Moral dilemmas and kissing the bumper of a Kenworth

            When I was selling liquor I had a territory that covered 3000 miles in a month.  I was responsible for 144 accounts in my territory and covered every type of retailer you could work with in my industry.  I sold ½ pints of cheap vodka in the morning in the inner city and then high end wine in the afternoon at a white linen dining establishment.  It was a mental workout just keeping it all organized in my head.

            Compound this by the fact the next highest number of accounts in my division was under 40.  They drove under 1000 miles a month…and yet we got the same amount of reimbursement for fuel…$100.  But that’s not what this post is about.  And yes, I’m still bitter.

            One of my accounts was almost on the South Dakota border.  It was so far north the owner of the account only needed to see me, in person, once a month.  Everything else was done by phone.  With that kind of understanding I made it a point to show up when I promised them no matter what the conditions.

            One fall day I was up at the bottle shop enjoying a pickle.  (They added extra salt to these gigantic kosher pickles and they were amazing)  The bottle shop was close to a Native American reservation, so a majority of the patrons were natives.  As I was talking to the owner in walked a man who took my totally by surprise.

            The man was walking with a cane and his face looked like Frankenstein.  And by that I mean his face was covered with scars from where they had stitched his face back together at one point.  His eyes were milky white and he spoke with a slur through a mouth that was missing most of the teeth.

            He ordered a pint of vodka and slowly shuffled out.  The owner of the bottle shop said “see you in a bit!”.  Slightly taken back by the shape of the man I asked what the story was.

            Apparently our friend lived a few blocks away.  He was known to drink a lot and one day ran out of booze before he passed out.  So, he walked up to the bottle shop to buy more booze.  On his way out he stumbled into the road in front of the shop.  That’s where he met the front grille of a Kenworth truck hauling grain.

            The impact with the truck stopped his heart.  His body was thrown several yards and the impact with the concrete restarted his heart.  He was rushed to the hospital and was stitched back up, lucky to be alive. 

            After many surgeries and a long recovery process our friend also won his law suit against the trucker and/or trucking company.  When he got back home he threw a huge party…where he got drunk and ran out of booze.

            He staggered up to the bottle shop and bought a 1.75 of vodka this time.  On the way out of the shop and back to his house a pickup truck lost control and hit him with a glancing shot. 

            He also sued this driver and after his recovery he threw yet another party.  At this point I was waiting for the punch line of the joke.  I’m sure you’re doing the same thing reading this right now…or you’re yelling at your monitor. 

            At the party he ran out of booze again.  …I’ll spare you the details but it was a car this time.  And he sued them as well.  Luckily he learned his lesson and didn’t throw a party this time.

            Basically this man had been detonated and rebuilt several times over.  He lived in constant pain and was unable to work.  Luckily he was able to live off the settlements from his accidents and was financially set.

            I asked my customer why he still came up to the shop.  “Oh it takes him an hour and a half to walk up here.”  I was speechless.  “He’s only a few blocks away but the walk slows his drinking down.  That’s why he only buys the pints of vodka.”  Just then another local walked in and commented on the man I was just starting to comprehend. 

            “Hes walking a lot better these days…maybe that car knocked something back into place.”  The man said as I sat there horrified.

            Apparently this man had come to terms with being an alcoholic.  His method of control was to only buy pints of vodka from the store up the street.  His 3 hour round trip and the hours of operation meant he was only there 3 or 4 times a day and didn’t get that drunk.

            This story has been the center of a 10 year struggle in my head.  While I wasn’t directly responsible for this mans shattered life, he was drinking my brand of vodka.  I had no control over what people do with the stuff once I sell it to a retailer but was I “allowed” to feel bad for this guy?

            As the person who sent cases of pints of vodka up each month, assumedly for this one man, was I contributing to this? 

            It was this story and several others that ultimately lead to me leaving the company.  Well…and several other things.  But the stories like this haunt me to this day.

            The only thing I have been able to find comfort in is where my responsibility ended.  There are just as many people who bought my products to celebrate something beautiful in life as there were people destroying theirs. 

            People make THEIR choices in life.  Some make good choices and others make bad ones.  Ultimately if you’re selling a product or products that can potentially ruin lives you need to be ready for this observation.  I made the choice to pay my bills and build my life by using my skills.  In this iteration my skills for creative problem solving and customer relationships made me a damn good liquor rep, but it doesn’t absolve me of the guilt.

