Spinning Plates!

This is how I feel all the time -- except less bored and less bald. 

Working in Sales constantly makes me feel as if I'm on the spot in a flashy variety show like America's Got Talent or, if it were 50 years ago, The Ed Sullivan Show.

I imagine bright lights beaming down with a brass band playing in the background. An audience stares while I spin metaphorical sticks and place delicate plates to balance in elusive motion.

The act is a tough one that requires coordination, urgency, and ambition. I must turn each plate into a forward revolution as it starts to slow.  If I don't, it will topple off and smash to an untimely end. If I keep it and all of the other plates spinning, I win the prize.

In real life, the plates are deals. The spinning sticks are all the conversations that make opportunities move forward, and my prize is the close. If I stop, so does my chance of winning.

So what's a girl to do to keep those plates moving?

Pick up the phone, ask the tough questions, and make people think about what's in it for them and and their bottom line. There are exchanges of pleasantries, provocations, and decisions made along the way.

To put it in the words of a mentor, "It ain't easy -- and it it were, we wouldn't be doing it."