I was the first to graduate in my family from college, in Business Administration, much to the surprise of most everyone in my family, including myself. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, not unlike most of my friends as we couldn’t make a career out of partying. What was the most difficult thing I could do? As I love challenges, so I chose a career in sales. I felt if I was going to learn how to sell, I thought it best to learn from one of the best companies in the country in the early 1970’s.
My mother-in-law at that time, worked for Xerox Corporation at their region office in Des Plaines, Illinois. This is a suburb just northwest of Chicago. She wanted her then son-in-law employed so I could support her daughter and she set up the initial appointment. After going through a battery of tests, I would then begin the interviewing process. After 41/2 years of marriage, my wife and I split up 2 days before I had my first interview. I was devastated. Over the following course of about 2 months, I was interviewed by 13 different sales managers, none of which had any idea what to do with a stutterer. I thought to myself, if I can do this while going through a divorce, I can do anything! I had something to prove.
Finally, someone took a chance on me at Xerox and sent me to sales training in Fort Lauderdale, in January. Living in Chicago, I couldn’t wait to get there! One of the tasks we had to perform was to recite a sales script, word for word, on video. When the red light flashed, I knew I couldn’t do it. Finally, after a couple of tries, I said to the instructor, “What if I make the same points, but use my own words?” Fortunately, they let me do it as I am sure they felt sorry for me.
Later in my career I was at a Xerox party, I ran into one of the 13 sales managers who previously interviewed me. He wanted to hire me, but his boss didn’t approve me. As he had a bit too much to drink, he came over to me and said, “Steve, I want you to know you tested in the top 10% of all Xerox sales people.” I smiled and replied, “Go to your broker tomorrow and sell all your Xerox stock. If I am in the top 10%, we are in big trouble. This company is going down the tubes as soon as I get a territory.” We both laughed and the rest, as they say, is history.
I became one of the top 100 sales people in the USA for Xerox and won countless awards with other Fortune 1000 organizations for my “I Love Me” wall. While with Xerox, I remember having a commission mistake and was told to go to the regional office as only they could correct it. I drove up in my brand new corvette, denim suit, big walrus moustache with shoulder-length hair. I was so cool. Little did I know, the person that I had to go to fix my commission error was my former mother-in-law. We were cordial when we met. As she looked up in the big computer printout to see what the problem was about, she made the comment to me, “You didn’t make this kind of money when you were married to my daughter!” I politely answered, “I guess your daughter screwed up.” She agreed and we had a good laugh. I actually owe my sales career to her and have been very grateful ever since.
As I moved up in my career, I have had the opportunity to address groups of over 300 without a problem. But I always felt most comfortable with one-on-one sales training. I would love to be told by a rookie sales rep that they “couldn’t do it as it was too hard.” I would look them in the eyes and ask one simple question, “Can you speak? If I can do that, you can do it. When I started selling I could barely speak.”
The moral of this story is no matter what your goals are in your life, you must want to succeed bad enough that you will work much harder than the rest. But if you don’t want to work hard, I guarantee in the long run, you won’t come close to reaching your goals. I found it takes complete commitment for success.
As I mentioned earlier, my son has dyslexia and ADD as I passed it on genetically. It’s heredity. Not a thing I could do about it. What I also passed on to my son is set aggressive goals, my work ethic and the drive to succeed. Brendon, always loved helicopters and wanted to fly from the time he was a child. At 32 he finally decided if he didn’t do it now he never would. Now at 34, he not only is a commercial helicopter pilot, he is about to become an instructor. I am very proud of him as he did something very difficult through hard work and dedication. Because he did, he is about to reach his goals. It’s great to be a Dad and it’s even greater to see your son succeed against all odds. My Dad said the same to me in his later years. I guess it’s a family thing.
Starting in the fall, I am taking an Improv Comedy Class here in Atlanta. It’s my next challenge. I will be the oldest and the only one that does not want to be on SNL. Next, is Stand-up comedy. You should never stop challenging yourself. Sometimes you will amaze yourself what you are capable of achieving. The only way to stop achieving, is to stop trying.
If you know of anyone that stutters, please pass the last two blogs onto them. Let them know they are not alone and they can do anything they want. See you next Tuesday for the next installment of Notes by Blue. Please add me to your twitter: @slblue and “Follow me with Google Friend Connect” on the tab in the upper right corner of this blog.
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