About Me — Eleanor Ahlstrand

Still searching, learning and evolving

Photo by Ryan Moreno on Unsplash

I am a persuader. I feel as though I am standing in front of a room full of people admitting my unforgivable crimes.

My entire career has been in sales, but I have never “sold” anything. However, I have persuaded many that they need, could not live without, absolutely had to have what I had to offer. It was always their idea, I just helped them with the process.

The Beginning

I was 25 years old when I began my sales career. My first sales job was with an insurance company that was opening a brand-new office with dreams of expanding with satellite offices all over Northern California. The manager, Paul, who was opening the office had dreams of building a region and he needed people to help him with his dream. He spoke of opportunity for growth and promised lots of fun and excitement. I was willing, ready, and able.

In the beginning there were only four of us, three young men, all my age, and myself. We were to be the pillars. We were excited and worked hard to be part of the dream. Part of the team.

Our hours were long and hard. But it paid off. In two years, we had turned that brand new office into one of the top ten producing offices in the country, out of 220 offices. We had more than 100…