjoy talking about it. They know their subject so well that they could explain it to a child. If you can explain yourself effectively to someone who has no background on the subject, then you will certainly be able to make a persuasive case with someone who does have some background.
When you send out an email or write a blog post it is important to not assume anything. Every email or sales page should explain why your subscriber should read it. What did you promise them in the subject line? Are you delivering? Tell them something cool. Stories are good. Selling is not a pushy, winner-takes-all, macho act. It is an empathy-led, process-driven, and knowledge-intensive discipline.
Because, in the end, people buy from people. The best sales closers know their statistics! At least weekly and often daily they will be comparing their closing rates and commissions earned.
Contacts Appointments Presentations Sales. I knew that for approx every 20 cold calls doors knocked I would get one person to agree to an appointment. Not bad for a penniless year-old back in One of the most frequently used is EPC — earnings per click, but there are many more. Check out this link. Knowing your EPC is particularly important if you do any pay per click advertising.
Additionally, you should know how many visitors to a web page it takes to get a subscriber and then in turn you should know what that subscriber is worth to you. In this case, he earns 7 cents per visitor. Now when you have visitors per month that starts to add up! Smart marketers are more likely to focus on the lifetime value of a customer — some will even be prepared to lose money on their first transaction, but that is not something I recommend to you.
Selling is about handling objections — covering of the reasons not to buy before the customer even thinks about them. Average salespeople think that Objections are a bad thing which indicates that their customer is not going to buy. But the truth is that Objections are in fact Buying Signals.
I mean, if you had no interest, you would not even bother to object! The top sales closer sees objections as buying signals.
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