Sales book inside business conspiracy novel "Birth of a Salesman" re-released - FIRST 2 CHAPTERS FREE HERE!

The last few months, I have used what little spare time I have re-editing and re-writing my first book, sales book inside business conspiracy novel "Birth of a Salesman." Originally published in 2010 by a publisher in NYC, I have learned in the years since that I knew relatively nothing about sales back then and it desperately needed an update. Penned during a very challenging time in my past, reading it conjured up a lot of memories but I am very proud of the finished product. Thank you for your support!

BIRTH OF A SALESMAN 

Carson V. Heady

 ? 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017 Carson V. Heady

Copyright notice: All work contained within is the sole copyright of its author, 2010, and may not be reproduced without consent.

 “If you have an area of excellence, you’re the best at something, anything, then rich can be arranged. Rich can come fairly easily.” —Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felsen in The Color of Money

 “Always set your goals higher than you believe you can reach. That way, when you barely fall short, you’re still better than you ever imagined.” —Vincent Thomas Scott III, author The Selling Game

This book is a work of fiction and any similarities between real groups, corporations or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

“The Selling Game” by Vincent Scott

THE ART OF CONFIDENCE

  You will find, if you haven’t already, that many techniques can lead to success in sales. My objective is to open your eyes to things you may have never considered to make your path an easier one to forge. But all the books, the scripts, the coaching and counseling in the world mean nothing if you do not begin by believing in yourself.

The day will never arrive where you are no longer called upon to sell something to someone. It can be selling yourself in a job interview, selling your spouse on where to have dinner or selling your child on why to use the potty rather than their diaper. Sales operates in both tangible and intangible variables. The fortunate ones get well rewarded for being good at the skill. The game itself is about probability; a science and a psychology and, if mastered, it can make all the difference in your world and the worlds of others.

Keep a log of what you attempt daily: the challenges, choices, experiences and disappointments. You cannot advance if you do not learn from these things. Stay grounded in where you came from.

Mistakes have to occur for any kind of growth. Repeating mistakes will lead to continued failure, but modifying your approach to sales or, anything for that matter, and finding the best process possible is what will lead to positive consistency. 

Positive consistency is an integral contributor to success. I believe that quest for success is why you’re here.

Sales, like poker or even paper, rock, scissors, is nothing more or less than playing the person across from you. The nice thing is that if you do it right, everyone wins.

It is not about reciting every benefit you can think of and crossing your fingers that the listener will eventually break down and say yes. It is sometimes a psychological tug-of-war where you do your best to put yourself in your customer’s shoes to realize and utilize what they need to hear before they make the decision to buy. It is getting in their good graces, lowering their defenses so you can determine what they need to see before purchase. 

Far too often I have heard sales reps showcase their knowledge of various products and services their company offers in hopes the customer will eventually hear something they latch onto and just jump up and down and beg to be sold to. This is not going to happen. 

Rather, your mission is to use intelligent questions to uncover a weakness in your customer’s current strategy of lack thereof, ascertain if and why they need your solution and show them why making that choice is better than what they do now.

 You have to drill that point home until they make the decision to change. Sometimes you have to find multiple unique ways to explain your findings and the reasoning why change is important. And if they don’t, after you have given them everything you have, know when to pack up and move on to another opportunity with higher probability.

People are a lot of things, but they are typically (1) afraid of change and (2) absolutely not going to be bullied into it. You have to make the fear of not changing outweigh the fear of change. You have to hammer home the weaknesses s or undesirable outcome you want them to avoid so they will make the decision to change. You cannot make up their mind for them. You can, however, make them fear the parade passing them by and that they are missing out on something groundbreaking. You can show them their competitors that are thriving off what you have to offer. You can cater to their desire for success and their will to win.

Your chance at success all starts with attitude and confidence. The most important part of becoming someone who can infiltrate the customer’s needs and weaknesses is having the mindset that enables you to barrel through any obstacles that present themselves. We hear all the time that sales is a numbers’ game; you’ll need fearlessness and tenacity to take the losses and do the things necessary to raise your odds.

 This does not only take into account the many obstacles your customers throw at you; it can encompass morning traffic, a flat tire, spilling your morning coffee all over yourself or being saddled with a manager that has no business being in the business. Obstacles will be everywhere, but you cannot be deterred. You have to rise above every one of them and give every call, interaction, and day your best regardless of what’s past.   

If you have a set mission, a clear-cut initiative and a drive to achieve that objective by any ethical means necessary, there is nothing that can stop you. You will fall, you will hear “no” frequently, but these temporary setbacks will start to roll off your back. I liken this evolution of a salesperson to the movie The Matrix. 

Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, started as an average Joe with no belief in what he was being told by newfound friends: that he was “the one” referenced in a prophecy. However, he latched on with people trying to show him his capabilities and as time went by, he became so ahead of the curve he was able to dodge bullets, outsmart digital agents, and do things mere mortals could only dream about. 

You can reach that level of excellence in your career as well. Repetition of a heightened sales strategy, a perfectly laid out call flow (not necessarily a script, but hitting all necessary components in an overly effective manner) and strong belief in yourself will lead to a high level of achievement.  It all comes down to statistics and probabilities, and by performing in this manner you give yourself the best chance of winning.

If you are in sales, someone at some point saw enough potential in you to appoint you to that post. Personally, past sales experience means zilch to me when I interview candidates – in fact, it can be a liability if it was bad experience. As a hiring manager, finding the personality is my goal. 

People are more likely to buy from those they take a liking to or respect. The fact you sold furniture for thirty years does not mean you can convince someone to change their way of life or business. Character, charisma, wit, and charm do.

Certainly no two people approach facets of life identically and sales is no different. Much of sales mastery boils down to choice and timing of words.

Saying, “We have this XYZ program that would be great for you. It does this and this and this and this…” will not work – or, at least, it has a very small probability of doing so. Nevertheless, I’ve heard this approach thousands of times. The methodology of just throwing out words and hoping for a yes is one of desperation and shows lack of confidence and strategy.

