Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Trent Denman.
Good morning. It’s great to be here today. I want to talk to you about my work as a sales coach and my sales career, including some of my challenges. Who here is in business or desires to be in business? Okay, all right. Quite a few people. Now, who thinks business is simple easy, without any challenges or struggles? Oh, no hands. You guys are just like me.
I’m going to talk about my sales career, focusing on three concepts: your why, working through challenges and struggles, and gratitude. My career encompasses all these things. I’ve been in sales most of my life and have experienced two distinct halves of my sales career. The first half, now the lesser half, was unsuccessful. I went from job to job, failing to achieve my goals. The second half, however, has been incredibly successful, beyond my wildest dreams.
The biggest thing I’ve done as a sales coach is understand the difference between my career’s first and second parts. The first part of this talk will be about why. It’s crucial to know why you do what you do because if your why isn’t clear, challenges will overwhelm you quickly, and you’ll give up. In the early part of my career, I was comfortable. If things got hard, I’d just get a different job. Everything changed when my son was born, my wife got laid off, and then I lost my job for failing to meet sales quotas. Suddenly, I had to replace two incomes; the only opportunity was a commission-only sales position. That position is the foundation of my sales coaching business. Twelve and a half years later, I’ve achieved every dream I imagined for my career, all because I lost my job.
Every adversity carries a seed of equal or greater benefit if you look for it with faith. When something tragic happens, something beautiful often emerges if you look with faith. When I lost my job, I was determined not to let my previous district manager define my future. She doubted my future in sales, but I believed in it. This belief drove me. I set fire to the ships in the harbor and resolved to succeed. Looking back, I didn’t lose my house, fail in sales, or fail to achieve my dreams. This is the secret.
So, think about your why. It will drive you to do superhuman things when you’re under pressure and have a deep-seated emotional connection to your goals. Life is unpredictable. Who remembers 2020? That year, I started with a thriving business, then faced a series of challenges: my mother-in-law moved in with us as she had cancer, I shut down my business due to COVID-19, developed a tumor (fortunately not cancer), and we lost my mother-in-law. Then, on July 9th, 2020, we experienced the heartbreak of our son, Colby Raphael Benjamin, being stillborn. Watching my wife give birth to a deceased child was the most brutal experience of my life. Then, on the morning of his funeral, my cousin committed suicide. 2020 was a challenging year for me, but I kept moving forward, focusing on resilience.
Despite the challenges, I’m declaring 2024 to be my best year ever. After overcoming these adversities, people in my network started asking how I survived and thrived in my business. This led to me becoming a coach developing a business entity, an app, and a training platform, all launching in 2024.
Now, about gratitude. The most humbling experience I had this year was the unexpected blessing of my daughter, Ella Warren, born on April 12th. She’s a firecracker, just like her mom. This relates to sales, careers, and business because resilience, gratitude, and understanding your why are crucial. They make you strong, help you overcome challenges, and enable you to achieve your dreams.
Think about your why, resilience, and gratitude. I’m grateful for my clients, family, and life. If you want to win, you have the potential. You just need to exercise these three things and get on the path to success and victory. If you need healing, it’s available. Have a great day.