A good story and some help from Andrew Jackson

            Sometimes all you need to do is give someone a good story.  This is especially true when you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t seem to understand the situation.  Sadly, this happens a lot in the auto industry.

            When I was working for a local Ford dealership as an Internet Sales Manager I worked with all kinds of people.  No two days were ever the same and it was a great experience if you had the desire to work with people.  Sometimes your customers were amazing and you ended up becoming great personal friends even after the sale.  Other times you wanted to vomit whenever you heard their name.

            One day I got an internet lead on a guy who wanted to buy a Platinum package F-150.  This is a $56,000 truck and usually means one of two things.  You have a kid who’s dreaming big and you’re in for a nightmare of a deal.  Or, you have someone who can afford it and they know exactly what they want.

            Luckily for me this was the latter of the two.  He turned out to be an Airman stationed at the local Air Base and was about to go to flight school.  He wanted to buy the truck before he left for training.  This was an easy transaction because we participated in USAA pricing for active military.  (something I helped push through)

            He showed up and spent 2 hours going over the features of the truck, checking out small details, and driving it.  I could tell this was the right truck for him and he was excited about it.  However, I could see there was something afoot with this deal that wasn’t evident just yet.

            “Ok…I’ll talk to you later then!”  And he walked away toward his car, out of nowhere.  This is the ultimate nightmare for any car sales person.  Your “Up” (prospective customer) is leaving the property without talking to someone else…which meant you’re going to be humiliated publicly by your manager.  I finally stopped him in the middle of the drive and asked where he was going.  “Oh its no big deal…I just need to crunch some numbers and think about it for a day.”

            I’ll spare you the boring details but he ended up leaving after we worked up some numbers.  The entire time he was about as readable as wet toast.  After a while I gave up and let him go, the guy was just done talking.

            After my day off I walked into the dealership to find my buddy Jason had worked with the airman yesterday.  This happens all the time and now both of us are on the line to close the deal to get HALF of the money.  Jason was a pretty stand up guy so I knew he had done everything on the up and up so I didn’t have to worry.  “That dude was hard to read!  He came in all excited and then just kinda went limp…what the hell?”

            Over the next two weeks Jason and I effectively “tag teamed” this guy with emails, phone calls, and yet more visits to the dealership.  Each time the guy just wanted to drool over the truck and learn more about some bizarre detail that nobody ever cares about.  I honestly think he asked if the lug nuts were right hand thread at one point…but I got so zoned out talking to him its all a blur.

            Finally, one day Jason and I have the guy in the dealership and he’s starting to show signs of life.  We decided the best way to handle it was to work the deal together.  After 5 hours of the two of us in a small room with this guy we’re at the end of the deal.  We had stripped out everything and given up more ground on this truck than we thought was possible.  We had so much time invested in this guy we weren’t going to let him go this time.

            Our boss on the final pencil had told me, “if he doesn’t take this deal…get his ass out of here.”  He was as done dealing with this guy as Jason and I were.  At this point Jason and I were looking at a commission of $150 for a truck with an MSRP of $56,000.  Oh yeah…and we had to split the $150 for the last 3 weeks of work.

            “Well this is it…we’re done dealing.  There is nothing left in this deal.  We’re literally at the take it or leave it stage.”  I said.

            “I still feel like I should get something for free”  He said as I grinded my teeth and tried not to come over the table at this guy.  After even more deliberation and long drawn out awkward pauses he finally began to sign his name.  Jason and I glanced at each other in astonishment.

            He started to write the vertical part of an “A” in the first part of his name, then stopped and dropped the pen.  “I’m sorry guys I know $14,000 off the sticker is a hell of a deal but I feel like I need something for free here.  Oil changes or a gift card or something…”  It took everything I had to not slap this guy at this point.

            “Ok…the dealership is done dealing at this point.  Jason and I are all that’s left holding this deal together.  I’ll tell you what…”  I pull out my wallet.  “I’ll give you $20 from my own pocket if you shut up and sign your name.”  With that I pulled out a crisp $20 bill and laid it on the table.  “You’ll be the only guy you know who has the story about a car salesman giving you $20 to take a crazy deal like this.  But I want you to promise me some referrals so I can make my $20 back.”