Read this: “Thank you for the information. Based on what you told me (cite specifics), you clearly are very serious about your business and I applaud you for having thought this through so thoroughly. That said, I have a solution that will free up your time so you can delve more into the business and remedy the factors in your current strategy that put you in a position of weakness. By making this proposed change, we’ve established the return on investment you make and you will be in a position of strength.”

That statement achieves several things. Clearly, information about the business was obtained – you’ve acknowledged it and recited their own words. The customer’s ego was stroked – something everyone likes. A benefit was immediately given, but not just any benefit – one specific to the conversation and scenario. 

Most salespeople quote random benefits in hopes the customer will take a liking to one. They sometimes get lucky that a customer asks about one of them, giving them a chance to embellish, but it’s just that: luck of the draw. 

The skilled salesperson finds distinct, fact-based benefits that are used to purposely entice the customer to think the way that you want them to think. The power of the words used is vital: no customer wants to gamble with their business or personal property. They do not want to be in a position of weakness. As illustrated in the example, you must shift the statement to a positive one as quickly as possible and look into the optimistic future from the view of your crystal ball.

To delve into your customer’s psyche is one thing; to keep your wealth of knowledge on reserve until you need it is another.

The customer is on a need-to-know basis. They need only know what you have that will cure their weakness and how that treatment will benefit them. Period. If you want someone to be impressed by everything you know, tell your boss or significant other. Stick to specific basics with the customer. 

Do not over-complicate sales. You get in, introduce yourself, state your purpose, and go into fact-finding to find weakness in their current strategy before they have an opportunity to shut you down. Finding the unique ways to do it so you succeed where others have failed with this customer gives you the advantage.

In the early going you are merely on a quest for answers. Do not get over-eager and blow your cover by aborting your mission and trying to “pitch” too soon. Get people talking about themselves and their business, for they have a tendency to open up about their favorite topics. Be human. Relate to them. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell financial services, advertising, insurance, pharmaceuticals,  equipment, health needs, appliances or even time shares – be personable, be nimble yet effective, and get your target talking about their situation. It’s near and dear to their heart. 

Find needs and weaknesses and, all the while, drop little bombs of these glaring gaps in their current process that plant the seed for what you are going to do later.  Much of the selling game is generating emotion in customers, enticing them with your solutions and showing them the power of the possibilities. Once you have the facts, recommend what is going to fix their problem, show them how it fixes the problem, and gauge where they are in the decision process. Many salespeople make the mistake of spending too much time recommending and asking questions again after they recommend. You are on a destination from point A to Z and the line is a lot straighter than most people make it.

How you handle the setbacks defines you as a (sales)person. Losing, however, is temporary. Maintaining consistency in your approach and staying true to your values is what will lead to what you deem as success. Act like you have the world by the balls. No one will know any better.

Consistency is the result of consistent process. Too much hesitation is an enemy. “If you think, you’re dead.” – Top Gun. Sometimes you just have to stop over-thinking and dial. Speak. Fall back on what you know needs to be done or said. Take the flying cannonball into the deep end of the swimming pool. Sales is a game of chance, too, and risk is part of that game; sometimes you have to be willing to try many different techniques and approaches to evolve into the salesperson you can be.

I’ll let you in on a secret: sometimes being confident is an act. It’s being fearful of next steps but plunging into them anyway; without complaining, without turning back. It’s your response to unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations.

Even in times of strife, you cannot shed your cape and armor or let others in your profession see you react out of frustration. You are a noble knight of the selling game. Your enemies are sales blockers and objections and the only way to drive down those barriers are with your decision to be tenacious, be charismatic, be charming and follow the steps you know must be followed. Sales excellence is not about excellent sales; it’s about perseverance and evolution and determination and focus in areas that are both strengths and weaknesses.

Throughout a sales presentation, many customers will show their trepidation. They will throw up obstacles here and there and it is up to you to acknowledge them, politely but assertively put those objections in their proper place based on your knowledge of product and industry and move forward to your next agenda item. Every single time.

Much of confidence in the face of customer objections is anticipation. Your experience in sales is invaluable, and you use it to fashion your approach in all facets of the sales call and cycle. You may have no idea what a customer’s reaction to something is going to be until you try it, but it’s your willingness to be unique that will garner unique results.

It’s a pinball game: you must be ready at a moment’s notice to process new information and answers from them, respond appropriately and move forward. Sometimes the ball uncontrollably goes down the chute, but your next turn may be better. You learn which nooks and crannies to send the ball to for the most points. Through our experiences with customers, we see what elicits desired responses. We can add and subtract lines from our arsenal whenever we choose.

The reason someone like me is qualified to speak about sales or about life is because I have fallen down – many times. I have made numerous mistakes and have seen countless choices result in uncontrollable loss, but have learned a great deal from every single one of them. And I got up from the losses. That’s where a lot of people stop – to their detriment. There is no loss in this world that you cannot come back from. It may not be the comeback you envision, but you can always apply your strengths somewhere and find success.

We’ve all been there. We work hard but, for whatever reason, are looking for a different approach to selling ourselves or our goods. Some of us sell cookies, others sell nations on electing them to govern. We all make mistakes.

Some sales positions are very rewarding and enjoyable; some tie us to a product with little value or differentiation from competition. Some managers are willing to wade through the murk with you and do everything they can to support you; others have no integrity nor do they have qualms about sending you in to be unethical, but would cut you loose to save themselves. The sales world mirrors the real world: be able to look in the mirror and know you’ve done your best (just don’t look too long!)

It is extremely important to be able to look back on everything you’ve done and see progress; to know you did everything you could on that call, or that day, week, month, year… Be it a solitary sales call, a presentation, a job interview or even ten years of your life, be your best, then stand tall with no regret and keep moving forward.  

