Adversity: growth--and even life--can't take place without it.

• Author: Wiesner, Pat
• Position: On Management - Column

ONCE, AT A SALES MEETING, I ASKED A GROUP OF ABOUT 30 JOURNEYMEN SALESPEOPLE, "How many of you have a story that begins with, 'Let me tell you about the day I almost quit,'?" As far as I could tell, everyone in the room raised his or her hand.

So I asked a few to share their stories. It was fascinating because they were all people I knew well, and yet I had never heard most of the stories they told me.

One man, very successful in both sales and management, told of how after about six months of getting beat up and put down as a "newbie," he was ready to quit. He even had his goodbye speech memorized for his boss. But for some reason his boss quit first!

So the man with the goodbye speech reconsidered, figuring there was new opportunity at that company. He made up his mind that he would give it six more months and work harder than ever to be good at it. He did work harder, and he became good at it. I know he looks back on that time as a trying period, and a turning point in his career.

A woman told of how the only thing that kept her in what she, after two months, thought was a job she couldn't do, was the deal she made with her boss in the beginning to give it one year. She is now one of the really successful salespersons and managers in her field.

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My own beginning in sales was quite shaky. In my second sales job (my first ended in failure), I remember vividly a training session on making telephone cold calls. I remember it vividly because it was probably the most embarrassed I have ever been. We were a group of about 10 new salesmen. It was my turn to make cold calls out of the Yellow Pages while everyone else listened in on extensions!

We had a track to use as direction. I was talking "track" with a guy out of the phone book, but I ran out of "track." I didn't know what to say, or where to...