Jetson, you're fired!!

I have been fired from a few corporate sales jobs. Never for insubordination, always because the numbers weren't where they needed to be.

The numbers weren't there and I was invariably told that I needed to get the numbers where they needed to be and how to do it.

Let me state, unequivocally, in all instances I deserved to be let go. I deserved to be let go because I accepted the job offer knowing very well what I was getting into.

Stuff happens...it's true, I know this because I read it on a bumper sticker.

On the flip side, I've spent almost half of my working life either working for myself or working for loosely affilaited businesspeople and even collective business interests. The businesspeople I worked for, usually as a contractor, were ALL entrepreneurs. Not people who work for a corporation but INSIST on calling themselves "entrepreneurs". These are and were people who had been completely on their own for many years. A handful had lost EVERYTHING in various business ventures..a couple more than once. By the time our paths had crossed, things were typically on the upside and humming along.

All of these entrepreneurs lived by a certain creed. They all agreed that the anxiety and uneasiness of financial unpredictability or even instability was MUCH LESS PAINFUL than the misery caused by either submitting themselves to the will and whim of others and/or selling themselves to do something that was anathema to everything they believed was right.

Sound familiar?

I have more than a few friends who are successful in their roles as good corporate citizens and, presumably, effective employees. They are respectful,intelligent people who are responsible and have always been consistent income earners and providers. And EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, aware of my utter lack of consistency in similar environments have said to me "..hey, you gotta know when and how to play the game..". And they were honest enough to say they didn't necessarily enjoy that part of the job either but, hey, got kids to educate and bills to pay.

People write 500 page books on how to sell. Why? Look back a mere 100-150 years when the trader/merchant model ruled the day and had for centuries. Things haven't changed AT ALL at the most elemental level. People do commerce and engage in transactions where value is exchanged for value. Skilled marketing people can, at times, accelerate this and even create a perception of value.

Run this by your sales manager, who has framed quotes from General Patton and Vince Lombardi hanging on his walls, as he tells you how to "close those SOB's!!". And bring a box with you.