Both confidence and the appearance of confidence come from acceptance: of strengths, of areas you want to improve and of what you can and cannot control. I was terrified of speech class in college and went on to stand in front of hundreds of sales reps every morning giving motivational rallies. I’ve sat in presentations where team members talked about intricacies of my product that I knew absolutely nothing about, feeling uncomfortable, but knowing my place on the team and what I was there to contribute – and I contributed that piece well. Customers and employees do not expect you to know or do everything; add value, subtract problems, be supportive, be responsive, be real.

I’ve interviewed hundreds of people over the years and watched their sales careers and varying degrees of confidence. It is in the interview where salespeople are their most self-assured. They are talking about themselves; they are selling what they know. Their response to training and being shot down by customers make some timid. It’s what happens next that determines the path they are on: do they retreat? Or do they shed the cocoon and emerge better for the growth and learning, ready to embrace what’s ahead?

I’ve seen sales reps be two completely different personas: the confident “I can do anything” person in the interview and the hollowed out, defeated pessimist after they allow obstacles to beat them.

A big part of confidence maintenance is consistently grounding yourself in reality. Checking yourself and entering each call, day and week as the best version of yourself doing what you know you need to do to win regardless of the past.

Meeting expectations is the result of the decision to follow the right processes no matter what’s thrown at you. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last to make goal, but if you want to survive and thrive, you’ll find out what the best are doing and you’ll add it to your arsenal. Nothing others do or don’t do can stop you from fulfilling what you set out to accomplish. Shamelessly stealing winning concepts from others that are ahead of you in an area is brilliant; finding your personal way of doing it better is more so. 

To watch someone become a closer – to realize they can turn on this different side of themselves to get people to make the choice they want them to make – is incredible.

Staying there is just as delicate and important; wavering of confidence or deviation from the method that took them to the top can send them into an inexplicable (to them) slump. Baseball players cannot drastically alter a batting stance to get out of a slump, nor can golfers change their swing. We spend much of our time trying to recapture the process that brought us past success.

Stay the course; fight through it. Confidence may dip during these lulls but it will be stronger after you weather the storm. Force yourself to do what you know needs to be done in each interaction. The odds are highest that if you follow the right process and do not let desperation suck you into shortcuts that winning times will return.

Those who take longer to ramp up into that confident closer are more long-lasting than those who emerged from the gates at full speed – because they have more built up experience and learning. The latter horses tire and once they lose that initial momentum, they often find themselves lost and unable to recapture the magic that surrounded their first sprint. The former have made a steady ascent, know what it took to get there and it’s easier for them to replicate it because they’ve spent more time perfecting their pitch.

Confidence will lead troops into a battle they never thought about fighting, leaders into making difficult decisions, and inspires us every day people to make changes in our lives so we can improve. Confidence changes everything – it can overcome fear and blossom hope.

Like anything, balance is crucial; there are numerous offshoots of confidence you want to avoid: Arrogance. Narcissism. Vanity. Self-absorption. Conceit. Those words can turn a warm character profile cold. 

Present yourself standing proud on your strengths but accepting of areas you want to improve, open to learn and be a contributing, valuable part of a team. Realize how much you actually do have control over, accept what you do not, and work to increase your odds by pouring focus into the controllables. Factors will always exist that could erode your progress and confidence so learn to be proactive to diminish their effect rather than reactive, causing your own descent.

Only a handful of people claw their way to top spots in any area; they are the ones left standing. It’s survival of the fittest at its finest. They didn’t let the numerous setbacks stop them from success.

Negativity can only take over if you let it. Acknowledge its presence and the reasons for it, address it, and move forward.

Getting anyone to make the decision you want them to, whether it’s closing sales or asking someone on a date, requires confidence above the fear of negative repercussion. You will not hear “yes” every time, but you won’t even get to “yes” if you are so afraid of “no” that you don’t go out and play the game.

Don’t get too sidetracked by setback and emotion. Moping and complaining about what’s unfair or that you did not get what you feel you deserve accomplishes nothing good and can actually set you back farther. Certainly lick your wounds in private; recharge, regroup and get right back out there in your quest.

All greats in the sales game have one thing in common: confidence. They can approach the relationships and the processes and setbacks differently, but they are confident that they can overcome all. They are this confident because in times that challenged their confidence, they persevered and learned and grew and emerged better for it. Perspective is key.

Be it in the product they sell, the words that come out of their mouths, their timing and enunciation, their company or especially themselves – confidence reigns. It is in the ability to get someone to pay attention to something they had no inclination to pay attention to. It is the ability to put something in the language of the beholder so the decision to change becomes a no-brainer. It’s not automatically backing down when challenged.

Customers want to feel like they are getting a deal, which makes it an art to package everything together like they’re getting one.

Sales is a mind-set; it is not gimmicks or hidden fees or freebies or being able to talk about random facts until you are blue in the face. It is picking and choosing the right combination of words that gets the job done. Show and earn respect, stay in the fight when met with opposition and know when and how to either keep overcoming objections or walk away from the lost cause. If you anticipate your customers’ moves and use the same tactics to overcome their objections and show (not tell) them how they will make back their investment by tangible or intangible means, you cannot help but be successful the optimal amount of the time.

You handle so many visits or calls in a day you will see what works and what does not. Adapt quickly.  Adaptation and evolution will aid your experience and confidence. Don’t succumb to selling cheaper plans with no value just to get a sale – you’ll have a lot longer way to go to reach the prize. Leave every transaction knowing you left no money on the table, and if you didn’t get the sale the reason why.

Confidence is a major factor in the foundation of your success. Getting it, keeping it and growing it will be constant in your march to the top.

 

 

BIRTH OF A SALESMAN

 

Introduction

 

Tuesday, November 30, 2009

 

Light slowly encroaches the darkness enveloping the apartment room. Asleep on the couch, covered in a blanket lay Vincent Thomas Scott III. For that moment, and that moment alone, there was calm.

Emerging from a sea of crayons and a pink hairbrush, the alarm from the cellular phone on the nearby table sounds the James Bond theme, signaling daybreak. Vincent ends the riff with the press of a button, blinks a few times and basks in the silence for a moment. 

