I would like to start this post out by saying that from a personal perspective I am a genuinely nice person and do everything I can to be that way.
I would like to follow that up by saying I am also a push-over and a people pleaser.
I grew up in an atmosphere where I was never punished, because I never did anything worthy of being punished for. I was a good kid, always have been, that did nothing to cause trouble for myself or others. My parents treated me as an adult because they wanted to teach me responsibility, which paid off when my mom was diagnosed with MS and I had to grow up very quickly, but that's a whole different story. I don't take getting yelled at well. I am also learning that I don't accept the word no very well. My eyes well up with tears like a child who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Wait.... I'm a salesperson. I hear the word no more than I will ever hear the word yes! What am I doing!?
That phrase, "what am I doing?!" crosses my mind at least 10 times a day....
This week I experienced my first angry client. Our paper comes out every Tuesday. This makes our deadline here in the office Thursday at 5pm. This client usually has another paper send us the ad that they ran in their paper, and we don't have to design an ad. I waited Monday-Thursday and called the client each day letting them know that I did not have their ad yet. Thursday at 5, deadline, she called and asked if I would drive to Shenandoah and take pictures for the ad. I got half way to the destination and she called and told me the other paper finally sent the pictures to go in the ad. I went back to Maryville and by the time I got to work it was 5:20 P.M.. I took the time to put together the ad with Lana (our ad design specialist) and we printed out the ad to proof it with The Valley News, the newspaper out of Shenandoah that sent us the pictures. In the rush that I was in to get out of there and to get the ad turned in I did not proofread as closely as I should have. We used a past template from their ads and ended up pricing a car wrong. There were no prices on any cars except for this one, which we had priced at $3,995, and it was supposed to be priced at $12,399. As I entered the business on Tuesday I got dirty looks from every person from within. I got to the finance office, had no idea about this mistake at this point, and asked the woman how she was doing and apologized to her for how difficult it was for us to get that ad completed last week. From there she lectured me and screamed at me for 20 minutes about how our ad was wrong. She exclaimed, "When I get the legal bill for false advertisement I'll be sure to send it straight to your house!" and "I don't even want to advertise with you anymore because you are not capable of creating a simple ad!". I sat and listened and never said any more than, "I am SO sorry".
Once I got in my car and pulled out of the business parking lot I started bawling. I cried the entire trip home and called my boss and told him I had to go home because I had been yelled at and needed to fix my makeup. I called my boyfriend and cried the whole drive expressing how I was not cut out for the job. I questioned my choice of career, my school major, everything about the decisions I had made leading up to this point. I did not feel like I was cut out for this job. I am not a mean person, I don't do well with negotiations or arguments, although I am working on them in Negotiations class right now. I felt like a tiny speck of dirt for the rest of the day.
I knew it was my fault and that I had messed up but I had never been embarrassed in front of a group of people like that before or yelled at in such a way for what I had done. I knew that I was going to get in trouble when I got back to work, because we now have to run a free ad for this business. When I returned to the office Phil was very understanding and not upset with me at all. We all make mistakes and have to learn sometime. I learned the hard way.
The only thing that helped me get past this situation was realizing that I am never going to please everyone and this probably won't be the last time that I am yelled at by someone, despite their ad being right or wrong.
I did have good things happen to me this week. I sold more ads than I had in the past weeks. I upped my sales by $1,000. I built relationships with people whom I am becoming more comfortable with after each visit, and I opened 2 new accounts in Clarinda that had not run ads in the past.
The talking aspect of this job fits me to a T. I can sell things to people when I see the light of them and believe in them as well. Everything is great except for the psychological portion of this job. I still find it hard to enjoy this job some days but it is a rewarding challenge on the other days. I hope I gain confidence in myself soon so that I can be better at the job that I am doing. I am currently reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy and he says if you aren't the best at something, practice 1000 times until you are the best at it. These are my intentions with this job and I will keep practicing until it does fit me psychologically.
Life is a mental game, and I'm here to play.
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