Long Hair, No Hair, Short Hair...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Sat, May 18, 2013

Kendall Square resized 600I was walking around Kendall Square late yesterday afternoon.  A perfect spring day with the added electricity in the rarified air of Cambridge due to the normal abnormality of MIT, multiple graduations happening this weekend, and entrepreneurs doing more deals than I've seen in years fueled by big money happenning on Wall Street.  A perfect day...until I realized that I was not hearing my normal, "Hey Jack..."  Not at CIC, not at Dunkin's, not even walking through the Cambridge Marriott's lobby.

People keep telling me that I know a lot of people, and that "I'm connected".  Connected, not in a Mafia kind of way, but most probably because I'm older (Ok...a lot older) and have been kicking around the Boston startup, middle market, venture and PE scene for a long (Ok...a very long time) time.  Between the firm's work in Sales Optimization, teaching at MIT and Tufts, and being the chair of Common Angels, I guess I do know a lot of people.  But yesterday, I also knew that something was different, and as I was walking on Main Street absolutely no one was shouting out the normal, "Hey Jack...".  And then I remembered, I cut my hair Wednesday afternoon.  

Actually, I probably only know 10 people around Boston.  What I do know are about 10 people who really do know lots of other people.  But with 15+ years of very long hair always tied in a pony tail, at least I could say-up until Thursday morning-that I'm "recognizable", which is always a dubious word. With long hair, I've come to realize that "recognizable" is kind of like the word, "interesting", the real interpretation of which depends totally on the inflection of the person using the word.  For example, when my daughter-in-law uses "interesting" about me, I always know that the following 30 minutes of tense discussion is going to be...well, "interesting".

  • "Recognizable"  Definitely, but now only "used-to-be"
  • "Noteworthy"? Definitely not. 
  • "Interesting"? Maybe.  Depends on that inflection thing
  • "Stands out in a crowd"? Sure. Maybe not for the right reason, but...

After years of telling someone that I was meeting for breakfast at the Newton Marriott for the first time, "I'll be in the lobby, and it's pretty to recognize me", I now need to come up with some other equally nonsensical saying.  If "long hair" was defined by a pony tail for 15+ years, then shorter hair is now going to defined by "How short?"

  • We're definetly not talking Jack McCullough at KPMG short.
  • We're not even talking Jeff Xxxxx's comb-over, wimpy-thin short.
  • But, we're definitely not talking "long" anymore.

How come? 

Maybe it's the beautiful spring, after a really long Vermont winta'.  Maybe it's because I wanted to look "older" (not so hard to do), "younger" (impossible to do), more "something"  (totally impossible to do)?

...but actually, it was just time to make a change.  I've always found that change is always good both personally, in business, and certainly in the world of Sales, depending on the degree, the frequency and the velocity of the change factor.  And maybe with an economy that's waking up, a solid earnings season behind us, and the smell of summer just around the corner, cutting my hair was just on a whim.  I really don't know, but I do know after my Kendall Square excursion yesterday afternoon that I'm going to need to start reintroducing myself around Boston again.  So if you see someone walking up to you on the street or at the ACG Growth Conference on May 29th and giving you a business card, it's me...

Have a great weekend, and come Monday, get out there and sell some stuff! Jack Derby 

 

Jack,
Head Coach
Linked In and Sales

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