9:39am.

Latte from Oliver’s.  Not bad. Only thing I’m permitting self aside from sparkling water, during this fast.  Just made two calls.  Both voicemails.  Looking for other businesses….  IDEA.

Writing notes in a bit.  Couple more calls…

Left voicemail.  Marketing firm in Petaluma.  Never heard of them… looking at their site and getting ideas for my businesses.  Visual… more photography.  May go for a drive later and film and shoot in a vineyard.  Where I’ve said I’m the most me, but now I’m starting to not just acclimate to the current work office situation, but needing it.  See a story in it.  See more stories.

Kids in the other room playing some learning game with bird sounds, sitar riffs, and some gentle kid-focused ambient music.  Keep writing, I tell myself and stay in the chair.  This latte isn’t the best I’ve ever had, honestly.  I should buy a latte or espresso, some coffee drink machine when this is all over and I have my own office, which again Jack asked me about yesterday.

I’m picking up the journal….  On the desk.  Went into kitchen to check on babies.  They’re taken by the challenges of the screens and the puzzles… fill in a letter here, there, then this song plays.  I tell myself again… DIFFERENCE. 

Stopping typing.  Write students a quick email, then scribble notes in journal.

How would I sell this, this situation, I think to myself.  Shelter… IN…. Place.  SIP.  Huh… as in, wine?  As in …. This latte?

10:25.  And selling this stage, this corner, this office, my kids going crazy and the virus still out there.  What if a virus could be something beneficial?  What if it already is?  Not with people falling ill, or worse, but in this.  With my family, in house, safe, SIPping the latte and typing as I am.

11:58.  Lunch, I guess. Other half of the burrito I got yesterday.  Stuck in house, not stuck at all.  Thinking of the idea of a “secret sauce” as some say and not having it be a secret at all.  In fact, blaring it to everyone, and showing that you’re the only one that can do it that way.  Interesting.

                Took a picture of this desk.  This work station.  Why… to capture that I’m here, producing, working, being the most me of the me-ness I can put to page.  More than productivity, more than staying busy, or moving as I say, even more than staying “STARVED” as my article’s title asserts, but breathing, and not thinking so hard.  You don’t need to.  Everything you need and have and should want for growth or advance is right HERE with you.

                Sparkling water in a bit, some new kind or brand I found on the Oliver’s shelves.  What I took since I couldn’t find any of the Bubbly, or do they spell it Buble?  Don’t know how to put an accent on the ‘e’, on this basic bitch of a laptop.

                Co-worker emailing me and saying she needs a beer from Moonlight, up the street as we’ve met there before with her husband.  They’re big fans as am I and more and more and further we get into this stay-the-fuck-home decision.

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4/3/20, Friday.

8:20.

Flight email sent to Mark.  Babies in office with me, working.  Each stating they have their own offices in here with me.  Had the Kenwood Cab last night.  Nothing too memorable.  Would I have it in my shop, yes… but not as a featured bottle or anything.  Or maybe I would have it as some value feature, even though I hate both those words, especially when they’re close together.

Blogging should be more meta… Emma says she wants a pen resting in and on her ear as I do now.  Then she says she doesn’t.  She ate the last bagel, making some people in the house irritated.  The lockdown is a lock-IN.  In my own ideas and practices.  Like I told Mark this morning, I’m going to go about everything in prospecting new business differently.  Not sure what that means, exactly… but visibility, communication, questions, asking them about THEM.

Going for a drive in a bit.  Need new pants on.  Babies continue to workl, Emma reading aloud.  Me thinking of new approaches to everything, EVERYTHING.  Parenting, running, waking up earlier which again I didn’t do today.  Tonight, be here… in this chair.  Not on the couch working as I tried to last night.  Yes, tried…. But I do have notes on the wine…. “Placid and a whisper Cabernet form and realization…” Made me think of this AE story.  Write about only that… the morning, the calls, the afternoon, the canvassing when I can actually canvass…. Everything’s being an AE, I see.  The idea I jotted a few weeks ago, ‘ME An AE Sea’, speaking to this writer.  Just write this…. Yes, I’m straying from my wine writing singularity, but not.  Not at all.  New journal, new character and Personhood this morning.  All for business, much for me, and whatever for whatever else.

Going to store, get bagels.  What else… sparkling water.  Yes.

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First day working from home.

