25 May 2016
Peter Rowand
Marketing and Business Development

Getting Dumped Opened My Eyes to Sales

Long term relationships come easily to me. I love every bit of them from learning your favourite colour, to making mistakes, stepping up, and proving my accountability to you. I’m addicted to improving and helping others improve.

I recently started dating this amazing guy. He was sweet, funny, athletic, ticked all my boxes. The best part is that we could talk about everything. Our mutual respect and ultimate end goal of settling down and being a family allowed for any topic to be an opportunity for discussion and discovery.

I start every personal relationship knowing that it’ll last forever. I always put my true and best self forward, and am always there to help the other person succeed in their goals.

Short-term relationships are trickier for me, knowing that there is an end date to a relationship is confusing. So when I recently joined our sales department, I felt a little dirty. My previous limited knowledge of sales had always taught me that sales were quick and dirty. Love ‘em and leave ‘em, seems to be the expected style. So now I needed to begin relationships knowing they wouldn’t last? Definitely not my style, but I was up for the challenge.

I recently got dumped by the aforementioned ’amazing guy’. I’ll probably never see him again. But today, it meant something different to me; it opened my eyes to how no good relationship is short, not even sales relationships.

All my sales experience up to this point has been at the customer end of the sale, never really understanding what the sales person’s motives were but always feeling like I couldn’t trust his or her integrity because our relationship was always going to be short term.

So I decided early on in my sales career that I wasn’t going to sway from my personal core values, like integrity. And, like dating, that I’d just put myself out there and see what happens.

The cool thing about working at Helm is that our sales process is different. With every new prospect I meet, I go into it knowing that it’ll last forever, because I’m not going anywhere – even after we complete the sale. And by knowing that, we’re able to give positive, and constructive feedback to each other throughout the sales process. When we’re able to give that feedback face to face, we arrive at a new level of professional intimacy. That’s my favorite part.

And that’s why I’m at Helm. Helm appreciates that sales are long-term relationships. Every customer that we bring in becomes part of our family. We’re here to help each other succeed.

I know that I’m great at long-term relationships. Getting dumped opened my eyes to sales, and to how I don’t have to lose myself in the chase or hunt, I can just be me: honest, open, and always with integrity.

At the end of the day all I want to do is learn, adjust course, and repeat. It doesn’t matter if you don’t choose to buy what I’m selling. What matters is how we decide to treat each other throughout our relationship. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be back someday and we’ll get to try it again. 🙂