Stan Collins – A Rollercoaster Lifestyle
This past year has easily been the most chaotic rollercoaster ride of my life thus far. The highs were amazing but the lows nearly pushed me to my breaking point. This won’t be the post that I dive deep into the disaster that consumed the last company that I worked for, although that post has already been written and will come soon. Instead of rehashing the past, this is more about where I’m going next.
A Brief Background
Somewhere in the neighborhood of eight years ago, I started working for a company that did marketing for financial professionals. I learned a great deal about digital marketing and sales, but I was young and not quite ready to settle into a role. I went off and started a few small businesses and took on side jobs as I continued to figure out what it was that I wanted to do.
Eventually, I returned to the financial services and marketing firm only to leave again to pursue a career in solar design. After that, I got into trading stock options and had a great deal of success before covid took over and destroyed the market. On the brink of packing up and heading back to Alabama, I decided to take one more job to hold me over until my lease ran out.
Helicopters 101
The offer I ended up accepting was from a local helicopter manufacturing company. At the time, I thought I was simply going to be running their social media accounts and writing press releases and for a few weeks, that’s exactly what I did. It was a small company–maybe 10 people in the building at the time–and the engineers were actually taking on the sales calls. As you might imagine, engineers aren’t usually the best salespeople. The result was a string of long calls where the engineer would do all of the talking and eventually bore the once excited prospect out of the sale.
After a couple of weeks of seeing this, I offered to give it a shot. It didn’t take long for me to close a couple of sales which prompted the owner of the company to fly in from Alaska to announce that I was now the head of sales and no one else would be allowed on the phone with potential clients.
This job was extremely difficult but just as rewarding. Up to this point, I didn’t realize having a job that you truly loved was really an option. I had never experienced such excitement and pride in a job before and I truly thought that it would be the last job I ever had. My sheer passion in the company resulted in record sales. In two years, me and my team sold more helicopters than the previous 10 years of the company. I learned something new every day, I got to travel and fly helicopters and planes, and I met the most amazing people along the way. With that being said, it wasn’t long before cracks began to show and the stress of the job began to take its toll.
The Downfall
To make an incredibly long story short, the company collapsed and I found myself out of job and with roughly $25,000 of my money seemingly lost among the wreckage. I was entering my darkest times. My phone rang night and day for weeks as furious and confused customers inquired about their parts and money.
After a week of taking calls and relaying what little information I had, I was completely burnt out. I disappeared for a while as I struggled to come to terms with what had happened. Eventually, I realized that the only move was to get back out into the world and keep pushing.
The Future
I reached back out to the guy that initially brought me under his wing when I first came out to Arizona and he hooked me up with an opportunity that will likely take me to another level in business and life. A role I was created for, this new position allows me to drastically improve the business of financial professionals and real estate agents. It feels good seeing the results of what I’m selling improve the lives of my clients. On top of that, the lack of stress and limitless upside potential is pretty intriguing to say the least.
I guess the point is that I went through some things this year, and in many ways, I’m still going through some things. I’m just now starting to recover from the horrid events of the year, but there is hope. After months of darkness and uncertainty, I can finally see the light. There are some serious adjustments to be made, no doubt, but I’ve never been so excited for the future. I’ve got a feeling 2024 will be the start of a very productive chapter in my life.
Stan Collins