Or out of office.  Indie AE, I’m thinking of myself being.  Meeting a little over an hour ago, then back home to go for run.  Suited in running visual, form, but was caught up in calls, emails.  This makes it now even more known to self that I need wake at 4 and run.  No wine last night, set alarm for 4.  Woke, but no run.  Right back to sleep.  FUCK.  So here I am in running shirt and shorts, even shoes on, eating a turkey and Monterey Jack sand’ in kitchen.  Typing.  Meeting at 3 with wine industry influencer friend. 

Day began with trip to Office Depot for files, and small file cabinet.  Brought far too much shit home with me—papers, even two fucking staplers.  For my AE life… NO PAPER.  Or, as little as possible.  Threw what remained in the boxed I used to transport all the shit home, and put in dark corner of garage.  Now in backpack, nearly nothing.  Just some cords, pens, and this laptop if needed.  To the event I’m attending tonight in Novato, after meeting with wine friend, I’ll only have phone.  Telling self that I need operate from phone.  And only one of them… the Sonic silver one.  Sonic Silver, I’m calling it.  That’s all I’ll bring. Need to charge it.  What a day… frantic and moving and filing and organizing, de-cluttering and more organizing, calling and driving to Rohnert Park to meet with someone who won’t buy anytime soon.  Wants our services, but I need to get more in the building to sign, elect us over the incumbents..

Received email from prospect.  Meeting scheduled.  That makes two appointments made for day, and another with a potential IT partner.  For some reason I feel under-accomplished for day.  More than likely from not making calls.  Will be made up, tomorrow.  In field the entire day with new AE.  We’ll be in the East Bay, Berkeley and Albany.  Will have lunch down there as well.  Packing light, again.  Only biz card and cell phones.

90 minutes till meeting, and quite a bit of time left in lunch.  Would have gone for a run but found self thinking too much about it.  Just got an email from someone requesting a quote.  May end lunch sooner and not near the hour marker.

Quiet in the house.  No music, just keys being pushed.  Much better than the office I must say, with all the chatter and coughing, people walking by and other distractions.  Day after tomorrow—

Just found a scheduling conflict.  For Friday.  Shit… our quarterly meeting, company-wide.  Guess I’ll have to re-schedule.  Will call tomorrow morning to do.  Other AE is driving to East Bay. I offered to get lunch later in day for us.  Need to work on calendar management… crucial, I’m finding, and potentially embarrassing.  Schedule less, and appointments further distanced, rather than respective antitheses.  Taking a breath.  This is just Day 1.  Learning curve, learning Road, all in learning to re-learn certain basic habits and basics in business practice.

1/28/20

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1/7/20

Test

Testing self today with how much I can get done.  Planning to leave in a bit for my coLAB office.  Moving stuff out of 2260 Apollo Way.  Here I go, I say to myself.  Prospect harder.  Be realistic.  Find businesses that are new, that not only need service but have a dimension with which you identify.

Settling into the morning, still feeling a bit sick, or maybe just stuffed up, stuffy… get out of the office, I say to self, but I can’t go far with an appointment at 11.  Can’t think… can’t think of anything.  Just keep moving, I tell myself again and again……

Get out of the office.

Not yet.

Settle into day a little more.  You’re still sick, technically, so don’t move too fast.  Where am I going to put all this stuff… papers and paperwork, files and business cards. Not enough room in house.   Feeling cold symptoms, and not liking what I’m writing.  Not one bit.  And…. I keep doing it.  Why.  How do I change the morning’s beat and general shape.

This certainly is a test.  Self and sight, conviction, do I really want what I say I do and if so how badly.

FORGETTING EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOVE.

Re-starting.  Starting a business, entails all this.  Days you don’t feel the best, mornings where you feel a bit panicked about attracting new clients and starting new conversations.  Just making calls, sending emails.  All I’m going to do, today.  As with any day.  So do it differently, I tell myself.

Funny how much clutter, shit, I’ve gathered in the six months at this desk, and the incubator right next to me.  Rolling cabinet empty.  Throw away as much as I can.  Minimalism, and even a step past.  The more you have, the slower you move.

Woke up late again this morning but left home with impressive inertia.  No distractions, no Starbucks.  Just moved out the door after I finally found my fucking keys.

