Products in your store and offers on your site,

they’re sold in the day and bought through the night.

Did you watch the 40th anniversary special of Saturday Night Live? One of my all-time favorite SNL skits is Jesse Jackson reading “Green Eggs and Ham.” It’s Black History Month and Dr. Seuss’s 111st birthday coming up on March 2nd. In honor of that, I’d like to revisit Green Eggs and Ham and remind you of Mr. Jackson’s rendition.


Many have read “Green Eggs and Ham,” but, in my mind, no one can top Jesse Jackson’s rendition. But many others have read “Green Eggs and Ham.” They include Senator Ted Cruz’s infamous “filibuster,” President Obama, Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno, and NLF quarterback Tim Tebow. Click here to view them. Or, you might want to hear author Neil Gaiman, most known for the “Sandman” comic series and “Coraline,” read it for charitable purposes, or watch the creativity of Weird Al Yankovic’s version.

So What Does This Have to Do With Sales?

small business sales“Green Eggs and Ham” was written to help teach children to read. However, reading it as an adult what struck me was that protagonist Sam-I-Am, who ultimately gets his cohort to try green eggs and ham, is the greatest salesperson ever. Think about it. Sam-I-Am makes it look so easy but he really made over a dozen offers before he got to close the sale.
Most customers don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes to sell a fabulous product or service. One of the most time-consuming (but worthwhile) endeavors is to set up a retail e-commerce website. To make it easier for you, we’ve taken the pain out of the process with our guide: 10 Essential Steps to Creating a Legally Compliant Retail E-Commerce Website.

In “Green Eggs and Ham,” Sam-I-Am attempts to have another character, who is never actually named, eat some green eggs and ham.

As a side note, Sam-I-Am is supposedly a cat. But what kind of animal is the unnamed character supposed to be?  He’s furry and has a crumpled hat with floppy dog-like ears, so he’s not a cat like Sam-I-Am, so what is he?

Sam-I-Am Is Really the Ultimate Salesperson, Isn’t He?

Sam-I-Am continues to make offers. When his offer is rejected, Sam-I-Am just finds over a dozen different ways for the guy to try green eggs and ham. He offers to eat them in different places like in a house, a box, a car, a tree, a train, and a boat, or with diverse company such as a mouse, fox, and a goat, or even in the dark or the rain. Sam-I-Am finally makes a classic maneuver: he offers a sample taster of green eggs and ham. The guy tries it, loves it, and ends up thanking Sam-I-Am!

He is the arbiter of tactful persistence. And, like Dr. Seuss himself, Sam-I-Am made it look so easy! He’s holding this tray of food with one finger while in a box, driving a car, onto a moving train that skids upside down into a boat with random animals in tow.

Similarly, Dr. Seuss made “Green Eggs and Ham” look so easy, but it really is a masterful work. Seuss wrote this book using only 50 words. “Anywhere” is the only word that has more than one syllable. The rhyming and rhythm are impeccable, to say the least. Yet it looks so easy! Seuss himself stated:

“If I am a genius, why do I have to work so hard? I know my stuff looks like it was all rattled off in 28 seconds, but every word is a struggle and every sentence is like the pangs of birth.”

Sound Familiar?

In selling our products or services, this is what we do every day. Our customers don’t realize all the things we do behind the scenes to “make the sale” and provide fabulous services or products. You can struggle through this process alone or you can let us help you.

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