When I was 24 years old, I had just graduated from university, met a woman I loved and was trying to figure out how I was going to put my degree to work. It was sort of a messed up time because of the crap economy but I was determined to try and get a gig somewhere that had health benefits and a future.
I got a job as a sales guy with a media company in the tech space; a business-to-business publisher that was creating content to help people understand how to apply technology to create business value for their company. I liked the idea behind the brand because it literally helped someone understand the impact of a tech investment on their business.
The base pay was pretty good (more than I had ever made), but the real opportunity was in the commissions I could earn on every dollar sold. I did done some commission based sales work in college at a retailer–but this was different. The retailer had me selling shorts, shirts and shoes for a couple hundred, but this company had me selling $50-500K deals to companies.
I thought “OK, so if I get paid a commission on every dollar sold, and that commission percentage goes up if I go beyond the sales goal, then I have to figure out how to sell the big deals?” So, I stopped trying to sell the $50K deals and started figuring out how to build the bigger ones.
By the end of the first year I was almost making six figures, by the end of the second year I was one of the top salespeople in the company and by year three I was the youngest regional director. Followed by the youngest publisher and then youngest vice president. Yeah, I was starting to figure it out.
I was on the brink of an awakening–and I can remember exactly how it happened.
I was around some of the brass at the company at a cocktail reception and they were talking about ideas, approaches, and plans. Listening intently, I realized my ideas were just as good (if not better) than theirs.
“Damn,” I thought to myself, “Should I say something?”
I waited a few minutes to see if they invited me into the discussion. I figured, “if they invite me in then it is an open door to tell them what I got stoo-en.” Well, they didn’t invite me in and I was annoyed, pissed and a little crushed all at the same time.
Sipping on my glass of wine, I decided to take a lap around the room and talk to some of my peers and colleagues. I buddy up with some folks from the editorial team and start shooting the breeze on where the tech space is going. They are always the coolest to talk to because they are in the middle of the industry.
I use the opportunity to beta test one of my ideas–a library of content organized by technology type and focused on helping an IT buyer create a short list of tech solutions based on a specific buusiness need. I call it “reports” and explain how we can organize evergreen editorial content by way of its role in the IT purchase process and package it into macro themes. We could then lever our news/analysis traffic on the websites to drive people to “reports” with contextually relevant links.
The editorial folks thought it was cool and asked how I came up with it. I told them I was just looking around and noticed there was nothing like it–so why not create it and determine a new way to package the great content they were creating. All true, but the statement went a long way.
From here, the editor/chief asked where I was in developing the product. I had to admit that it was on my whiteboard but had not gone any further. He offered to help me flesh the idea out and we spent the next few weeks working on this together.
It launched about 90 days later and I had created an entire go to market, sales strategy, P&L and roadmap for its growth by working with that same editor and other folks in the business. It drove north of $1M in topline revenue within the first six months, and nearly $2.6M by year two.
This was my awakening.
Instead of letting myself get depressed and frustrated that the brass blew off inviting me into their big shot discussion, I took it upon myself to connect with the people that could help me take the idea and make it real. I essentially said screw the politic, and let the idea power itself–building momentum based on the merit of what it could bring to the company, not “pitching it” to the brass to see if they liked it.
Now, please know, it was a ridiculous amount of work and I had already sort of earned the right for my peers to take me seriously. But it happened while I was still doing my day job and I took the initiative to add it to my plate in an effort to drive the business. And I did not ask for permission.
This is S2UI; an ambitious, smart, caring, empathetic person with a crazy work ethic that is born from a blue-collar mentality applied to a white collar world. Doesn’t matter if you are female or male, what your religion or nationality or if you are straight or LGBTQ. It is all just the Stoo.
Can you find a bit of yourself in any of this S2UI story? If so, then you should keep checking us out–if not, well, at least you may get a few laughs and maybe an idea or two.
