Brandon Dawson

It was a small school, 35 of us in our class.

We had all been going to school together, most of us since the seventh grade.

I was the athlete slash class joker.

And so it was kind of a running joke because I was the one with the worst grades.

So I didn't go to school because I loved school.

I went to school so I could play sports.

And as soon as I was out of school, I was out of that little town too.

Well, I tried.

You know, I went for a few months until they told me I was going to fail math and have to do it again.

And I was like, I'm not doing this.

I'm going to do something I'm excited about.

And I moved...

up to Portland, Oregon and started inside sales and then very quickly moved to Atlanta, Georgia, become an outside sales rep for device manufacturer.

And that's where I really grew up and realized I love selling.

I love the randomity of traveling around to 11 different states at 18, 19 years old and really just learned to grow up working with older people.

And it taught me a lot about how to communicate.

When I was eight, my mom married a guy that invented the end-of-year hearing aid and it was a startup.

And so by the time I was 23, 24, we were the largest manufacturer in the world.

And I had been inside sales.

I had worked in every area of that business.