Building business…  Like Kerouac’s Sal, with Dean, zooming to one part of the country and then to the other. I of course now speak from literature, where I’m from, and remember I have to call someone to set up a meeting.  Need to make these meetings work more.  What does that mean, just translate to sales?  Not necessarily, but contribute to my story.  The writer in the tech office, professor, writer…  Reading as I go and completely taken with the idea of a page.  What the page can do.  What it WILL do.  What it’s doing, what my pages have done.

In today’s test, or lab, exam, midterm or final or whatever in seeing how much I can get done, I seek to redefine business and the operations of a business.  More utilization of what’s not directly connected to this office, what my role entails, how it’s described.  But still, very much adept and kept in the AE form and narrative.  The story of an AE.  Not as stoic and clinical as it might sound.  Today’s test is gifting me much more than I hoped for, or forecasted.  And now that I think more closely and intimately, anatomically at the canvas, this is not test.  But a Road, a sequence of songs, a storm of joy.  All written, and narrated in everything I do.  Everything we do, in whatever we do.

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Last day of year, and getting here later than I wanted to from waking early this morning with Jack.

Poor chap having difficulty sleeping.  Checked on him and Emmie before leaving, both not awake or interested in the world.  But just in their respective dreams.  And me eager to get to the office and tackle these labs, the hypothetical scenes and circumstances where I would offer services to clients with certain setups.  Meant to test me, somewhat, but as well meant to see how I’d react, see where my familiarity with the tech of this AE act is.  And I see it developing, getting stronger, becoming more fluid and fluent in my words and language.  Of course I’m not a Sales Engineer, and I’ve actually been told don’t get too hooked on the tech side of things, go up to the cliff but don’t jump off. But, what if I were to be a mock-SE?  An AE that’s as equal parts SE as he is AE?  My mind goes in a million different hurdles and poses, mold and directions with this story, the one I’m writing… the acronyms used to scare the shit out of me, but now…. No.  Not at all.  I’m excited and delighted and feel divinely and highly invited.

Two more labs to go.  With these last two I’m going to get a bit more creative, less focused on beating whatever price tag is on the current service of the hypothetical client and focusing on the value of what we do here at Sonic with our consultancy approach.  I remember Field Sales, all those days in the field walking up and down the Avenues and Streets of SF wit the team, and hearing all the conversations at the door.  This is still very much that face to face interaction… Field Sales and that tell as Supervisor outlined all this understanding of AE life and the overlap with SE practice.  All it is, really, at least in my application, is product familiarity.  And there’s a diversity to our menu that enlivens my steps.

New Year’s Eve, eve of what.  I’m already quite deep into my plan, into my principle motion and mode.  9:20 in the morning but I de-emphasize time, and what it does to me, how I see it.  The Mike Madigan character re-written, and put to page differently.  Thinking of going out, working offsite, mimicking the setup I’ll have when I leave the office.  With the other AAE leaving, there’s more focus on me.  Which I am only pleasurably and lovingly shoved by.  Write more like Kerouac I tell myself, bottomless from the bottom of my mind, my character and immediate form.

Get grades turned in, soon.  Maybe even tonight.  Start drawing next semester’s outline.  And rubric—or no, don’t use any rubric.  Why did I think I would?  Have everything be truly about READING and writing.  Expression and narrative, have that bleed into this AE role more, and wine as well.  This new year so much to happen and within the first half.  Like what I ask myself.  I know what.  I know precisely WHAT.

Logging every thought in the moment as it presents itself to me and not doing anymore doubletakes.  Everythought, one word as I disregard every grammatical and syntactic inhibition and rule.  Would get on the phone now, but I need to follow these ideas and thoughts, musings and notes, wherever they go…. The location, this office and what I do in it… Sonic, a character that’s like some character blend idealism.  I mean, here I am, being the most ME that I’ve ever been and….  Should get on phone, call at least ten businesses, just wish them a happy new year or something, just check in.  It’s not cold-calling if you don’t sound that way—but this is boring, writing about that.  What should I do… starting to get bored and tired and frustrated with my sentences.

Get out of the office, a voice says.  Go somewhere.

Where.

I have no idea.  Just keep writing, keep thinking… telecom, being a Sales Engineer, and learning more of the tech, what used to scare me to death’s door and table but now realizes me and convinces my character of more action, more pursuit of curiosity.  I was told recently to stop doubting myself when it comes to tech, and certain corners of my AE story.  So I see the unlock-er as movement itself.  That is what will make anything and everything happen.

