Excerpt and Launch for THE SHOW MUST GO ON

The Show Must Go On, AVAILABLE NOW! serves as the comprehensive follow-up to Salesman on Fire : an extensive guide on sales strategies, personal development, and leadership.

It provides insights into building a successful sales career, overcoming obstacles, and achieving personal and professional growth en route to the story of how LinkedIn, AI and a Moneyball approach to sales has generated over $1B in revenue.

Carson V. Heady discusses the significance of personal branding and how it can differentiate a salesperson in a competitive market, the role of a leader in fostering a collaborative and empowering environment for team members, strategies for dealing with setbacks and failures, and methods for effective prospecting, including leveraging social media, AI and personalized messaging to connect with potential clients.

Pick up your copy of THE SHOW MUST GO ON here:

FOREWORD

?

A close friend’s tragic death in a car accident was the catalyst prompting me to take a “seize the day” approach in 2015 and finally tie the knot with my daughter’s mom who I loved madly but could never seem to get it right with.

?

Getting unjustifiably fired sent me into a tailspin that resulted in me seeking justice, redemption and a comeback. While it took over 3 years to get any closure and years more chasing what I felt my prior status was, I finally far surpassed what I once assumed was my peak.

?

My greatest career wins happened after I was told no, or that I couldn’t do it, that I shouldn’t bother, or it would never happen.

?

Getting put on a performance plan with one foot out the door by a manager trying to take me out of a role I was doing well in prompted me to become a student of sales and made me obsessed with mastering the game – I won every award possible, reached sales accolades I could have never dreamed of and was promoted 4 more times.

?

But it certainly has been no bed of roses.

?

Family tragedies and the constant ups and downs of life have led me to depression and the brink of survival, while still being a husband, a Dad, a business executive with a demanding schedule and a frequent podcast host and hardly anyone ever saw me bleed.

?

Some days, it is practically impossible to will yourself out of bed, to the gym, or your laptop, much less bringing a high energy, exuberant version of yourself to every conference call, every team meeting, every dinner table or podcast episode. I’ve been relayed crippling or shocking news only to have to jump right into the next call or action, shutting off all emotion or reaction so I can survive.

?

Many a morning, after just a few hours of sleep, I pushed myself through a workout before anyone else in the house arose and stared at my grizzled face in the mirror after a shower wondering how on earth I was going to put on my mask and charade yet again while being so physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted and empty.

?

And paying dues never ends. The second you stand still or fail to deliver, your pedestal – deserved or not – loses its shine, height and stature. Right?

?

We are rarely doing exactly what we think we could or should be doing – “living our dream.” Those who are know what it took to get there and you can never get back that innocence or version of yourself. While it’s great to reflect on the milestones you have mastered, survived and learned from, everything you want and everything worth having takes its toll and pound of flesh.

?

We could change the world, but we’ll still be asked to do menial tasks or muddle through days upon days that are the same, are mundane, are not challenging enough. This plague does not discriminate against anyone, no matter how blessed and fortunate they are or they appear to be on their social feed.

?

What I’ve learned over the years, especially when you are doing everything you can to live a life you’re proud of, that your parents are proud of, that your wife and kids are proud of, and that can serve and help others is that no matter what happens, the show must go on.

?

?

How I Became an Accidental Salesman

?

In college, I was ashamed to not arrive at a major until I was a junior. Because I had taken enough courses to be closest to a business management degree without going to a fifth year, I declared that to be my major. But I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sometimes, I still don’t.

?

I’m just a small-town guy from the Midwest United States. My first job was working 6 years at a community grocery store and I moved away to the big city when my girlfriend got a volleyball scholarship to play in college there and one of my best friends was moving back there. It seemed like the thing for me to do.

?

My parents had pressured me – rightfully so – to zero in on what I wanted to do with my life, and I had no idea. At first, I actually transferred within that grocery store chain so I would have a job when I relocated.

?

My mom suggested I talk to my best friend’s aunt who worked for a prominent company as a Director. I did, and she got me an interview a few weeks after I got settled. The grocery store had lied to me about what my role would be in this new store, so I was desperate to get out and what I thought was going to be a customer service phone job paying significantly more money sounded positive.

?

In training, I found out pretty quickly that this was an inbound sales job, requiring me to field up to 100 calls per day from business customers and upsell them on all of our offerings. Before training concluded, we had to begin again as the entire call center shifted to handling residential calls – people calling often complaining about why their bill was so high while we had to follow a robust call flow and offer multiple service packages and solutions amidst their tirades.

?

The role was so intense that out of 12 trainees, 2 graduated. The rest either quit or – if they were internal transfers – exercised retreat rights to go back to their last job they had left to come here.