He focuses his eyes, looks toward and takes a framed picture of his 2-year old daughter Elizabeth from the table. Vincent smiles before kissing it and tossing aside the blanket.

Aside from several pictures of Elizabeth, movie posters adorn the walls; it is a blatant jab at the existence he was forced to live when Abby called the shots. 

Vincent flips on the bathroom light and looks at his reflection in the mirror. The short blond hair is just slightly out of place; his face covered in the stubble of a few days’ growth. He sees the emotionless stare he has grown accustomed to seeing staring back.

The silenced cell phone already starts vibrating with incoming calls as soon as he nears the shower. These early morning calls are his managers running late, “sick,” hungover, pulled over, “in traffic” (behind a train – that was his favorite). It’s all just another metaphor for “I’m not at work when I’m supposed to be.” 

The water pressure in the shower has never been enough, and the temperature fluctuates every time the faucet or toilet in the apartment above is touched. He hasn’t lodged a complaint.

The drive to work can be tedious through traffic and annoyingly long, but it is where some of the best ideas are born. Any time Vincent is left alone with his thoughts, his mind is aflutter with activity. The combination of music and ignoring most of the calls that keep his phone buzzing all morning are the only other constants.

Today is a critical day. Christmas comes once a year for the rest of the world, but the last day of any month is Vincent’s holiday. Not only that, but his department is caught up in a whirlwind of political chaos that only he can carry them through. 

It has been 8 years, 2 months and 2 weeks since he started working for All Brand Marketing (ABM). In 2000, he graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato, with his degree in business management, bummed around hometown Mankato, Minnesota, for 6 more months with his best college friend Ted and girlfriend Julie. Julie got a volleyball scholarship to play in Minneapolis. Ted was moving his family to his home town Minneapolis. Vincent’s antics of showing up at his parents’ house at 3 AM after a night of partying were getting old for all. Logic dictated that it was time to move out and forward and figure out what to do with his life. 

After a seemingly endless month in the deli of Cooke’s Grocery Store in Minneapolis, the call came: All Brand Marketing. Vincent’s Godmother’s sister-in-law was a director of communications with ABM and friend of the hiring manager, so she got Vincent on the radar. 

Of twelve to be hired into training, two made it out: Elise Barnett and Vincent. They were not coincidentally the only two from “off the street” who could not retreat to intra-company positions from whence they came. Vincent doubted numerous times if this was the job for him.

Upon graduation, Vincent was shocked to learn that 40% of the office’s payroll was on disability for stress leave. The office’s numbers were in the tank and many employees complained or claimed to be looking elsewhere.

He found himself relating to new teammate Jake Stallings, the best male sales performer on the floor. He found himself chasing Bambi Jennings, the top rep on the floor. Rumors always circulated that she was dirty. Whether she was or not, it was the age-old thing: people tear down top reps so they have an excuse for why they cannot beat them. Vincent never bought into the excuses. He just beat them.

He filled sales sheets on days others had two or three sales, making countless trips to the board to tally his numbers. Heads raised, people talked. Managers quickly took notice. A reluctant salesman, Vincent was quickly leading the office in results.

Vincent Scott still vividly recalls his first sale. He was in the fourth row of cubicles from the main entrance to the 2nd floor of their office building. Her name was Mrs. Robinson, from Hereford, Texas. Not having a lot of luck fielding inquiry and complaint calls and awkwardly looking for moments in the call to clumsily insert a forces sales pitch, he found himself having helped a customer and with a genuine insight into a plan she may need. He literally read directly from a script and closed his eyes after finishing. A brief pause was met with, “OK.” And the rest was history.

A month into the gig, Vincent was #1 in the office – ahead of Jake, ahead of Bambi. People would walk by and marvel while he was on the phone or look up every time he made the stroll to the dry erase board to chalk up another sale. Getting that first taste of success and first commission check changed Vincent; he was no longer satisfied with the small time money he made at Cooke’s. 

He would pick up little nuggets he liked from the sales pitches of his cubicle neighbors and incorporate them all into his own.

The change within Vincent continued like an avalanche over the years until it became an unstoppable force and insatiable hunger for more and more. 

It was a month in, however, that Vincent’s assigned and practically absentee manager Ashley Flowers pulled him into her office for his first “coaching session.” She showed him call scores from three “randomly selected calls” out of the thousands he fielded that month and flunked him on offering “per sales strategy.”

The failing score was because he had not offered a $40 per month bill increase to an 80-year old woman and instead had sold a $4 per month wire protection plan to increase her $18-per-month bill. 

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked in disbelief.

“No, Vincent, I’m not,” Ashley said. “This is the job you were hired to do. We have policies and procedures that must be followed.”

“You do realize this customer has never had a service on her account in her life and I sold her the Wire Protection Plan, which is a major coup, right?” Vincent asked, pleading his case. 

“Vincent, you’re good. But the company wants you to offer the Everywhere and Everything Plan to every customer no matter what. Future instances of failing to do so will result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. Do you understand?”

“I comprehend the meaning of the words you are saying,” Vincent said slowly, trying to take it all in. Was this really Corporate America? “But this is ludicrous.”

“I will continue to coach you on how to improve in this area,” Ashley finished before dismissing him. Those last words were a joke.

Looking back, Vincent would struggle to conjure up a memory of any valuable coaching he had gotten in his 8 ? years with ABM. He has learned all of his lessons by doing, making mistakes, being reprimanded and being passed over for promotions in favor of someone not qualified. He had learned more about what not to do from the motley crew assigned to manage him and his peers during his relatively brief career.

Vincent only made the mistake of going to Ashley for advice once. With free trial disks for Internet service showing up daily in mailboxes around the country, Vincent had to sell ABM’s pricey service and was having difficulty reaching the level of performance he expected from himself. It was when he went to Ashley to seek counsel on how to aggressively position this cost-inefficient service that he learned who he was dealing with.

Standing outside her cubicle, Vincent knocked on the framework to announce his presence. She wheeled away from her online shopping for purses and handbags and clicked over to some corporate system before facing him.

“Yes, Vincent?”