You know what, I am going to go for a drive.  Work from a Starbucks or something.  Practice doing it now otherwise when I’m forced offsite it’ll be too much of a shock.  It’ll be like me working for my blog, for me, my company… finally.  The P-O-Z Agency.  Everything that’s embodied and entailed in its composition.  Produce On Zoom…. Or ‘Passion Only Zeal’.  Something like that, or maybe not make it an acronym.  Have enough of those in my life already, in this AE put.

Made a call, going to make another….  And, look for a certain type of company, find a way in… test my “networking” aptness and acuity, movement and versatility.  Found a lead, in a certain industry. Researching now… I should have research done by the time I get to office, but I won’t be having to ‘get to office’, before too long.  Going to go offsite in a bit, to coLAB.  Try and negotiate a rate, some deal, some something.  Use that as my base….  More ideas.  Maybe they need connectivity.  Getting ahead of myself, and distracted.  Get your office, and motion and speak from there.

Day, off the ground. The new year, already here.  I’m not waiting.  For anything.  Intensifying, Amplifying, and Diversifying my prospecting, business, principle approach in the AE life and everything.  No editing, only writing… only lines, only composition, only positive pulse and progression.  Looking for new projects, new approaches in every turn and every inquiry.  So now, more.  More of everything.  Need a break, but a break to produce, not stop in production.  EVER.  Engineering self to a new self maybe but one more with altitude and vocal, hunger, an utter absence of apprehension.

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Just realized something…. Everyone’s an Account Executive.  For themselves, for their passions, convictions, for their projects.  What they want, where they are and what they’re doing with that precise heartbeat.  THAT pulse.

This blog, about work, but as well about using all realities and connectivity in your story.  Sending emails to prospects and reading about businesses, and how they came to be… this one guy, I think younger than me, having his own real estate firm on RR Square, here in Sant Rosa. I have NOT forgotten the

P-O-Z Agency.  Starting to take more shape, with this morning.  Lunch with prospect soon, and I know exactly what I want from the meeting… find ways to send him business, to speak his brand, his expertise.  Not so much the giver’s gain like BNI, but collective narration and sight, narration.

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Now familiarizing self with products again, and promotions for sakes of matching whatever the prospect is paying.  Some you’ll win, some you’ll lose.  Just keep quoting, I’ve learned.

Slowing pace.  Taking a breath, or dozen.  Not allowing too much elevation too quick and conversely not permitting drastic descent.

Readying to leave.  But then I’m hit with an idea… again, going outside the box, and maybe not a box but just the immediate expectancy of things.

More than a funnel I’m thinking of, but….. something. Geographies, business types, unexpected harmonies of businesses, collaborations but even more than that.

Slowing down, but only before I make another move…

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Literary lunch in breakroom.  Little bit of a lesson with me and receipts… keep them all, organize.  Don’t throw away a single thing.  There’s only clutter is there’s no organization, no system for processing.  Expenses today, only the latte.  Eating raisin bran in baggie I packed.  Seeing new things to try with my work, with speaking, with how I market myself and Sonic.  Just remembered, today is Day 1 of Month 4.  Am I content with where I am, progress-wise?  More or less.  Need to keep taking notes, keep learning.  Test self and abilities with prospecting, and investigation of new clients and new client-rich areas.

Need this break, honestly.  Regroup and assemble before heading to Montgomery Drive in Santa Rosa.  Bring some of the privacy protectors, something to give prospects so they don’t see me as someone in their office just selling something.

Class tonight.  What’s my plan.  None.  Same as my approach to this… don’t do your job so much.  Focus on self, what you want, what you see in the company, how you translate the message and reality of Sonic.

Make this all literary, and it is.  Doesn’t need be made so.  Every character, every department, every role in the department.  Learn from every word, every walk.  This never happened at the winery, any of them.  No bets, no hedging bets.  This is where I need to write, and write about.  Eager for day of no more winery and teaching, and I keep saying that but I need to remind self, re-staple and cement the sense of a business bloke.

Someone behind me getting coffee.  Only had the latte and I need a boost or bump in my propeller.  One cup won’t hurt.  Thought about getting a sparkling water, but no…. no spending from debit, nor cash.  Only use change from drawer.

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