Stepping out of comfort zone good way to grow

I’m not too sure how I got this way, but if you’ve got a minute I’ll share an idea or two.

As I was standing in line at the Methodist Church Turkey Dinner and Bazaar this week, my Aunt Nona Faye remarked that between her son Michael and I there probably wasn’t anyone in town we didn’t know.

I had been cutting up a good bit there in line and if I were in third grade they probably would have sent me straight to the principal’s office for causing that much trouble in the lunch line. I wasn’t too worried because that cousin my aunt was talking about was the retired third-grade principal and he was helping me tease and hoorah folks.

I started out pretty quiet, maybe even shy as I was going through school. At a class reunion a few years ago several remarked that they just didn’t remember that much about me and it seemed I had changed.

I expect they were right. I didn’t really flower socially until a while after I became an adult. It was partly necessity I guess. I got the opportunity to supplement my income as a newspaper printer by selling the ads that went into the newspaper. I found out that successful selling, especially at that time in the small-town newspaper business, depended on making friends and making sure they trusted you.

I found out years later in seminars that this is called relationship sales. I’ve always seemed to come onto knowledge the hard way but I’ve heard if you do stuff that way it tends to stick.

I found out the hard way I was only good at relationship sales. I could teach myself some of the other techniques but I hated employing them and I hated myself when I did.

I found out a long time ago that you have to know the product you’re selling really well if you’re going to excel. For most folks, me included, the easy way out is to simply sell yourself. If you can do that and do it really well you can succeed at almost anything you want to do.

I’ve seen it happen. The least informed and enlightened salespeople can sometimes amaze you. People don’t give a hoot if you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer as long as they relate to you, feel comfortable around you and get to trusting you.

A person has to simply not be afraid to put themselves out there among people. From there it’s just staying with it. Remember where trust and camaraderie are given there will it be measured back to you.

I’ll admit, I don’t wind up clicking with every crowd and it can be uncomfortable to discover you don’t. But I’m a firm believer that if we don’t do things that make us uncomfortable from time to time we’re never going to grow as a person.

I may be embarrassing the snot out of my poor wife on a pretty regular basis, but when she asks me who that was I was talking to I’ll be able to tell her a story about that person and how I know them.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]