?

Sales was not on my radar. Talking to the other call center employees, they were quick to point out everything wrong and flawed with the managers, the company, the call flow, processes, the pay plan.

?

Mid-way through training, I lamented to my parents and even my friend’s aunt that I was not cut out for this. I hated it. I feared failure. It was extremely uncomfortable.

?

Our trainers did not mince words: “For some of you, this isn’t the right role for you, and that’s OK,” but they always seemed optimistic about me. I took that little level of encouragement and the fact I really had no place left to go but the grocery store and I just stuck it out.

?

Morale was low in the center and I had no idea what I was doing, but I do vividly remember on that one spring day on that one particular call, closing my eyes and quoting a script and the silence that seemed like eternity until my first sale.

?

Surrounded by colleagues who were always in my ear about everything that was wrong and why they didn’t give their all, I chose to do my best. It lit a fire in the center. I was making post-call treks to the sales board more than anyone else, and it caught a lot of attention. The new guy was very quickly the #1 rep in the office.

?

Surely I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be, many of them thought. Wrong. I learned quickly that I had an ability to talk swiftly, to address customers’ statements and needs and weave their own words into why I was pitching what I was pitching. Additionally, I learned the game inside the game; that perception matters a great deal. If a customer perceives what you are presenting to be better than their current situation, they’ll make the change.

?

I confidently wove a mix of their own words into leading them down a path that got my company and me paid and often gave them a better overall scenario. They said yes to me more than anyone else.

?

Changing phone packages and long distance packages was one thing, but I knew how to maximize my sales sheet and my managers’ numbers and get us paid. Doing that staves off a lot of grief. Money has a way of making lots of things better, I was told.

?

I didn’t always follow their call flow formula. At first, this resulted in a manager putting me on a call flow performance plan but after my sales results plummeted in a day of following their script to a tee, it was removed. I was greenlit. And that was all I needed.

?

Then, there was the taste of money I had never seen before. I went from a maximum of $21K in a year at the grocery store to my first $75K+ year and beyond. More and more every year.

?

In a call center, you find yourself grandstanding from time to time – standing and pointing at neighbors and trying to goad them into competing with you. I elevated everyone around me and won President’s Club every quarter I was ever eligible to in the 8 ? years I spent at that company.

?

If a number was next to my name on a report, it was going to be indicative of my best. Always. No matter what was going on around me or in my life, no matter how hard it was, no matter what changed around me or whatever relationship problems I was going through – my goal was always to be the best.

?

God gave me some gifts – namely, I could talk fast and type fast, and I could think quickly on my feet – listening, assessing a situation and uncovering any opportunity that may exist. Then, I would seize it. It didn’t matter if it was a tiny long distance plan change or a $3.95 feature add, I would literally fill my sales sheet every single day and sometimes need more than one while most reps would eke out enough sales to count on one hand.

?

I still hold records for the biggest days in that call center’s history.

?

Winning a dozen things a week like televisions and gift cards with which to outfit my small apartment and being the person making the march to add to the sales board never got old.

?

It was like developing a new muscle. Pull up the account, make a plan of what was going to be added or switched, addressing the customers’ concerns, articulating my new proposal in a way that made sense to them and sounded better, making the changes, and marching to the sales board capturing the attention of everyone around me over and over again. My managers would typically root me on and brag to their peers because I would beat other teams all by myself every day.

?

Being the top rep meant certificates, commissions, contest winnings and annual trips.

?

I met a lot of people and we had fun. You find yourself making fun of the silly calls and things around the office that you couldn’t change.

?

I paid the first in a never-ending cycle of dues and was a salesman. I am a salesman.

?

????????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????? *

On the series finale of Cheers, one of my favorite shows of all time, bartender playboy Sam Malone (a hero of mine in my misguided youth) says, “I’ll tell you – I’m the luckiest son of a $#@! alive,” after realizing he has everything he has ever wanted and has his true love – his fabled bar. Many times, I feel that way about my own life. Anybody who says you can’t have it all is wrong. You can, but it isn’t easy and it certainly won’t always be a joyous ride.

?

The best thing that ever happened to me – what finally made me into a better person – was becoming a Dad.

?

Before that, I allowed myself to be seduced by my career trajectory and rising paychecks. I believed these people truly loved me as they said they did. I stood up every morning to deliver rousing sales speeches to hundreds of sales reps to the tune of standing ovations and I thought I was bulletproof and invincible.

?

Being a Dad made me more patient and selfless.

?

Getting unjustifiably fired took me to hell.

?

Everything it took to make a comeback, to go out and get what was missing in my life, to stop running from commitment, to return to my faith and to embrace what about me could best serve others is what led me here.

