Ever watch Whose Line is it Anyway?  Drew Carey sat behind a desk reading note cards with absurd scenarios and then asked the audience to assign jobs to each of the cast members.  In one act Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie would be married, in the next act they would be brothers (or sisters), and there was a good chance that Wayne Brady would break out in a song and dance routine.

That show was always fun to watch, I was always entertained by the crazy antics of the cast, and how well they put different, usually non related roles together.  Oddly enough, since joining Brazen Careerist I feel like I am living in an episode of the show!  Here is what I mean…

My first few months in the company I had a pretty solid direction.  I was focused on the Brazen Careerist Corporate Community (BC3).  My time was spent gathering corporate contacts, and helping to grow BC3.  At first this proved to be successful, companies are intrigued by our community and our network, and the beta launch was a great opportunity to learn to blog so that they can create a conversation with top young professionals.

As with many start ups, direction constantly changes. Being the only person in our sales department, I am usually at the forefront of whatever changes are taking place.  I went from helping Ryan Paugh with community growth, to corporate sales, to contacting colleges about consulting we can do for them, to most recently helping to build our new syndicated corporate blogging community.

While doing all of this I have overseen parts of the marketing plan, helped with business development, and staffed our CEO at conferences.  It is crazy, it is stressful, but it is fun as hell.  So everyday I look at what is going well, and what department we are struggling in.  Then I head home knowing that tomorrow I will take my seat on the stage with RH, RP, and Photis while Penelope picks up a note card and shouts out the days scenario.  Behind her the board shouts out what role we play, and without asking any questions we act it out.

It keeps things interesting, and I am always interested who the next person on the cast will be, and if they are cut out to act on a whim.  This has also allowed me to broaden my skills, and learn about myself in the process.  It isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but we’re doing our jobs for our audience, and things are working out for now…

I spend hours during the day talking to people, sending emails, and and making phone calls.  Most of them are in order to sell a product or service.  I have done this for a while, and it became second nature to look deeper into what someone is saying in order to understand them.

What I have realized is that everything revolves around some sort of sale, whether I am actually getting paid or not.  I am looking deeper into the small sales in life that have the biggest impact.  For example, how about convincing a girl to go out on a date with you and then she eventually becomes your wife, or getting one of your friends to come out with some night and you both have the time of your life.

I will discuss the little things that have occurred in my life, things that included some sort of sale whether I realized it or not, and how they have impacted me.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a sale I made either, for example one of my good friends in high school told me about The Ohio State University, convinced me it was great, it was the last school I applied to, and the school I ended up attending.

Sales is always such a negative term, but it shouldn’t be, it is an exchange of thoughts and opinions, and usually someone is benefitting.