If you’ve ever seen the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross,” you know the speech. Alec Baldwin’s character storms into a room full of salespeople and tells them the only thing that matters: Always Be Closing. ABC. Get the sale, move on, get the next one.
That movie came out in 1992, and somehow that mentality has followed sales culture around for over 30 years.
The problem is that approach treats every customer like a transaction—someone to close, not someone to serve. And if you talk to the salespeople who have actually built long, sustainable careers, most would agree that ABC is the wrong way to think about it.
Mike Dawid has been selling Cutco for 20 years. In that time, he’s logged more than 33,000 orders—not by chasing closings, but by building relationships that keep coming back. We sat down with him to break down the biggest myths in sales, and what he’s learned actually works.
Watch the full interview below, and read on for his best insights.
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Myth 1: Sales is all about closing
The “always be closing” mindset puts all the pressure on one moment—the part where someone hands over their credit card. Everything before that is just a means to an end.
Mike sees it differently. After two decades in the field, his approach comes down to a simple principle: service first, sales second. And he’s not just saying it as a motto; it shows up in the little things, like responding to a text immediately when a customer reaches out, or sharpening someone’s knife without expecting anything in return.
The sale, in his view, is a byproduct of doing everything else well. When customers feel genuinely taken care of, they come back—and they bring other people with them.
Myth 2: Sales is about pushing products
There’s a version of sales that looks like this: learn the features, memorize the pitch, overcome objections, close. The product is the center of everything, and the salesperson’s job is to move it.
Mike runs his business around a completely different model. He describes it like a bicycle wheel—customer service is the tire that wraps around everything else. Trade shows, referrals, social media, in-home demos—those are the spokes. They only work because the outer layer holds it all together.
What that looks like in practice is treating customers like people worth knowing, not leads worth converting. Mike’s clients don’t just buy from him—they become part of what he calls his “Cutco family.” They refer their friends. They come back for wedding gifts, for new homes, for occasions he didn’t even pitch to them.
Myth 3: Repeat customers don’t matter as much as new ones
A lot of salespeople spend most of their energy chasing new leads. The logic makes sense on the surface: more customers means more sales.
But a single customer, nurtured over time, can be worth far more than a dozen one-time transactions. Mike walks through exactly how that plays out: someone buys one thing, then comes back for a birthday gift, then a wedding present, then furnishes a second home or an RV. That one relationship over time becomes a $10,000 client.
His customer Joe is a perfect example. Over seven years, Joe has worked with Mike to collect nearly every product Cutco makes, a running total that started with a single purchase and grew into something they eventually turned into its own club.
That kind of relationship comes from showing up consistently and making people feel like they matter—not rushing to close a deal and move on to the next prospect.
Myth 4: You have to be serious to succeed in sales
There’s a certain image people have of a successful salesperson: polished, professional, buttoned-up. Someone who commands a room by being the most composed person in it.
Mike Dawid is not that guy. His colleagues will tell you he’s goofy, that they’re never quite sure if he’s being serious, that he’s always making someone laugh. That personality is a core part of why people trust him, and what makes him so successful.
When COVID shut down his trade shows, he didn’t scale back. He leaned further into his personality and built a Facebook group that now has over 6,000 members—people who follow him not just because of the product, but because of him.
The Willy Wonka campaign is probably the clearest example of how his unique personality helped him make sales. He dressed up as Wonka, got his whole family into Oompa Loompa costumes, and built a promotion around the limited-edition purple Cutco. His colleagues still talk about it as one of the most creative things they’ve seen him do.
Confidence in your own personality is more convincing than a polished performance of someone you’re not, and trying to put on a phony professional facade won’t help you make sales.
Sales isn’t only about closing. The best salespeople, like Mike Dawid, know that the true key to a successful career in this industry is treating your prospects with respect, kindness, and playfulness. When good customer service is at the center of everything you do, the sales follow.
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