1 August 2006

What Do You Do When Hollywood Doesn't Call?

[546 words]

�Why are you here today?� I asked my delegates at a recent training I held. Nearly a quarter said, �To get our CPD point and it�s a day out of the office.� Knowing that I was way at the bottom of their expectation totem pole certainly didn�t do my ego much good. Not quite the winning attitude I expected. It�s almost like they were just doing their time. It seemed that they had reached a point where it was just too much effort to make the weight limit for their next boxing match.

Maybe I�m just reading too much into it. As Freud said, �Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.� And a CPD point is just a CPD point.

Nonetheless, it got me thinking.

When does one realise that one is just doing time in one�s career � a short-order cook dishing out cholesterol day after day to people who don�t even know you exist? My take on it is that if you are forced to so what you�re supposed to love then it�s time to take stock. If you just don�t feel like making the weight anymore, maybe it�s time for that career change.

I�ve met many a sales person who, like an actress-in-waiting, is only doing her time as a waitress at a diner waiting for her big break in Hollywood. They do the bare minimum because to them their sales career is just a rehearsal for better things to come. Good luck down the rabbit hole, Alice.

How do you know you�re just doing your time? How do you know when your career is as passionless as magistrates office wedding?

You�ll know.

You�ll know when you wake up at two in the morning feeling as if you�ve had seven midlife crises in the space of a nanosecond. You�ll know when that tingling in your stomach (like chalk across a board) at the thought of making a sale, stops. You�ll know when you stop punching your fist in the air and shout �yes, I'm king of the world� whenever you clinch a deal. You�ll know when you stop begging your boss to send you on courses to improve yourself. You�ll know when you stop hunting. You�ll know when you don�t actively seek out ways to improve your sales skills � like reading, for instance. You�ll know when you don�t recognise names like Girard, Hopkins, Tracey, Robbins, Ziglar, Godin and Peters.

So what do you do when you realise that you�re still a waitress and Hollywood ain�t never going to come a calling? I�ve found that one way to cure a career that is staler than a piece of bread at a carnivore convention, is to learn more (about your career). If your career has stalled, take a renewed interest in your craft. Go back to basics. Blow the dust off your old sales books and honeymoon with them once again. Then put into practice what you have learned. Get all tingly every time you put something you�ve read into the fray and make a sale. Strive to be #1 again. For goodness sake, if that guy wearing the Bugs Bunny tie can be the #1 sales person in your organisation, you sure as hell can.

Reinvent yourself within your own career and watch that passion translate into serious success.