Sounds like he was trying to make a point...not just on his pencil.

I probably would have walked out.

My sales manager at the time had one of those sharpeners. After we got back and told him that story, for weeks if he didn't like something we were telling him he'd do the sharpener thing and laugh.

One time a sales guy on our team was calling on a car dealer out in the sticks. The car dealer was a good old boy who didn't take kindly to city slickers. At the end of the pitch, he said, "Tell ya what. I'll think about it," as he took the cigarette he was smoking and slowly ground it out on the stump of his missing middle finger.

Selling windows, I went to a lady's house in this town known for a lot of hillbilly type people (Taberg NY if anyone knows it).

She had a bunch of missing teeth and she apologized, telling me that earlier in the morning she went to the store and heard a crunching sound under her tire. She said she knew right away that her teeth dropped out of her pocket and she ran over them.

Sorry guys.

Nothing tops the crazy stories from agents selling life insurance to fixed income poor people.

Here's one I did a year and a half ago:

"Couple weeks ago, I was driving down a long road in East Ridge, TN, looking for my 3PM appointment. About 1/4th mile away I could see a pink mailbox. Of course, I *knew* this had to be my appointment.

As I roll up, not only is her mailbox pink, part of her house is pink, while also having an "artistic rendition" of the lady's face painted on the side of it. Heck, even her 80s-model Cadillac was pink, too.

Come to find out, she was displaced here after Katrina hit New Orleans. She said she waited 3 days in her home before attempting to escape. She took a 2x4 and floated on it until she saw a casket floating by, in which she took that until she reached the I-10 overpass. Then, after waiting 3 days for FEMA choppers to take her to the airport, Al Gore's private jet comes and picks her up and takes her to Chattanooga.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Continued...

She even showed me Al Gore's letter he sent to her, laminated and enlarged with his letterhead on it, expressing his condolences at the loss of her home and displacement from her family.

If things couldn't get stranger (I guess they always can in selling final expense, huh?), she was paying $135 a month for a 10-pay American Memorial policy for $8350 in insurance, of which she was 18 months through. She was 66 at the time she took it out. She also had a $104 monthly payment on a vault/burial combo at the local graveyard. She told me she had already pawned off some of her musical instruments and was late on a few utility bills due to the cost.

I got her approved for $20k in coverage that would save her $150 a month and give her more benefit, of which she could ensure burial back at her home in New Orleans (her pre-needs plan required full payment before having the ability to be transferred back to her home). Sounds like a done deal, right?

Unfortunately, her rep (who's also a pastor, of course) from the funeral home stopped by and somehow convinced her to keep the arrangement as it was, with probably 33% of her income going towards her pre-needs/insurance agreement.

I called her back after the appointment with her, and she said God came to her in a vision and told her to keep what she had.

Can you turn around the "God" objection? LOL.

Oh well, can't fix stupid. I'll be back in 3 months to seal the deal after she's gone broke. =) "

Lol Rearden, that's nuts. I'm sure you've dealt with it before, but selling to Jehovas Witnesses' is a almost a deathtrap.

He's obviously paying attention, lol. We'll if in a point the a prospect show disinterest then i would continue to talk to him tell he runs out of pencil say he over-sharpened and consumed about 20 pencils.