“Dad! I got a job for 10 bucks an hour plus commission.”
I was 19 and engaged at the time. This was the most money I had ever made. He didn't congratulate me, didn't celebrate. Instead he said, “Commission? You're going to be a salesperson?”
For most of my young life I'd been very sensitive to rejection, most commonly with women. I wasn't a guy who took a lot of risk, either. So my father had his reasons for the trepidation, but that made the sting no less.
Throughout my life I'd been told a lot of things I couldn't do. Legos were too complicated. Stocks required math (I was never good at math). Football required me to be less sensitive. Regular classes were too tough for my ADHD, dysfunctional brain, so I went to "resource classes" with the other future rockstars and mechanics… The '90s were no joke to those with ADHD. So I rode my bike, smoked cigarettes, and scored the occasional six-pack instead, and stole the occasional kiss available from the girls at school...
As an aside: children you don't challenge don't do well, and I was one of those children.
We do this to our kids. We try to protect them from failure, then wonder what on earth made them so fearful of one of life's many inevitabilities. But I digress.
The truth was, I needed work. I was excited to get paid the base salary and see what happened. So against my father's counsel, I started the job the following Monday.
“MCI WorldCom welcomes you!” they told me and my new cohort in training. “For one week we'll teach you the systems and how to sell. Then you'll be handed over to your managers to start making real money. Most of you in this room will not make it past the third week. But those of you who do will begin an exciting journey of selling and making money the rest of your life.”
I won't bore you with the details of training. I won't tell you about the recruiting strategy either (it had something to do with halfway houses… I was unaware, haha).
What I will tell you is that dialing for dollars eight hours a day was brutal, and I was AWFUL at it. A literal train wreck. If you set a school bus on fire and parked it in a field of bunnies, it couldn't have been worse.
I sold 0 of my 80-line quota that week. Matt, my supervisor, sat me down. “You can't do that again next week, bro. You can quit now and avoid the embarrassment if you want.”
“No, I'll stay.”
I hadn't believed I'd make it anyway. Everyone said I'd fail. So what did one more week change?
Day 7. Monday. I had studied my script. I had learned the objections. I was ready.
I opened my mouth and none of that came out. What came out single-handedly shifted the culture of the entire building:
“Don't hang up. Everyone does that. If I can't save you money in the next 15 seconds, we've lost nothing.”
Silence. I heard my whole team stop calling. Matt peered over his desk, put the call on speaker, and there, on my death march to Friday, I heard it:
“HAHAHAHA! Damn, son! I've never heard a salesman that honest. Say your piece.”
Leeroy (yes, I'll never forget my first sale) stayed on the line while I told him about my new product. I asked him the right questions, and he played it cool.
“Leeroy, I know you don't know me, but I think we both know the move here.”
He chortles. “Son, you got the chops for this gig. How many sales you got today?”
I looked to Matt. He smiled and nodded. “This is my first one ever, Leeroy.”
He paused. His voice grew serious. “How many people told you not to do this job?”
I stumbled a bit. “Just my dad, buddy.”
“Your daddy was wrong, and you tell him Leeroy said so. You feel me?”
Yessir.
“Now hold on, boy. Can you do this for all my phone lines?”
My quota, you may remember, was 80.
“You bet, buddy. How many you got?”
“You sure? I know you need to make more calls, and I don't want to keep you all day.”
“I'm sure. How many?”
“Including my office, my parents, my brothers and sisters… I'd reckon 200.”
Leeroy was still on the loudspeaker. And the second he said “two hundred,” the whole f***ing call center gasped. Out loud. In unison. A floor full of grown adults who hadn't looked up from their cubicles in a week, gasping like I'd raised the dead. I just sat there and watched my paycheck climb from $400 to a thousand bucks in real time. From one phone call. I shook a bit.
I spent three hours with Leeroy that day. We laughed, we joked, and when it was all over, he'd bought 201 lines. “Guess I missed one,” he said.
It had taken long enough that my boss had gone out and gotten me a cake. It read: worst to first.
I didn't tell anyone about that day. Not Sarah, my bride-to-be. Not my family. Not a friend. I just kept selling. And selling. And selling, big deals and small ones, until Friday night, when the week was finally over and I'd more than doubled my commission. I was paid weekly back then. That week I made $2,500. In 1998, that was a small fortune.
I quickly became the number one salesperson in all of MCI WorldCom. Out of 2,100 of us. The kid who sold zero his first week left for a better opportunity still holding the Heavyweight Title.
Saturday was family dinner. The four of us went out somewhere nice. Mom, Dad, Sarah, and me. Their treat, like always, because we were a couple of dumb, broke kids…
When the check came, I put my hand on top of it. “Turns out I'm a salesman, Dad.” I pulled out my billfold, counted the cash and the tip, and smiled.
I didn't have to tell him he was wrong.
He was glad to be.
You might be sitting there right now feeling like life has handed you nothing but no's.
But just like me and my old friend Leeroy, you're probably one yes away. So keep going.
I hope this made you smile.
I hope this helps.
Nick
Who am I?
I'm Nick Pollard. I coach senior leaders and entrepreneurs privately, usually at the inflection points where being reasonable, accommodating, or too collaborative starts costing them their clarity and authority.
If that sounds like you, let's talk.