?

In short, it’s all a journey. We have the benefit of connecting the dots backwards, but we cannot connect them forward – it’s impossible to predict in our lowest moments that someday we will feel like the champions of the world. It’s also not a summit you can stay on; as salespeople and as people, we will have to adapt, adjust, pivot and persevere through challenges we can never fully foresee.

?

I’ve lost family and friends; to death, distance and time. Life is full of breakups and miscommunications in your personal life and naysayers and haters in your career – especially if you win at all costs. I’ve had the rules changed specifically to keep me from being #1. Twice. And it failed both times. I’ve had jobs literally created for me that were given to someone else. I’ve been lied to, cheated on, stolen from, defamed, insulted, counted out, abandoned, laid off, taken advantage of, taken for granted, worked like a dog, taken out for standing up for what’s right and gone through custody fights and countless nasty potshots from those who hate me.

?

Growing up, I was immersed in classic rock and Queen’s iconic hits were a significant part of my musical upbringing. I had their greatest hits with the purple cover on cassette and remember playing video games listening to it. I remember going to my hometown college basketball games and hearing “We are the Champions” when we would win tournaments, and that is still to this day one of my favorite songs.

?

More recently, the show Cobra Kai featured, “I Want it All” in the season 1 finale and Ted Lasso played “Tear it Up.” The biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was an excellent, emotional masterpiece.

?

In March 2020, our world faced the coronavirus pandemic and it turned much of the globe on its head. As we were staying at home and the future was uncertain, days blended into the next and looked the same. Sometimes, it was quite challenging to make the daily trek from the bed to the laptop for back-to-back-to-back virtual calls for 10 hours per day.

?

In addition to that, when you lead a number of significant, 8- and 9-figure sales deal pursuits, you will come across a myriad of different types of negotiators. Some wish to be relatively cordial while others are true partners in negotiation – I’ve been fortunate to earn my fair share of those. However, in a long sales career, you will also come across your fair share of folks who want to stick it to you, rake you over the coals, ostracize you or keep you at arm’s length only to try to squeeze every discount dollar out of you they can while insulting you, escalating over your head and making the experience excruciating. It does them no favors in the grand scheme, but they get some sort of pleasure from being rude, antagonistic keyboard warriors or taking cheap shots while not on camera.

?

It was the period from 2020 to 2021 that I found myself in a position to be creating and negotiating a number of high profile enterprise deals. A good position to be in, no doubt, but as a guy who has worked hard to build a reputation, has worked hard to overcome adversity and a guy who has a lot riding on him between expectations, a growing family and an emerging public persona, these occurrences are like brutal knockdown blows in a boxing ring on a daily basis.

?

I can psych myself into a frenzy with a morning workout and pot or more of coffee only to be obliterated after a day of soul-sucking back-to-back calls where I meet roadblocks and catastrophe at every turn. People look to me to have the answers, to never show surprise and never lose my cool. Hardly anyone has ever seen me bleed, but I bleed all over the place when no one is looking.

?

During this time, “The Show Must Go On” became the anthem that guided me through these unprecedented and unpredictable times.

?

I would listen to it while lifting weights, blare it while I was in the shower and often listen to it before I had to go back into the arena to haggle with procurement and get insulted on a virtual call. Willing myself back into action time and time again, I felt like James Bond in Skyfall where he’s questioning his ability to continue to put himself through this sometimes thankless work over and over again.

?

The lyrics, especially the lines "Inside my heart is breaking, my makeup may be flaking, but my smile still stays on," resonated deeply with me as I would conjure up a character every day who had boundless energy and could do anything, and that nothing or no one could stop. This character could do anything and everything in his job without missing a beat and there was no obstacle that could stop him. But inside, his soul was eroding, crumbling and finally collapsing.

?

The daily routine of navigating work-life balance, the blurred lines between personal and professional spaces, and the constant juggling act became particularly daunting. The song served as a powerful reminder that, despite the hardships, doubt and physically and mentally running on fumes, I had to bring that character back to face another round.

?

There were mornings or moments before challenging calls when I would listen to this song. The symbolism of being on a stage, facing an audience, and delivering a performance became a metaphor for facing the day's challenges. Making the metaphorical commute from bed to desk wasn't always easy, but Freddie Mercury's words inspired resilience and determination.

?

"The show must go on" became my battle cry, giving me the strength to get back in the ring, face the spotlight and perform once more. When I would close my eyes and listen to it, I felt like Superman bathing himself in sunlight to regain his strength, ready to go back into the fray. I had no idea I would lean on it so much and that things would actually only get more difficult.

Want to read more? Pick up your copy of THE SHOW MUST GO ON here: