Hello Steemit Sellers!
I'm Stanimal The Sales Guy - a Sales Manager at a major Canadian IT firm and I'd like to tell you a story. Ten years ago I was a junkie - hooked on trainquilizers with a head full of delusions and heart filled with pain. I've clawed my way from being that mess of a kid to a place where I'm loving life, have an amazing career, and have the honour of teaching others how to excel in sales. I'm super passionate about sales, and its good money. Ultimately though you sell for the paycheque but something deeper has to get you out of bed every day. The pursuit of personal excellence is the high I chase now, and I'd like to take you through a little of that journey. Whether you're in sales, a business owner, or just a seeker with a desire to better yourself I've chosen this outlet to tell my story - and help others by inspiring and giving sound sales advice/tactics.
This is me!
ROCK BOTTOM
I remember the date I found myself sitting in the intake office of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. It was 6.6.7. or "the neighbour of the beast", the intake counselling riffing off the old "666" Revelations memes from the Bible. That got a chuckle out of me, because I'd always been a spiritual seeker. I told him that I was a sort of Shaman, a seeker who'd gotten lost in the woods. Instead spirit quests and traditional first nation practices I'd gotten into psychotropic club drugs. It was BS of course, lies I'd told myself to cover the fact that I was miserable and heartbroken, and needed to reinvent myself. Truth be told some part of me knew I had to hit bottom so I could start to rebuild from a new solid foundation.
A year after getting clean I met a young lady and we fell in love. A year after that we found out that we were being blessing us with a daugther. Unexpected blessings are the best ones! I had been working at a theatre that was playing Evil Dead: The Musical because it was low stress and high fun. I didn't even mind mopping up the fake blood every night! Prior to my breakdown I had been a commercial realtor, my first real sales job. I sucked at it, and rarely made more than $35k a year. But for a 22 year old kid with a growing drug problem it was perfect. I showed up when I liked, took a lot of sick time (hangovers), and nobody cared too much if I had deep black circles under my eyes Monday mornings. But now I had a daughter coming. So like so many men before me I decided it was time to "buckle down and stop screwing around", dusted off my sales resume and got back to it. This is me and my daughter!
PERSONAL EXCELLENCE
8 years later I'm a sales manager at the company that gave me a break. I owe a lot to them!. I did six years on the sales floor, and had the privilege of coaching and developing dozens and dozens of young sales people. I currently manage 12 up and coming sales badasses running a $2mil GP territory in a business development/growth oriented (READ HERE: COLD CALLING) environment. And its tech, so you know its competitive, and we're winning!
In this blog I'd like to take you through some tips, tricks, and strategies in what's causing my team success - but you can get that ANYWHERE. I'd also like to liberally mix in discussions of personal and esoteric philosophy, because the older I get and the more I success I have I've realized success has as much to do with WHO YOU ARE, as much as it does WHAT YOU DO. Personal grit, ethics and values, discipline, and emotional intelligence are more important to sales than what methodology you follow or how good your knowledge of widgets is.
My hope is that this Steemit blog will be informative, inspiring, funny, and most of all real. Whatever business you are in, and at whatever level of the organization, remember that nothing happens in business until somebody sells something. You, the seller, are the most important part of any business, and I feel that as you grow, so will your sales.
I look forward to reading your comments and personal posts! I'm a bit of an empath so if you get something out of my posts let me know! I love the rush of putting fuel other peoples tanks so they can burn all the brighter! Lets follow each other, learn a few things, and hey... maybe even get a little closer to retirement together!
Cheers,
Stanimal The Sales Guy!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/standley-hooper-208b9323/