“Ashley, these customers are just not biting on our Internet,” Vincent said. “I can’t get past the fact that everybody gets those free offers from Online Solution. They don’t want to pay more for our service.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s tough out there,” Ashley cooed, trying unsuccessfully to sound sympathetic and not continuing with anything constructive. Any attempt to sound softer was also muted by the rasp of her pack-a-day habit.

“Right…” Vincent continued. “Anyhow, what do you recommend?”

“Well, you’re not the first person on the team that asked that.” Her voice then lowered. “I mean, like I told Deb, if you just can’t get past their objections, just send off some disks anyway at the end of the month. That way they won’t be able to charge back in time.”

“What?” Vincent coiled in surprise.

“Come on, Vincent, everybody does it,” Ashley assured him, sounding like your typical high school peer pressure speech. “Just send a few out. It’s no big deal. I’ll cover for you.”

Suddenly, the reason this woman who showed no real sales prowess up until now had been promoted made all the more sense. Fortunately, Vincent was neither willing to cross the ethical line nor na?ve enough to believe she’d help cover for him if he was.

Vincent has also learned over the years that those who go out of their way to tell you they can be trusted are typically the ones who cannot be. 

In this situation, Vincent knew he could not show his shock so he accepted the answer and thanked Ashley for her time. Not then nor ever did he add something to someone’s account unauthorized. The thought of how easy it may be to get away with it from time to time certainly entered his mind at some points while he saw peers do it, but it never happened. 

It was also around that time that Vincent’s speculation began that ABM purposely made its bills so difficult to understand in an attempt to force customers to call in. It made perfect sense; they could have easily put in an addendum in the bill addressing all of the frequently asked questions, cutting out one of the ten needless pages of bill inserts so as to not waste paper. But no, they were banking on customers calling in about their confusing bills so the company could add items to their account with some one-size-fits-all $60 package. 

Vincent had to come to the realization that while what he was doing may or may not have been in the best interests of the customer it was what he was being paid to do. Anything he was being paid to do he was going to do better than everyone else for as long as he was doing it.

Dealing with the public on this scale was extraordinarily rough at times. On the flip side, sitting through ten minutes of computerized prompts while you are on your break at work or you just got home and want to be with your family is enough to turn anyone into a jerk. When that world collides with the world of a lot of corrupt or simply dim-witted folks calling themselves salespeople, mass hysteria ensues.

Vincent will discourage anyone from calling ABM and refuses to this day to call most companies for much of anything. He has seen too often how people maneuver rates and quotes and verbiage in an attempt to “sell” (read: screw) someone and something. Sad, but true, that ABM’s superiors endorse this behavior by not doing anything about it and, in many cases, praising the “results.” 

A line was drawn in the sand. Vincent eventually learned to straddle that line while he never crossed it. He could operate in the grey better than anyone in any color. You can’t hate that player; you have to hate that game.

Sad to say, when Vincent finally escaped from this over-mechanized, shady part of the business he was at first unsure if he could legitimately sell a product without reliance on manipulation of sales statistics and just swapping around phone packages. However, after further wild success in his next incarnation he could put that fear to rest.

In a call center there are two types of people: those who want to use this experience as a way to better themselves and those who are using it solely as a source of income. It is little more than a human laboratory: putting a diverse group of animals in a building and watching them interact, breed and fight. This is why you see and experience everything in a call center. If any of them would open up its security stance, the greatest reality show in television history could be born.

In April 2002 a noteworthy moment transpired, but the significance was unbeknownst to Vincent at the time. A morning meeting in the lunch room was when he first laid eyes on Stacey Worth: a girl so perfectly crafted that when God created her He undoubtedly had to sit for a moment and feel pretty proud of Himself. She wore a purple dress and had a bow in her flowing golden hair. Everything about her was mesmerizing and she lit up the room, looking as out of place amongst this riff-raff as a movie star in a crowd of commoners. 

Aside from these occasional breaks in the action, the end of April saw another climactic duel between Ashley’s style of enforcing company call flow to a tee and Vincent’s desire for right and good and strategic sales. Whether Ashley was really this cruel or the system made her this hellbent on using process as a weapon for fear remained to be seen. She liked to keep everyone just one step away from discipline or termination in the event they outlived their usefulness, no matter what it did to morale.

The conference room where these meetings took place was ominously dubbed “The Aquarium.” It was a small room with windows and blinds on multiple sides that was centrally located in the two-story building so it could be seen from many vantage points, hence the name. Its unique positioning made it easy to observe activity there unless the blinds were drawn and this was one of those meetings. 

Ashley led Vincent into the Aquarium and they took seats on opposite sides of the table. Ashley set down a folder of papers and pulled out a couple documents that appeared to be call grading forms.

“Vincent, first I have to let you know that this meeting is disciplinary in nature.  Would you like to have a union steward present?” Ashley asked.

“I don’t need anybody knowing my business,” Vincent replied tersely. Vincent had yet to be impressed by a union that wouldn’t even exist without ABM.

“Okay.” Ashley shuffled her papers and began to reference them. “This is regarding a call I listened to from yesterday. Do you remember Adam Meyers?”

“I do,” Vincent nodded coolly as he recalled the interaction in his memory. “Yeah, that one was pretty amazing. He led off screaming and cursing and I got a long distance package switch.” He smiled.

“Is there a reason you didn’t offer per our contact strategy?”

“You mean aside from the fact he was yelling at me to disconnect his line immediately?”

“Vincent, you know that our contact strategy says that you go into your fact-finding questions on every call.”

“Right, and if you recall correctly, I started asking him about his current Internet service and he started cussing me out saying he hated our company and did not want to buy anything. I wound up saving the line and changed him to the updated $20 long distance plan with nationwide coverage. That’s more long distance revenue than half the office got yesterday.”

“You have five questions that you must ask on every call. They include current Internet service, current television service, their amount of long distance usage monthly, what their favorite calling features are and if they make international calls. You asked one of them,” Ashley said, mostly reading off another sheet of paper.

