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Early in my career, I took a quiz meant to determine how suitable a person was to be an entrepreneur. A high score indicated that one’s personality and interests were aligned with a life of entrepreneurship. A score close to zero was neutral, indicating neither a proclivity nor an aversion to being an entrepreneur. I scored deep in negative territory. I determined at that point to always be a salaryman, a path that worked out well for me.
Some people fall into traps, wanting to be their own boss and fooling themselves that they have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. About thirty years ago, I went through a period where I thought I had a target on my back. A certain well-known multi-level marketing scheme was popular at that time. In the course of a year, I had at least five different people approach me with their spiel. It was always the same: they built me up, saying they noticed I was a sharp guy and that they were impressed at how well I handled myself. The implication was that such an astute person would be able to recognize a great opportunity. Only after this flattering preamble would they get to the point of the phone call, in which they carefully avoided saying the name of their organization.
A brother of one of my friends called and asked wouldn’t it be great to make more money so I could do whatever I wanted. I responded that I was happy with my income and didn’t need or want any more. That conversation ended quickly. Another guy randomly struck up a conversation with me in a bookstore at the local mall. We chatted a bit and he found out my name and where I worked. A week or so later, he cold-called me with his pitch. I politely declined.
Six months or so later, this same fellow struck up a conversation with me in the mall again, completely oblivious that he had hit on me before. He was shocked when I called him by name. Darned if he didn’t phone me again with his sales pitch, as if he had never done so before. My response: “Look Fernando, I wasn’t interested the first time you called me about this and I’m not interested now.” Once again, he was flummoxed.
I’ve known people who gave up secure, well-paying jobs to follow their dreams. In some cases, their new path became a gateway to success far beyond what they would have achieved working for a large company. In other cases, it resulted in disappointment and a huge step backwards. There are those who doggedly persevere through decades of lean times, because being their own boss is so important to them.
It’s good to know oneself. There’s certainly no shame in not having entrepreneurial skills and living your life accordingly. On the other hand, if you truly have the drive and internal qualities that are conducive to success as an entrepreneur, you may owe it to yourself to give it a whirl.
Got cleverly tricked into listening to the #1 MLM scheme more than once in this order.
You’re the best salesman I’ve ever seen! I was in my twenties and agreed. Cost me at least an hour before I asked, “Who’s selling all the products?”
Invite to dinner. How nice, until the large flip sheets came out.
Admire the way you work! Flattered. As a retired Pharmacist, it was easy for folks to watch me work (and of course I thought I was good:). So when “offered” a job making “much more than you make now”, I bit. The next day he showed up when I got off and we sat down in our back room with his large notebook full of pictures and charts. (No pyramids, just circles). Second page in, I realized I’d been had. He wouldn’t leave until I threatened him with trespassing.
Sounds familiar. Fortunately, I never got sucked into the dinner-with-strings-attached scenario or got subjected to a flip chart torture session.
I enjoyed your article and reading every comment. My story may be relevant or not.
I studied engineering in college. I found it to be very hard, and I’m sure I was ranked last in my class. I think I learned some stuff and even tried working as an engineer in the great military industrial complex. I lasted just 18 months. I learned I did not want to sit at a desk.
My dad owned a small cash register business. In those days he competed against NCR which had a monopoly on the industry. He made a decent living and had a good reputation for sales and service.
He offered me a job even though we rarely saw eye-to-eye during my teenage years. He said that first I had to learn to sell. After that I could do anything I wanted in the company. My brother joined us 4 years later because he didn’t get into the law school of his choosing. He also announced on his first day that he would do anything BUT sell.
After 12 years of selling, my brother and I bought the company and building from our parents. As partners we had the classic inside and outside responsibilities. Only he now did sales and I was responsible for everything else.
After working for 30 years, we sold our dad’s 62 year old company with several offices in two states and 140 employees to our manufacturer. At the time we were their largest distributor in North America.
I was just 54 at the time. My reason for selling is I wanted to do something different and to see if I could be successful without my dad’s help. I found out that I had skills which could applied to many different types of businesses. It was my dad who taught me those skills. My time with him was far more beneficial than my Cornell engineering degree and my MBA from GWU.
Here’s what I believe today. Owning your own business is the best. Family business can be the best or the worse. Ours was mighty good. And the second best job is doing professional sales for a company with great products and the best reputation for top notch service.
Today, I pass my passion for professional consultive sales onto my two oldest grandsons. We meet often, sometimes weekly, over breakfast to review their successes and failures. I’m just passing on my father’s lessons. With 9 grandchildren, I wonder who will be next sales pro.
I make it clear they must learn from other sales pros as well. Fortunately, my friends with successful sales careers are happy to share their wisdom with them as well. We all had mentors in our early days. It’s our responsibility to pass along what we learned.
I think you’ve outlined a blueprint for enhancing the skill set of just about any profession or skilled job I can think of. Particularly true (but not exclusively so) to professions requiring people skills. Good topic for an article.
Thanks Richard, and thanks for sharing your story. You definitely had a big advantage being mentored by your dad and not having to create the family business from scratch. Being a business owner turned out to be well-suited to your interests and abilities, and now you get to enjoy the experience of being a mentor. Sounds like a pretty nice ride.
I became GM of a large IT consulting and services group. We were very independent of our corporation, doing our own hiring, firing, finding business and servicing the business. I enjoyed that most days. I left because the CEO insisted on meddling in our business to our and his detriment. That was extremely frustrating, and I finally had enough.
I never started my own business because I always made enough and liked my jobs. No regrets, but I think I would have done well if I had tried.
My first minimum wage job as a teenager was as a recruiter for a non-profit. Our crew sat around banks of phones and dialed residents, street by street. We had a quota to stay employed: each hour, find at least two residents willing to walk their neighborhoods raising money for the non-profit. If I had fully embraced the mission and the work, meeting the quota would have been easier. Nonetheless, I lasted full-time through the summer and got to know a very diverse set of co-workers. Disturbing people in their homes, though, especially the elderly, was difficult. The experience dissuaded me from venturing into retail, and to this day phones are my least favorite mode of communication.
Thanks Ken. I did business development for a few years late in my career and I hated the “selling” part of it. Having tech discussions with customers, especially NASA, was fun. After the first year or two I got teamed with a true BD / wheeler-dealer. We made a decent team and started to have some success. The key was we recognized each other’s strengths and worked well together.
I am well aware that if I had to support myself by selling things I would starve. On the other hand, I have a friend who has made a success of selling for Mary Kay. But she is an extreme extrovert and I’m an extreme introvert.
Those silly MLMs, who hasn’t been a target of those annoying pitches.
What I have learned about myself is that I was a good employee, a crappy salesperson, but very good at customer service. I always wanted to be self-employed but never took the plunge until arthritis forced me from my physical occupation. That latter ability contributed greatly to the success of my business. It took me into my 50s to know myself well enough to make things work.