My little story, Part 3 | "I am now officially successful"

So St. Paul, here I come. January 2008.

I was so excited. I got out there and met as many of my new clients as possible. I was closing deals in my first month in St. Paul. It took me 2 full months in Wisconsin, and I sold over $20,000 in my first month in St. Paul. I was so excited. It WAS the territory...it wasn't me. I was going to be a huge success.

February I was out meeting as many people as I could. Selling expensive sites requires a process; it's not easy and it's not fast. You have to meet with people a handful of times. In sales, a "one call close" is what they call it when you get a signed contract on the first meeting. It's efficient, it's quick, and it's how successful reps make their number. However, to do that, you have to go from "Hi, nice to meet you" to "sign this right now" in 30 minutes. Major a-hole risk in doing that. I was trying to build a network to generate referrals.

So while I write this, I'm watching Boiler Room in the background. Love this movie. Anyhow, Ben Afflac's character says:

"There is no such thing as a "no-sale call". A sale is made on every call you make; either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can't...either way a sale is made. The only question is, who's gonna close, you or him. Now be relentless (over-dramatically waving his hand) that's it, I'm done"

Whether or not you believe those words, they rang in my head every single day. But what I quickly realized was that I was beyond proficient in collecting reasons why people would NOT buy my product, but I was still a pretty poor sales rep. So after January had gone better than I would have expected for my first month in a new territory, and now it was about February 15th. I was going to Arizona in a week for our national meeting. I got a call from my boss.

me: "Hey buddy, what's up?"

my boss: "Just working on getting a couple of things finished up"

me: "Sounds good"

my boss: "Is now a good time? Do you have time to talk"

(insert garbage about company policy and how there's no "gray area" and that we need to stick to procedure)...fast forward...

me: So I can either make my number this month, or get fired...that's pretty much what we're looking at? And I have basically 3 days after Arizona to get it done?

my boss: yes, that is what we're looking at

me: Well, I'll get there. I'll do it.

my boss: I hope so.

Believe it or not, I did. I sold $20,000 in three days to save my job in February. Then I sold enough in March to make up for January and made my first quarterly bonus ever. It was awesome.

Things were going to work out....