I only went on the course that changed my life, the first training course I’d ever been on, paying for it myself, which just about cleaned me out, because I wanted to put a number by my name.
I was failing, crashing and burning, day after day, could not make a sale to save my life, my boss running out of patience, and it felt like I was just days away from looking for work. The rest of the team liked me, but they were doing that thing sales teams do when someone is failing, keeping their distance, barely able to look at me.
That was bad, but worse was the board on the wall, with all our names on, and by my name , still, was a zero. All I wanted was to make just one sale, to post a number by my name.
I had to do something, and a saw an ad for a sales course over the weekend, and paid my money, and then I was in a room in the Watford Hilton, with about twenty other salespeople, and the trainer, who was just about the sharpest, smartest, most charismatic person I had met, and then I was stood up, nervously introducing myself to the group.
I quickly ran out of steam, and words, and the trainer asked what advice would I give to someone starting in sales, and I replied, right off the bat, “Be yourself”, and this is what the trainer said, all with a smile.
“This isn’t a cult, you know, I’m not going to force you into some sort of mercurial personality change, there’s no brainwashing, and I definitely don’t need followers.
Be yourself, really? It sounds like good advice, but I’m not so sure. What if you’re yourself, and you can’t sell, can’t talk your way out of a paper bag, can’t close a door. What if you’re not motivated, don’t have any goals, what if you’re not sure of yourself, if you don’t really believe you can do it, what if you can’t face your fear of failure so you don’t even make the call, what if you’d rather have a ‘maybe’ than a ‘no’, so you don’t even ask for a ‘yes’.
What if the stress is too much, if you can’t suffer, so you take the day off, if you take yourself out the game rather than keep trying to win it, what if you give in or give up, just when you need to get going, what happens if that’s who you are, and you carry on being yourself, and you carry on failing, and failing, and failing.
Be yourself, sure, if you like. Or do the thing that makes you incredible, that makes all of us incredible, and decide to change. What if you spent the next couple of days creating yourself anew, an up-skilled you, a more positive and motivated you, a higher achieving you, maybe a happier you.
Don’t limit yourself to who you are now, you’re not the finished you yet, look to who you want to become, keep all the good in you, and add to it.
Walk out of this course different to how you walked in.”
He stopped, walked over and shook my hand, looked me in the eyes, and nodded, and I nodded back.
It’s the best tough talk I’ve ever had, beautifully delivered, and I got it, and it sort of saved my life, and I wrote in my notebook, ‘Change, for results’, and that’s what I did.
Dear Reader, bidden or not, change is in the air.
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