“OK, Ashley, in our last meeting you committed to coaching me,” Vincent interjected, seeing this was going nowhere. “Yet this is the first time we have talked since then. How would you suggest I should have handled this customer?”

“I don’t like your insubordinate tone,” Ashley spat, clearly frustrated with Vincent’s point. “Following the call flow is not an option. I have made that clear before, yet you continue to not follow the contact strategy. Effective immediately, you are being placed on performance warning, the first step of our constructive discipline coaching plan, for failure to follow call flow.”

“Over one call? I’m serious – how should I have asked him all of those questions? Aren’t I doing the company a service by not wasting time on someone who is screaming at me and moving on to another opportunity to actually sell something? I’m the top rep in the office!” Vincent fired back.

“Vincent, I don’t care how you ask the questions, you just do it. And if you fail to do this in the future, it could lead to further discipline up to and including dismissal,” Ashley continued.

“You would fire your best rep over not asking questions to a confrontational customer?”

“If you’re not doing the job properly, you are not the best rep.”

“Is this going to impact me becoming a manager in the future?” Vincent inquired.

“If you are on a step of discipline, you cannot be promoted,” Ashley responded. “This warning will last for six months. Do I have your commitment to follow our mandated call flow going forward?”

“Now I get it. Absolutely, I’ll do the best I can,” Vincent spat, with sheer and utter disdain. He got it, all right – keep me in my place, keep me one step out the door so you can control me and make sure if I stop producing you can drop me quickly.

Vincent returned to his desk and proceeded to cautiously go through mandated call flow for the next 24 hours, resulting in drastically decreased sales. He went from average days of $500 GP to $100 in just the first day and a half. As Vincent was the top player in the office by far, this slide severely impacted Ashley’s sales standing in just that 24-hour period. Ashley pulled Vincent in the following day and removed the performance warning.

*    *    *

Burnout. A terrible ailment, often misdiagnosed, but as Vincent Scott drove to work on the last day of November 2009 he knew the symptoms were real.

He was mired in an impasse and pondered the implications and treatment options available. Interestingly, there had recently emerged a hint of a line on the horizon. Everything in his work world was culminating into an inevitable blowup. 

In recent weeks, Vincent had finally waged war against the fact his people were not being paid correctly on commissions. For three years, commissions and clerical goofs in his department had been a punchline to a joke that was in no way comical. 

Complaints from his employees had reached fever pitch and Vincent’s boss continued to not only ignore them but ridicule them. Vincent was the only one who could or would act. Motivated by his duty to the people he worked so hard to serve and protect, Vincent went down a path there was no turning back from. The hail of gunfire caused from Vincent’s all-out assault on a dilapidated clerical process and apathetic leadership woke a sleeping giant and served as a spark required to ignite a mutiny currently in progress.

Vincent’s burnout, boredom, or both, would inevitably soon be resolved in some fashion during this overdue melee – good, bad or ugly – but he could not help but reflect on the first time he felt such feelings seven years prior.

In May 2002, after six months of relentless #1 performance as a sales rep at ABM, talks with Vincent regarding management began. Once Vincent hit his comfort zone, caused by a few months of leaderboard domination, he let it be known to Ashley that he was interested in the eventuality of promotion. The concept of helping and teaching others to find his level of success intrigued him.

No sales rep can ever completely be ready for what lies ahead in management. Even at that premature state in his career, this immature, burgeoning, raw Vincent would have been a better manager than some of the ones on hand (including Ashley – his own). Vincent’s head was in the right place – he wanted to contribute more, to add to his growing list of achievements and knew he could make a difference in a flailing department. As no one was having the success he was, his desires were mostly unselfish.

Ashley realized dangling the management carrot in front of Vincent could take her places she had previously only dreamed about on the sales report and she had no qualms doing just that. This put her team on autopilot. 

Team and office morale were quite low. The level of distrust was high – unsurprising considering how Ashley had utilized the threat of discipline as a weapon. Ashley even reached the point she asked Vincent outright for advice on how to manage her team and regain any semblance of faith.

Ashley started having Vincent lead team meetings, used him as the thermometer of team chemistry and used his ideas when the team voiced dissent.  Little did he know, it would still be quite some time before potential movement toward promotion would actually move. To hear Ashley talk, though, it was right around the corner. This was precisely her plan. Sure – Vincent would likely find himself promoted one day. But there was certainly no reason not to let his chasing of this goal help her run up the sales charts.

In mid-June, manager Casey Pine announced her departure to the marketing team, leaving a vacancy. Two front-runners were rumored for the position: Vincent and Stacey Worth. 

Stacey had worked for ABM’s wireless telecommunications division as a manager prior to arrival in their Rockford center. She was shifted to the residential office but deemed not ready to manage in this environment just yet. She was put through initial training and had been a sales rep for 2 months at the time of Casey’s departure, currently mired towards the caboose of the pack in results. However, she was tight with Maggie Allen – Ashley’s boss, the Area Manager of the division – and came out on the receiving end of the promotion.

Vincent was a little surprised by the move, but realistically did not expect promotion in such a big company so soon into his career. A month later, Maggie was ushered out amidst the department’s struggles and a job was created for her downtown. Ashley again dangled the management carrot to Vincent, presenting a chain reaction scenario that would see attendance manager Sandy Watson taking the vacancy and Vincent taking her place.

That scenario also failed to materialize and July 2002 marked the arrival of Shelly Cheekwood to run their call center. Shelly brought immediate spunk and fire to a lackluster sales office. She cooked breakfast for the office, implemented games she had concocted while a manager in Rochester and made a habit of running around yelling, “Rockford rocks!” The first impression could not have been a better one.

In those days, Vincent tended to give people the benefit of the doubt and thought prospects were good with the onset of the Cheekwood administration. His early positivity was further fueled by a meeting with Shelly just weeks into the new regime. Vincent was greeted one morning by e-mail from Shelly requesting a meeting in her office later in the day. 

Knocking on the frame of her open door, he was greeted and he entered, closing the door and taking a seat opposite her desk.

