Who Is MJ Durkin?

On a frigid but sunny day in January a young salesman sat by the side of the road in Woonsocket, RI pondering his future.  It had not been a good day.  He was literally sitting by the side of the road because the police had just impounded his 1967 Valiant.  The young salesman had failed to produce a valid registration because he needed to make a sale to have enough money to register the car.  No sale was made that day.  Nor had any sales been made the week before when he had started out in his new territory.  After making ten fruitless sales calls that day in Providence he had decided he would feel a little better if he could wash the winter slush and mud off of his car but even the car wash man had rejected him!  “That body rot will cut up my brushes kid. Get that piece of garbage out of here,” the grizzled man with ice in his beard had snarled at him.  When he had pulled his two dollars back in through the window and driven off, he thought that he was as low as he could go but he was wrong.  As he watched the tow truck pull away with his only method of transportation he felt that roller coaster of queasiness make his stomach flip with panic and fear.  His sales career was over!  In two hours he had to make his daily call to his sales manager and he would have to report that he had closed nothing and had no way to make sales calls the next day.  To add to the ironic comedy, he was selling multi-colored windbreaker jackets to elementary schools and he had elected to take his samples out of the car to protect them.  So there he stood on the side of the road with his briefcase, file box and thirty multi-colored jackets looking like a forlorn nylon peacock!

The young salesman called a college buddy of his to rescue him and after a hot meal and a lecture from his friend that he should get a “real job” he was dropped off at his luxury apartment at 210 Boyden Street.  Wandering around in the spaciousness of the living room (because other than a table serving as desk there was no other furniture) he was desperately searching for a thought that would feel better than the panic and desperation that seemed to course through his veins and made him want to dive out of his own body.  So he did what he had done since he was seven years old - he reached for a book.  Authors like Stone, Forsyth and Uris promised adventure and intrigue but there was nothing in his collection that seemed to offer motivation, inspiration or an answer to the question that was raging around in his head like a madman; “What should he do?” 

Then he came upon an author by the name of Bach.  It was a book that his father had given him that bittersweet night that he had left for college.  It was a metaphorical tale about a seagull seeking freedom that always seemed uplifting to the young salesman and it was the closest thing he had to a “motivational” book so he gave it a try.  The book did not hold the answers to why he couldn’t seem to close a sale and it certainly did not have a solution to his vehicle issue but he did feel a little better after reading a few chapters.  He calmed down a bit and started to think more clearly about his situation.  Now, it didn’t seem so bad, he was able to settle down and get a decent night’s sleep.  As it turned out he didn’t lose his job, ended the quarter as runner up for rookie-of–the-year and decided to stay in sales.  

I am that salesman and I’m probably a lot like you.  I have chosen the life of a professional salesperson and I’ve made more than a great living doing what I love to do.  I’ve grown more than I ever imagined I would.  I’ve had thousands of interactions with prospects and I’ve had to reach down and find out who I really am.  I’ve met fascinating people and developed relationships that have enriched my life and my soul.  I’ve had control over my own schedule and for the most part I have awakened each day excited about the next step forward in the adventure.  I’ve had a blast prospecting, presenting, closing and servicing.  It has been the most intense, fun personal development program that I have ever enrolled in – and they paid me to take the course! 

My hope is that MatchingIntentions.com will help you like Jonathan Livingston Seagull helped me that day.  I hope you can come to this website when you are hurting, not confident or don’t believe in yourself.  I hope you will feel a little bit better by reading the information on this site.  Perhaps you will have a complete shift in the way you approach the selling process and your frustrations, fears and negative experiences while prospecting, presenting and closing will gently fade away.  Selling is supposed to be fun.  This site will show you how to have fun again and immerse yourself in the creative river that selling was meant to be.  Selling was never meant to be hard, grinding, gutting it out kind of work.  Inside this site are the secrets to making the process fun, relaxing and easy. I know from the experience of training thousands of Salespeople that most of you are working way too hard and worrying way too much!  My desire for you is that MatchingIntentions.com will show you how to produce sales much more effectively and efficiently.  It is time to make your “vocation your vacation” and that time is now.  I believe that you attracted this website and my materials because you wanted and were ready for the information presented within. 

I didn’t write the material on MatchingIntentions.com.  It wrote itself.  All I did was follow many of the suggestions that are in these pages.  Hundreds of hours, sitting quietly allowed this material to present itself to me.  There were no angels singing or harps playing but ideas that I have had for years coalesced with clarity and purpose in ways that were exciting and somewhat startling to me.  The “ah-ha” feelings that I had were too numerous and felt too good to believe that this was my ego writing again.  I believe that this material is inspired.  I hope that you will too. 

Blessings on your sales journey,

MJ Durkin