I've been doing B2B sales for 8 years now and I've always competed in "combat" sports along the way. I coach wrestling, and while I normally don't get a black eye from that, the occasional shiner happens from time to time. I've typically still went about my duties meeting with clients and honestly it served as nothing more than a conversation piece when it was brought up or asked about. Now that I only compete in BJJ, I'll leave a tournament with a shiner or a black eye regularly (random knee or elbow etc. from a scramble etc.), and I'm finally starting to get some flack about it from leadership.
I stepped into a front line sales leader role a couple years ago and that's when I first got the "talk" from my previous manager who's position I was filling, telling me that it's time in my career where I can't show up like that anymore. In his eyes it would tarnish my "brand".
Well I completely disregarded his advice intentionally on principle. If senior leadership never cared about the occasional shiner while securing millions in contracts with clients, why would they care just because of an internal job title change.
Thoughts?
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