My biggest success

At my last full-time day job, I started out in customer service. Eventually a couple years later, I wanted to spread my wings a little and asked if I could be put on the Sales team. I was told that the only sales area available was the Twin Cities area. So I jumped at the opportunity and soon I was out making sales calls to our customers. I had a company vehicle and my sales territory was primarily Minneapolis/St. Paul. I drove to Minneapolis twice a month and stayed for a week each time. It was lonely work, and the driving was challenging, it required a lot of organization. I had to learn where our accounts were located and what the best way was to get there (without getting lost). I had to make at least 10 calls a day to satisfy my boss, so it was a real struggle sometimes. In Minneapolis/St. Paul, most companies demand that sales people make appointments to meet with their buyers, so another challenge was to make those appointments on time, otherwise you may not be able to meet with the buyer that day and to reschedule would be a nightmare to try to set up. It was challenging sometimes to go out and make a cold sales call where the buyer I was talking to didn't recognize my company's name and showed no interest in what we were selling whatsoever. My biggest success was in the fact that I never thought this job was something that I would be able to do, much less do well. I wanted the opportunity to prove to myself that I could make sales to people that I didn't know, to learn to drive in the cities well (scary), and make sales presentations to groups of people and teach them about the products I was selling when I didn't care for speaking in front of people at all. I learned alot in those 4 years with that company, but most of all I learned that even if something seems impossible, there usually is a way to work through it if you don't give up. Trust me, I spent some times sobbing in my car, lost in a scary area of the cities at 7pm at night trying to get back to my hotel without getting murdered or car-jacked. I vowed to quit several times because of mean customers, but I didn't, I hung in there and learned a very valuable lesson from it.