Your Window Is Three Seconds

Your time to shine usually appears in small windows. Be ready or be ready to learn.

Here is one lesson I learned about twenty years ago.

I walked to my cubicle in a typical sales bullpen. It smelled like burnt coffee and day-old pizza. I was a new inside sales representative for a product I knew nothing about. I even had business cards that validated my journey that began in elementary school. While I sat at my desk excited to explore this new opportunity, I was also somewhat apprehensive. Leafing through a stack of trade show leads, I thought of a job I had in college selling children’s books to families at dinner time. Wrestling that memory back to the archives, I picked up the phone and starting dialing. The initial results were not pretty. After many attempts, I did convince the owner of an electrical contractor to give me a few minutes on the phone. 

“Ok, Jeremy. So whattaya got?”

My mind went blank. I spouted off some nonsense about being a structured cabling distributor. I didn’t even really know what that was yet. I asked him to hold on while I grabbed my trainer to bat clean-up. Before I knew it, she booked a meeting to discuss supplying their next project. After a wink and smile, she headed back to her desk. I sat down and jumped on the next lead in the stack. Years later, watching Boiler Room, I saw Giovanni Ribisi re-enact my first true sales experience when he got the doctor on the phone only to get bailed out by the senior broker. While Giovanni’s initial pitch was way better than mine, he still needed the “closer” to come in.

Balancing independence while leveraging the experience of others is where the magic happens.

Dig in and get started, but don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.