I don’t get nervous anymore. I mean sure, with big things in life I do…Like trying to figure out the best sofa to order over the internet, wondering if 25 minutes is enough time to get from K20 to E16 at ORD, and drinking milk the day before it expires; all of these things terrify me. But meeting with prospects, clients, pitching ideas, presenting on stage, facilitating conversations, and being recorded… eh I love it all! I love the adrenaline rush. It fuels me, makes me better, sharper and even more focused. It comes from walking into thousands of meetings throughout my career, some more prepared than others, and experiencing lots of curve balls. Facing sales objections and overcoming them, like a cold call I made during my first year of sales.

I had been calling this guy for weeks and leaving voice messages every now and then, dropping off hand written notes to his secretary, and even sending Tiffs Treat one day for his team. He was the IT manager for a big company and I was confident I could offer a solution to solve some pretty big problems for him, while also closing a huge deal that would help me hit my annual number. I finally got him on the phone! About seven seconds into my pitch, he cut me off-

“Man what is your problem!? If I wanted to talk to you, I would call you back! I don’t have time for this.”

My stomach sank. My amygdala was in flight mode. You know, your lizard brain? The amygdala is the part of your brain that involuntarily activates a fight or flight response when faced with immediate danger. Jeb Blount (sales guru, author of Fanatical Prospecting) references the connection to sales objections and how it triggers our amygdala to either retreat or fight. Initially, I retreated with silence. Then I spoke up with something like,

“Listen man, I definitely don’t want to be a bother. I’m new to sales, I learned about your company, and I honestly thought I might be able to help you out. I’m just looking for a quick meeting to see if we could be a good fit, but if that’s too much then okay.”

And he turned around. Meeting set. He apologized for being a jerk when we finally met. Now, it absolutely doesn’t always end up like that. Probably 10% or less chance any sales pro is going to turn that type of response around, but I guess the sales gods were smiling on me that day, and I got lucky.

My career in sales has absolutely hardened my nerves. And I just love to talk. One on one, small group, in public, and even on a stage. I love how spoken words can inspire people, tell a story, create a feeling, start a movement, challenge thoughts, and simplify the complex. However, I’m not so sure I did ANY of that during my last presentation.

I’ve got two different ways that I present: scripted and extemporaneously. And for me, contrary to Webster’s definition of “extemporaneous,” both require preparation. In fact, the two tips I give to people about public speaking are:

• 1) Put in the prep work, and
• 2) Leverage your non-verbals and eye contact.

(But I’ll talk more about the second in a future post.) The scripted form obviously requires prep work, because it’s all about memorization and that requires practice and time. Speaking well extemporaneously, I believe, also requires big prep. The preparation here is all about knowing where you want to get to, understanding how you’ll begin, and then leveraging some anchors- some key statements, to connect it all together. With extemporaneous speaking, the bulk of the speech, the big quantity of words comes from your knowledge of the subject matter; but the core of the speech, the high quality anchor sentences and words come from a strategically prepared outline. So whichever way I’m presenting, you better believe I’ve put in the prep.

The presentation I just bombed was scripted. Every word. My company just released a huge new product update, and we’re doing some truly innovative work. The architecture of our new solution is somewhat technically advanced, so it was important for me to carefully craft the language I would use to describe it in a way that everyone (myself included) would understand. We announced our new product update at a huge convention, the largest in the world for my industry (GBTA22 – Global Business Travel Association Convention,) and when we shared our announcement exclusively with GBTA months prior to the convention, they believed so much in our new product that they invited us to present at a session which featured today’s most innovative travel tech companies. No pressure. 🙂

For the past 90 days, my team worked to finalize our new solution so that we would be ready for GBTA and our release. My team is the greatest. Yeah yeah, you’ve heard that before and I’m sure yours is great, too. But let me tell you, the huge, quality work that our small, dedicated team produces is unrivaled. My team is incredible, unmatched, authentic, and I love them. Our hard work continued all the way up until the final hours and nights before the convention. For me, this meant a sleep schedule which diminished proportionately within the ten days leading up to the event. And stress, oh yes. There was some thiiic stress… but hey, everyone has stress. And again, normally that stress somehow empowers me. But not this time.

The day of my presentation, I was feeling pretty freaking great. I ran through my pitch a couple of times in the morning, and I was totally off notes by the second run through. I had it down and I was ready. I began to speak, seeing the next statement in my brain as my voice delivered and completed the current words. Threading sentences together, developing a rhythm, and leveraging my non-verbals and eye contact. Then a few seconds in, everything went blank. I forgot what was next! Normally, a quick pause to gather my thoughts and calm myself triggers my brain to remember what’s next. But this time it didn’t work, so I called upon my failsafe: my note card hidden within the pocket of my jacket. I found my place and continued, returning my notes to their home. But it happened again. And this time, when I pulled out my notes, I couldn’t remember what I had just said. I paused. My eyes jumped to a sentence on my notes that I thought was near my last statement so I went with it. Back to memory. But then it happened again. And again. My amygdala was in flight mode. Everything went white, and anxiety hit hard. I finished the presentation reading directly from my notes, and today I honestly don’t remember anything that happened after everything went white. For the first time, I bombed a presentation.

My team and a few colleagues were so supportive. “It was fine! You did great.” and “It’s never as bad as you think it was,” were a few of the most popular comments I received. And there was probably some truth in those comments, but for me it was certainly less than great. I shared the story with a mentor of mine, a guy who was my first ever sales manager and taught me everything that shapes my sales foundation today. He said, “Move on. You’re a professional, and sometimes shit happens.” And boy do I love that response.

So I’m moving on, but also acknowledging that sht happened – and that’s okay. We spend so much time discussing the wins, sharing the good, bragging about success, and striving for perfection. But let me tell you first-hand with full confidence: for every public victory, there are so very many private failures and struggles that occurred leading up to that success. And we should talk about those, too. Embrace them, not pretend they don’t exist. Use them to encourage others to take a leap that they normally wouldn’t, for fear of not getting it perfect the first time. Let’s rally together not just around our wins, but also around the challenges we face in achieving success. And then let’s move on.