Wow. As I sit down to write this post, I don’t really know where to begin.
I’m just getting home and back to reality after a whirlwind of a week in California. I know I posted some quick-hit posts about being in Cali and competing… but I’ll tell you all about it today.
So… I work for an amazing company. They do crazy things for their employees sometimes, and they like HUGE SPLASHY recognition programs, specifically sales competitions. This one is such a big deal… that they call it Rockstar.
I work in sales, so most days you’ll find me consulting with customers about how my products can revolutionize their business in some new and exciting way. So… when I had the opportunity to participate in a contest featuring the way I sell, I jumped right in. You may remember that I participated in this contest last year from this post (and the four other posts I wrote about the trip I, II, III, and IV).
What I was tasked with doing is preparing 4 customer scenarios and developing a full presentation of products and services to “sell”. Each scenario was 5-7 minutes, performed with no notes, and scored by a panel of judges on all sorts of specific criteria. It’s intense to say the least, to pull all this together and still get your day job done. But so worth it!
Each round of competition, the customers changed… so, I got to prepare 13 of these bad boys. During each round of competition, you’d pick a scenario out of a hat, one of the 4 you’d prepared… and then have 5-7 minutes to show your stuff!
That’s me with my girl Jade after the regional competition… you’ll see lots of pics of Jade as I recap this trip. She’s amazing and so much fun! I wish she lived in Denver!
So, after winning amongst my local team, beating out the remaining people in my department regionally, I along with 12 others got invited to participate with all of the competitors in the West.
This is where it gets splashy and fabulous…
On Tuesday, they flew all the regional winners into Southern California into gorgeous San Diego to compete. We took over the beautiful Loews Coronado Island, as there must have been about 200+ there. If you’ve never been to Coronado Island… wow. It is absolutely lovely.
My company is very big on making sure we got VIP treatment the entire time, so we stepped off the buses to find the paparazzi ready to take our pics, a step-and-repeat for us to pose in front of, and goody bags to pick up as we register.
After a poolside cocktail party and a welcome dinner, it was time to get a good night’s sleep for the competition the next day.
I competed at 9:18am the next day (thanks for all the well wishes, y’all!) and nailed it. It went even better than planned, and I walked out knowing that I’d be moving onto the next round. I love that feeling… when you perform so well, when your preparations pay off. It just feels awesome!
Also awesome, I got this Diet Coke during lunch… coincidence??
With a few hours to kill, I got a quick chair massage, visited with co-workers, and waited patiently for the winners to be announced – – and I was so excited when my name was called to take the stage for my region.
As a finalist, we had more work to be done. We were given another fresh scenario and had an hour to prepare for the next round. That 60 minutes went by completely fast, and before I knew it, I was back on stage… hopeful that I’d remember all the details of what we’d prepared.
While my performance was strong, I didn’t end up winning this round… but GOSH! I had so much fun along the way. And, to be named “The Ultimate Mountain Rockstar” for my region was totally enough! Playing up the whole “Rockstar” theme, the trophy awarded at the end of the night was a guitar signed by the bands who performed… mine was a pretty mint green bass, and I couldn’t be happier!
Overall, it was an amazing few days… and such an awesome opportunity to showcase my sales skills and to meet our executive team. I am so appreciative to work for such a fantastic company, to have experienced such a cool event, and to attend the concert that followed that evening. I’ll tell you more about that in future posts…
[…] Rockstar season again, y’all! One of my favorite sales reps and I did a lip sync video a few weeks back as we […]