Some of my friends and/or readers know that a few months ago Josh, my friend Jeff, and I founded a custom software/IT consulting business. It’s been slow starting, but lately we’ve been receiving two or three qualified leads each week. In this business, where each job can easily be worth thousands of dollars, two or three leads a week is good for a company our size.

Due to there only being three of us, and considering that I have the most sales experience, by default I am handling the sales stuff. Don’t take this to mean that I’m a good salesman, because I’m not; which doesn’t mean that I can’t be persuasive in a conversation, because I can. Where I fall short as a salesman is making cold calls, staying “on top” of leads to develop them into business, etc. Generally speaking, I am not the best at anything that involves direct human contact with people I don’t know well.

My personal strengths lie in IT knowledge and experience, software design, sales management, and determining corporate direction and strategy. Being that we’re such a small company, I don’t have the luxury of having salespeople (let alone a salesperson) to do my bidding. Which sucks. Why are meeting with and calling customers such difficult tasks for me? Is it solely because I’m introverted? I don’t think so. I wasn’t always so hateful towards these tasks.

After giving this a lot of thought, I believe it’s due to events the occurred in the year leading up to selling our company in July of 1999. I was working as a Regional Manager at the time, and my grandfather had just died; due to estate state reasons (and poor planning on my grandpa’s part) my dad decided to sell the company with management “in-place”. Since he didn’t want to work for someone outside of the family, he promoted his Executive Vice-President to be President (while retaining the titles of Chairman and CEO) and then moved himself, my mom, and my sister to Arizona; leaving me working for the company in Michigan until the company was sold.

The catch was: I couldn’t tell anyone that the company was being sold. As the search for a qualified buyer progressed, and potential buyers were identified, rumors in the industry flew. Customers, employees, and independent representatives would call me daily and ask “if the company was being sold”. Doing my best to honor my dad’s wishes, I would always answer in the negative. After a while, lying to everyone became so stressful for me that I began having problems sleeping and would become anxious on workdays. Eventually it came down to going into work, entering my office, closing the door behind me, and ignoring my ringing phone.

In hindsight, the experience has had a negative effect on me; making it more difficult for me to deal with people than it already was as an introvert. The experience has also had a positive effect on me as well. I tend to be super honest (and sometimes too frank) with customers and people in general. It’s uncomfortable for me to tell even little “white lies” to people.

As a company we’re doing okay and I’m powering-through the fact that I often have to operate as our salesperson. That doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

My Hiding Place (taken on my last day at Tapco):

(Click to Enlarge)