How can a high school dropout become a sales manager in just age of 23? Well, this is my story on doing exactly that.
You have to start somewhere. After returning to civilization after prison-time, I realized that I need a new profession. There weren't many jobs that were suitable for me. Maybe a cleaning gig here and there, maybe construction work. A friend of a friend told me about this call center that all the employees hated and it would hire anybody because everyone quit all the damn time.
They quit because the product they sold sucked, they quit because their mentality sucked. I gave it a try, aced the job interview and decided to do something I've never done before: talk my way out of things. I approached the matter scientifically and considered 'sales' as a skill. A skill that can be learned much like reading or riding a bike.
I remember darn well that I spent every literal moment that I was breathing, thinking about how to improve my sales game. Improvised new scripts, watched sales courses from Youtube in breaks or when home, borrowed every psychology and sales related book I could find and read it. But not just read, but actually put it into use at work.
I averaged about 120 calls a day. Compared to the average of 50 calls. I didn't spend time browsing social media, hell no. And how'd I do?
Img source: Salesman.red
I sold nothing the first month. I sucked. Completely. I was devastated after all this effort. But I decided to keep grinding. And grinding. First to enter, last to leave. Surely enough I broke absolutely all nation wide records for this company the second and third month.
Three months in our team manager had a small vacation of a week. Somebody needed to replace him and keep an eye on us for that period. It was a no-brainer that I displayed the biggest will and discipline and was chosen for the job. Not long after I got offered a team of my own. A team that was severely under performing, undersized and unmotivated. They needed somebody tough. They got me.
How'd it go?
I had to take responsibility in giving the boot to 2 members in the first month, got into some problems with our HR department for being that sudden and got a warning from higher management. Now having 2 members less I could focus individually on training out rest of the team and keeping their motivation up. What happened next? After being even more undersized? The sales skyrocketed. I kid you not. The members who were originally scared of getting booted made more sales and thus got more commission in their salary and thus ended up wanting to sell more. It was a profitable cycle as we were crushing our quarterly goals about 400% on average.
I was idolized in every meeting where the team managers came up to discuss upcoming strategy.
My hard work had not gone unnoticed. I got a direct offer from a direct competitor to become a real sales manager in their company, becoming responsible for locking down government level deals and managing our sales budget and strategy. They didn't give a two shits about my lack of a degree or my age, they wanted raw results and that's exactly what they got. At the age of f*cking 23 I had received a salary package that exceeded anybody's in my blood line.
Surely enough I blew that opportunity but that's a story already written down (Hinting to my Alcoholic Stories on my profile)
