The Water's Bluer on the Other Lake

Disclaimer: This is a long blog entry, but a true story worth telling.

Exactly one year ago I walked into my office, ranked in the top of the salesforce, but something was wrong... I was a salesman for a start-up line of business within a Fortune 500 company.

Translation:

Start-up; an organization with no experience and/or proficiencies...
Fortune 500; an organization with lots of bureaucracy stunting the growth of said "start-up"

Specifically, what was wrong in the bass fishing metaphor was that my fish were dying in the livewell. I would close a sale and submit paperwork to my operations team. Industry standards call for a one to three (maybe four) week implementation. In our case there were no standards and implementations would range from one day to 244 days! Several of my deals were never implemented... and deals died. If you can imagine that bass are only supposed to live in a livewell for a few hours before being "weighed-in" and then released back into their lake. Similarly with clients in that phase between sale and implementation. There's a small window of time- varied by industry- to keep the client fresh before the process wears on them... frustrations grow, and a sale is dead.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you think things would be better elsewhere what do you do? Will the water be bluer on another lake?

In my case, YES! Easy for me to say, because I had no choice. On December 12th I got a phone call from my boss shortly after 6:00 PM on my cell phone... odd. "Tomorrow they are going to announce that we are done..." What do you think my reaction was? Surprisingly I felt a weight lifted from me. No longer would I have to live in fear of my Blackberry exploding with client crises. All of my internal angst about riding out the storm or jumping ship had been answered for me.

So on December 13th I walked into the office and was told that the Company was eliminating our line of business. Details would be discussed with HR later that day.

Which leads me to the present day... and this is 100% a true story...

My wife and I had been recapping the year's events during dinner on the 12th. My new boss (who has NEVER called me on my cell phone, much less after hours) called me shortly after 6:00 PM. Deja vu? Not exactly... instead he had an extremely hot lead for me that needed to be contacted immediately... which I did, closed the sale and was then asked, "how is your implementation process?"

I should mention that I'm now at the best company in the industry, nationwide. So we actually have an implementation "process." Phew!

Some additional perspective here... My current employer is truly the BEST in the industry. Does that mean everything is perfect? Of course not, but I chuckle to myself when fellow sales reps complain about the issues, inefficiencies, etc. And then the issue is resolved within a day or two (not 244!). Issues are always going to exist- everywhere. But you need to realistically evaluate if the water will be bluer on another lake?

Oh, and when the water is bluer... get that line in immediately! You never know when the water will get murky;)