Today was my first official day of my new job. It was supposed to be on Monday but I took some time off to go to Alabama (more on that in my next post). All of my colleagues who got promoted with me started Monday so they are all a few days ahead of me, which means I have to work extra hard to make up for it. Sales is a numbers game.
So let me tell you how day one started. Last night, there was some bad weather in DFW so my flight in was delayed + my suitcase was lost! This morning around 7:30 I received a phone call saying that they found my bag and that it would be here between 8 and 12! This was extremely good news because all of my slacks were in my bag. I went back to sleep and hoped for the best. I was supposed to be at work at 10, so I figured that if my bag was here by 9:30 I could make it to work no problem. By 9:00 I started to get worried that it wasn't going to be there, so I called and confirmed that it would, in fact, be there closer to noon.
So, I emailed in to work and took some sick hours until 12. Long story short, bag didn't show up till 1, but I went to work at 12 anyways and told the driver to just leave it on the porch, and my roommate would get it. And, like I mentioned, I had no slacks, and it was a whopping 40 degrees outside and sleeting. So I was bare legged, freezing, and late for my first day.
The first few hours I was at work were a mess. I was all over the place, trying to get my thoughts organized and talk to clients in an organized manner when I hadn't looked over any of my material in a whole week. No amount of training could have prepared me, I don't think. Our training was good, don't get me wrong, but this is the type of job that you can (mostly) only learn by experience. I had a meeting from 3-5 and when I got back to my desk afterwards, things started to get a little better. I was supposed to leave at 6:30, and right before that I helped a client with a 360k transfer of assets, so that was really encouraging. Then, my boss asked me if I wanted to stay late because one of my teammates wanted to leave early. I was tired and wanted to go home but I knew I needed the practice and I wanted to ride that 360k encouragement.
It was a great decision on my part. I got to know some of my teammates and work on some "best practices" with them. I also got another 270k transfer of assets and some smaller ones of 30k and 10k and 3k. Now in this job, 650k in one day is nothing to write home about, but for a first day, I'm pretty proud of myself. My official goal is 4.76 million a month but my stretch goal as set by our director is over 6 million a month. Either way, over 10% on the first day makes me a happy camper.
I forgot what it felt like to be on this side of the learning curve though. So far in my career, everything has just been building on what I already knew. Now, this job requires me to tear down some of the things I've learned and relearn them in a different way. It is a challenge, but I get so excited just thinking about how many opportunities I have to get better every day. One thing that is really cool about this job is that no one, even the people who have done it for years, can say that they've "mastered" it. There is always something new to learn, always a way to find more opportunities to help our clients.
Half of the day today I just kept thinking about how terrible I am at this job. And that's true. But there's only one way to go from rock bottom! I'll be back at it again tomorrow!
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