“Vincent, thank you for meeting with me,” Shelly greeted him sincerely and warmly.

“My pleasure,” he responded. “How are you settling in?”

“No complaints yet! Just learning the ropes,” she responded, giggling with a bubbly demeanor that would become her trademark. “That’s actually why I wanted to meet with you. As you can probably imagine I have been bombarded with people contacting me saying they want to be a manager.”

Vincent laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“You would be shocked if I told you some of their names!” she continued. “But I wanted to meet with you because I was interested in finding out if that path interests you. You were the only person that did not contact me that I was hoping would.”

Vincent, certainly interested, responded, “Wow. Thank you. I guess I didn’t think contacting you was proper protocol. I have talked to Ashley about my career path and yes, I am very interested in management here. I really feel like I could make a difference.”

“I’m glad to hear that. What do you think you bring to the table that maybe others wouldn’t?”

“Well,” Vincent mused, “I have been doing this job for several months and have a good grasp on the priorities and metrics. Many people told me when I started that the numbers couldn’t be achieved or that they didn’t like certain policies; I’ve far surpassed the goals and have constructive suggestions about things we could do to improve the environment and morale. I know why others fail where I succeed and just want to impact the company in the way I can best. I believe in what we’re doing here.”

Shelly smiled with that infectious smile of hers. “That’s wonderful, Vincent. I believe all of that to be true. Right now, I am looking at the division between our location and the Montrose office and intend to make several changes to get us out of the hole we’re in. To do that, I have to know who my future leaders are.”

Shelly had scheduled the meeting for 15 minutes but it stretched over 45. She ascertained Vincent’s thoughts on how he would manage and coach people, discipline those who were currently his peers, set priorities and help turn the ship around. It mirrored a job interview and Vincent blew her away. He could tell how delighted she was with each of his responses.

Following that meeting, time marched on. Changes of this ilk seldom happen quickly. Vincent’s apartment continued to be stocked with prizes he won at work: a microwave, numerous telephones, a DVD player, a television, home appliances and countless gift cards to nearly everywhere in Minneapolis. The revolving door that is call center hiring, firing, resignations and moves certainly impacted Rockford ABM; in October, some of the changes Shelly had alluded to started to take form. 

Ashley was swapped out of the Rockford center and banished to Montrose, a suburb which contained little more than a church and a dungeon of an ABM call center – complete with grime and cobwebs on the lone windows looking out. Montrose was also in the Cheekwood jurisdiction and had roughly 40 reps that performed the same job functions to less critical acclaim.

In Ashley’s place arrived Harriet Raines – an outspoken and strong-willed woman with quite a reputation for holding her team accountable. She had very poignant pluck and seemed to bring the kick in the pants to the team that they needed – at first. 

A couple other managers swapped out as well between the offices and it appeared that Shelly was trying to stir the pot to garner different results and determine if a fresh start would serve as catalyst for these low performers to produce. The tactic seemed to work initially; new policies, incentives and a new approach designed to help the employees feel a little more appreciated. 

Passing by Shelly one day, Vincent mentioned he had more suggestions for office improvement. She obliged, as he shared ideas on a formalized peer coaching program where top contributors could mentor struggling reps and various ways to get reps to help others. Shelly loved the ideas and reiterated that it was her desire to pursue Vincent for a manager slot as soon as she had the green light to promote.

And why shouldn’t she? Too many of the managers in place were relatively useless.  Some because they lacked the will and others lacked the skill; no one had truly trained them on the fundamentals necessary of a leader.

It was a frightening truth Vincent would grow to know: managers are too often not selected for talent. They are selected because they agree to uphold the system, even if the system is flawed, and they will do little to resist. Often they know somebody and it is a highly political system and decision. 

As months continued to pass, Vincent made the same trek to and from work daily with no changes and no real end in sight. The more months passed between those encouraging conversations and reality, Vincent had to grow to accept that maybe he would not get out of this role. He had achieved every accolade possible in this role already, but had to continue bringing himself back day after unfulfilling day. 

Not only was he starting to feel unfulfilled in his work but those events coincided with the death knell of his relationship with Julie. They were stagnant, which made him pull back emotionally and her start to visit Mankato every weekend. They would argue over most everything; a typical quarrel would be her throwing a fit if Vincent got in bed before her at night. She claimed he had not made her feel special in a long time – since their Cooke’s days when he had no aspirations to climb the corporate ladder and was just a meat clerk. He missed being single and free to do whatever he chose without constantly seemingly disappointing someone. The writing was on the wall.

On a recent trip back home, Vincent learned from Julie’s cousin that Julie was looking into moving back to Mankato, unbeknownst to him. She hated living in Minneapolis and without the closeness with Vincent she missed her friends and family. He did not take this revelation well.

It was mid-December 2002 when a morning fight led to his statement, “When I come home, you need to be out.” When Vincent returned from work that night, Julie’s stuff was gone.

Up to this point, their pattern had always been (1) there is a miscommunication, (2) Vincent pulls away, (3) Julie chases him and (4) things turn out fine. Not this time.

Vincent was surprised she actually left and it only took a matter of days before he regretted the decision. When Julie did not attempt to mend fences, he realized he would have to and he made numerous futile attempts over the coming weeks to patch things up. 

It was that failure – the pure lack of control and inability to win within such a perfectionist – that began an incredible transformation for Vincent. He was loving and wrote long letters by hand and visited her at her job and sent flowers and pleaded for her to reconsider. He romanticized the good memories of their relationship and ignored their significant issues, as many tend to do. He asked her to marry him, to which she wondered why he hadn’t done it before. It was too late.

Just days and weeks before, Vincent lamented the state of their union, but realization that they may never be together again was excruciating and agonizing to him. He couldn’t sleep or eat. He cried in his emptier apartment. But the long-term effects of this breakup were utterly crucial to the future leader he would become.

