Home. More than merely a house, home is a state of mind. For many of us, it’s a place to relax, to be ourselves, to kick back and spend precious time with the ones we love. It’s a magnet that draws us back to our longing. It’s a haven.
Home is family. Friends. Community.
And if you look closely enough in the area where you live, home can also be where you’ll find an abundance of customers in an underserved market. It’s where your business as a sales leadership consultant can take root and grow to new heights – without having to board a plane or spend several nights each week in hotels.
Yes, as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”
The Grind
Ask just about any mid- or late-career sales management professional or sales leadership executive and they’ll tell you about “The Grind.” Sure, just about any job can have its challenging days where the routine gets the better of us. But for sales leaders, The Grind includes more than just long hours focused on business. It also includes long hours away from home, away from those we yearn to be with. It includes long hours in airports, on cramped airplanes and in restaurants . . . alone; endless miles behind the steering wheel; and lonely nights in unfamiliar places, sleeping on uncomfortable hotel beds.
While others think we are lucky to travel around the globe eating in nice places, we just want to be home. The Grind wears us down, outside in and inside out. And it makes us yearn even more strongly for home. And family.
Quality and Quantity
It’s a common belief that “quality time” with family is important. It is. But too often that philosophy is meant to make us feel better about not having enough quantity of time with our loved ones. Frankly, both are important. Quality-time moments become even more meaningful when the quantity goes up, too.
Simply put, when it comes to spending time at home with family, less isn’t more. More is more.
Being Part of the Family Again
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many corporate workers, including sales leadership professionals, found themselves spending more time at home. What many also found, however, was that they weren’t fully integrated into the normal daily rhythms of being part of the family. While this might have been unsettling at first, it also became an opportunity to get reacquainted and to appreciate the hard work and contributions of all family members. It also became an opportunity to learn how to add to the family unit (without getting in the way). Despite the hardships of quarantining with family during the pandemic, many corporate sales professionals found simple joys in being home every night, having breakfast with the kids, gathering for family dinners, playing board games, and working on long-neglected home projects.
Can There Be Earning in the Yearning?
This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip. In our professional lives, we all must make difficult choices; and more often than not, we make our choices for the wellbeing of our families. We earn a living to support the living we yearn for.
Still, the questions remain:
Can we have the best of both worlds? Can we enjoy more time at home while still putting food on the table? Is there a way to work closer to home so we can be home every night and present for important family moments? Can we wave goodbye to all those flights and all those miles and all those hotel beds (and the achy backs they cause)?
Answer: For many sales managers, sales leaders and sales executives… YES!
You see, when you’ve gained recognition as a corporate sales leader, you’ve earned the kind of respect and trust that small to mid-sized businesses crave. You’ve amassed the skills, experience and wisdom they seek on a fractional-time basis. But unlike global corporate enterprises with offices and clients spread far and wide, these small to mid-sized businesses are in your own proverbial back yard. If you make your home in an urban or suburban locale, for example, there are thousands, yes thousands, of potential sales leadership consulting clients within 20 miles of your home. This means shorter drive times when in-person meetings are called for. And it means being home every night.
What’s more, team management software and online videoconferencing make it easy – and much more time-efficient and cost-effective – to meet virtually with clients and manage sales teams remotely. So, no matter the distance between your home base and your client location, you’ll enjoy less “windshield time” and more time in the comfort of your own home.
So, yes, home is where the heart is. It’s also where the sales leadership consulting clients are. To learn more about how to become a sales leadership consultant and serve small to mid-sized businesses in need, click here or contact us at 844.874.7253.
