COVER STORY CONT .
“ This was the first exposure I had to selling and earning a commission ,” Robins recalled . “ After sitting there for a week , I got curious about whether or not I could do what they were doing . It paid $ 5 for each appointment scheduled , and I could use the money … So , I picked up the phone and start dialing .”
Robins used every spare minute to improve herself . During a four-hour break between shifts , she would work out at the gym , then head back to the office to watch old VHS tapes of Zig Ziglar . “ Between that and the help of the general manager , I got a taste for selling , and it turns out , I wasn ’ t half bad at it ,” Robins said .
Robins also took a few free classes at a local community college on computers . Thinking that “ getting into computers ” would provide financial stability , she found a job fair for IT people , printed up a bunch of resumes and went .
“ My plan was to get a job working for an IT company in any capacity and then learn the business from the inside out ,” Robins said .
Despite having no computer skills , she landed a position in the collections department at CGI Systems by convincing them of her hard work ethic and eagerness to learn .
Once hired , she started teaching herself Lotus Notes , an application used throughout the organization and profitable services division of the company . After quickly writing a program to track all invoices and past-due money for the company , she was given the chance to be promoted into the company ’ s computer training division as a sales rep . As an employee of that division , she was allowed to sit in on training classes for free . Her goal : “ Tolerate ” the sales job just long enough to get trained to be a Lotus Notes programmer or Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer . What actually happened , though , changed the trajectory of her life .
“ I was selling like crazy and started making what I thought was insanely good money ,” Robins said . “ It was around $ 70,000 a year — nearly four times more than I had ever made in my life .” Making more money than many of the programmers and engineers , Robins went all in , doubling down on learning how to sell , buying books and audio tapes and going to every seminar she could to learn how to get better . Before long , she was one of the top reps . After she was noticed by a Tennessee marketing firm that her manager hired to generate leads for their IT courses , she and her manager decided to start a division of the marketing firm in England to serve the European , Middle Eastern , and African ( EMEA ) market . Selling her car , quitting her well-paying job and giving notice on her apartment , she left the U . S . to build a startup marketing firm based in Lemington Spa , England .
“ It was a tremendous experience , and I learned a lot ,” Robins said . “ But the business and the relationship with my partner were total failures .” Returning stateside after just one year , Robins hit rock bottom again .
“ I had sold everything I had , given up my job and had no money in the bank , so I had nothing to come back to ,” Robins said . Starting over from scratch yet again , she took a job as a sales rep for the Tennessee-based marketing firm she attempted to start in England . Buying a car she couldn ’ t afford on credit , she packed what little she owned and drove from Philly to Nashville .
Again , she ran into problem after problem . The marketing firm she joined was not paying its bills and was cheating clients by not delivering the campaigns they ’ d been paid to mail . Distraught by this discovery yet unable to quit , Robins vowed to never be in this situation again .
“ I ’ ll never forget that day ,” Robins said . “ I left work angry and frustrated to tears . I felt like a prostitute … working for a man I didn ’ t respect , doing something I knew was wrong because I needed the money . I remember pounding on the steering wheel of my car and shouting ‘ I ’ m done with this s – t !’” In that moment , Robins made herself a promise she ’ s absolutely kept : to get truly financially free so she would never be a slave to poverty and debt again .
Trying to find stability , she bounced around a few more jobs , one of which was for the motivational guru Tony Robbins . But in early 2002 , the final straw came when she was fired from the last job she would ever hold .
“ It was the first week back to work after the Christmas break ,” Robins recalled . “ The 9 / 11 attacks had everyone on edge , and no one was hiring .”
With no money , a mountain of credit card debt and rent to pay , she started hustling for small marketing jobs . “ I called everyone I knew and even a few I didn ’ t ,” she said . “ I got enough business coming in that I started to think I could actually work for myself .”
She figured out her niche — the IT industry — thanks to a project she did for CompTIA that led to securing multiple value-added reseller ( VAR ) clients . A rapidly rising trajectory , after just a few years , she had hundreds of clients and hired seven people to help her manage the fast
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