 Had Vincent not felt the pain his mind told him he was feeling after the Julie breakup, he would not have been able to sustain future pains, be they in business, matters of the heart, or regarding the love of his life – his child. Any future “heartaches” paled in comparison to the Julie breakup. It was the only time he was in a weakened enough state to hurt profusely; he made all of the classic breakup mistakes this go-around: trying to call, writing e-mails professing his love and remembering the good times and forgetting the bad. 

For the first month of their breakup, Julie stayed with a friend in Minneapolis until she could find a job and apartment back home. She moved back to Mankato in January 2003.

Being 100 miles away from Julie aided the quest of moving on just slightly and, where most people would retreat and let their job performance go to hell, Vincent used the emotions and the pain to lash out on his customers’ objections. It only made him even better. He could not control the demise of his relationship but he could certainly not take “no” for an answer when it resulted in sales.  

Vincent has two childhood friends with whom he still has frequent contact: Eddie Haskins, whose parents are his Godparents, and Jack Johnson. They had a three-musketeer brotherhood growing up and despite life taking them in drastically different directions they still talked several times a year. 

Jack was living in Colorado, doing the “out on his own” thing and was quite lonely himself around that same time. He and Vincent began a series of what they dubbed their “Sunday conversations.” The topics ranged from books to booze to poetry and women, and they served as Vincent’s therapy. 

Vincent never forgot the advice Jack gave him a couple of “sessions” in: that in order to expunge negative thoughts and emotional pain from the body, one must acknowledge their existence and then dismiss them.

It sounded catchy, but far-fetched. But he put it to work. Through years of putting it to practice, he learned the gospel according to Jack was very effective. He slowly learned how to reject the thoughts of sitting at Julie’s house in Mankato and how they would eat pizza and talk and cuddle and play video games and watch movies and watch television and make love together and shower together and play with her dog together and how he would stay until she would fall asleep before returning home and if she was awake when he left how she would cry and how they would kiss forever. As those next few months went by, so did all of those thoughts: out of his stream of consciousness. He turned his attention fully to what he could control: sheer dominance in his work.

Over those first few months of 2003, Vincent started to see more and more people terminated for lack of call flow quality. He stayed unscathed, however, and, in return, stayed on top of the sales report for Harriet Raines. No one could touch him. But continuing to bring yourself back again and again at a level higher than anyone else is not an easy thing to motivate yourself to do. This is especially true when you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. The management talks from the prior summer and the Julie breakup certainly harnessed his passion but their effects eventually dwindled as well.

As time continued and he had to use nearly all his fingers to count the number of months since management had first been dangled to him, he grew fatigued from the wait. Some people want nothing more than that steady job and paycheck. They will put up with that existence for as long as it is available and are content with status quo. But Vincent had nothing left in Minneapolis right now aside from this job and he was ready for a move. And every day he wondered: “Will today be the day Shelly talks to me about promoting me?” And every night he departed work and headed to an empty apartment.

There was only so much to keep him sane. For a while it was unparalleled supremacy as a sales rep. Then it was trying to set records in every statistical category – mastering the ones he was not #1 at and becoming the best in those, too. He also liked to put on a show for his cubicle neighbors – standing, pointing and trying to entice them through almost a trash-talking type of showing off. 

His favorite friendly “adversary” in this game was Bryant Edwards, his next-door-cubicle-neighbor, and Vincent’s energy lifted Bryant from an uncaring middle performer to the upper echelon. He went from apathetic, subpar numbers to near the top of the office because the competition with Vincent brought out his potential.

 In early April 2003, Shelly pulled Vincent into her office to again assure him there was an end in sight. He needed to hear it. And two weeks later: the real interview – 248 sales days after first being told he was a contender.

Vincent had said all these things before, but he was selling her again –that he would not be daunted by managing friends or defined by the introverted employee he had mostly been to this point.

“Shelly, I have a job to do. If this company is paying me to enforce its rules, that is my job – I view the managers as the ambassador of the company. I will be forthcoming with ideas and will be working to replicate what I do now in 20 people. I’m here to support them and remove their blockers, but at the end of the day it is my responsibility to uphold the policies of ABM. Would you rather have one Vincent or twenty?”

Just days later, what had been dangled for a year materialized: Shelly was promoting Vincent to sales manager effective May 1, 2003. Finally, after every monotonous day he had entered that building wondering when his hard work would pay off, he was being rewarded for his efforts. Victory.

However, in an attempt to prevent as much interaction as possible with peers he once worked with, Vincent was being shipped to Montrose. And – the real kicker – he was taking over the team helmed by Ashley Flowers, who was being demoted to a rep position back in Rockford. It was an ironic twist but sweet justice.

Montrose’s call center was a dump. It was next to a pizza place where someone had recently been shot to death. The carpets were filthy and the windows looked like they had not been cleaned in this millennium. Vincent was not thrilled about being banished to the dungeon, but this was his call-up to the majors and he accepted it with open arms. 

With any pressure off, the casting call and audition nailed and the call-up signed, sealed and delivered, Vincent headed into the final week as a sales rep with a new lease on life. He posted an all-time one-day sales record that stands to this day that single-handedly dwarfed all other teams in the division in every metric bucket by himself. There was nothing like going out on top.

Harriet, who had been a proponent of Vincent’s, was also slated to return to Montrose to serve as some semblance of mentor during his training wheel phase. She had grown frustrated with her team as they were a one-trick Vincent Scott pony, and she allowed her reps to see her bleed far too frequently. Harriet was great with words and knew what she needed to get paid, but she showed frustration easily and thought marking up sales reports and telling people to do more would turn it around.   With in excess of 25 years with the company, she was ready for a new challenge and the idea of taking Vincent under her wing appealed to her.

And the rumor became fact: Vincent’s promotion was announced to the division on the last selling day of April and he was no longer chained to the phones. Reactions were mixed. Along with Elise Barnett, Vincent was the least tenured person on the floor. Bambi Jennings, queen of the hill before his arrival, was inconsolable. Jake Stallings, another top rep, knew from talking with Vincent that this was a guy that could change the place for the better. And that was his mission, one step at a time.