            Jason was sitting on a file cabinet and had a look on his face that I’ll never forget.  To his credit, he didn’t say a word, which made the gesture even more powerful.

            After some awkward laughter from the guy he signed the paperwork and took the deal.  We got everything done and punted him down the road as quickly as possible.  Jason took the lead while I spewed profanity in the back.

            I realized all this guy wanted was a story.  His own story was pretty bland and other than being a fighter pilot he had nothing.  The truck he bought was his way of stepping up to the image of a fighter pilot.  He worked the deal not based on financials but on building a story he could tell the guys in his unit.

            Jason and I talked later and he was shocked I paid the guy.  When he asked me why I did it I told him.  “We were already making a split mini so the money wasn’t a factor.  However, I’m getting close to a $500 volume bonus for the month and this ½ deal could be the thing that puts me over the top.”  Jason nodded and agreed it was a good call…ballsy…but a good call.  “Plus, we’re finally done with that guy and can spend more time on other customers!”

            I ended up making my volume bonus later that month by…you guessed it…1/2 a car deal.  However the bonus I made was the second tier bonus that paid me a second $500.  As for our customer he left the state and we never heard from him again.  The last contact we had with him was on the Ford Survey they send out on new vehicle purchases.  If you can believe it the guy burned us on the survey because the process took too long.

How to beat the house...with technolgy.

    

This is one of my favorite “get even” stories.  When I was running my own business development company one of my clients ran an online gaming site.  The site didn’t use real money so you could gamble legally on it.  It was a loophole to be sure but the owner was proud of it.

            I came up with the idea of connecting the website to the casino’s on the river.  They had hosted events for me in the past and the connection was a no brainer.  If the casino advertised on the site it could put a ton of cash in our pockets at the same time.

            So with that I approached a marketing contact I had for the casino.  I told him about the site and how we were a legal gaming website in Nebraska who wanted to cross promote with their location.  At first he was excited to see what we came up with and gave me a ton of information on how the non gaming elements of the casino worked.

            The part he was most excited about was our ability to track emails.  My client owned an email program that not only tracked the open/read status of an email but could tell you who they forwarded it to, when they opened it, what links they clicked on, the associated IP addresses, and even the number of times you opened it.  When it came to generating a true ROI this program was amazing.

            At the end of our meeting he asked me to present a few ideas to them for review and then they would get back to us.  Whenever a meeting goes this well I tend to get a little excited and had 15 to 20 ideas within a few hours.  It didn’t hurt that I could also tie in several of my other clients into the promotions and double down on the exposure.

            After I narrowed the ideas down to 10 or so I sent him my standard non-disclosure email.  The response I got back gave me that horrible “pit of the stomach” feeling.  “I won’t sign this.  We represent one of the largest Casino properties in the world…if you can’t trust us then I guess we’re done here.”  I called him shortly after my stream of profanity had ceased.

            “You guys are a Casino…you’d bleed me dry at a table and then take my home if you had the chance…of course I don’t trust you!”  After an awkward laugh from him he restated the disheartening news.  I was at an impasse with the proposal…until I realized I had the email program.

            I agreed to forgo the NDA and sent him my proposal.  I sent it to him with a few embedded links to the other companies in the mix.  Most importantly though, I sent it through our email tracking system.

            Four weeks go by and he’s only returned a few emails from me.  Most of them said “we’ve been busy but I’ll get to it next week…I promise”.  And finally after a month I called him.

            “Just wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to review our proposal?” 

            “Ah man…I’ve been swamped with execs in from out of town.  I don’t think I’ve even had a chance to open the original document” he told me.

            “Really?  I think you opened it this morning at about 9:35am from this IP address.  (read him the IP)  Furthermore, that’s the 8^th time you’ve opened it since I sent it.  You’ve also forwarded the email to these 7 email addresses (read the list).  Remember when I told you we could track emails to a scary level…this is the proof”    

            If you’ve never dropped a bomb on someone like this before it’s a life changing moment.  I could almost hear him crapping his pants as he had a heart attack.  The look of shock on his face during the dead silence on the phone must have been epic.  He hurriedly blurted out, “um…um…we’ve already thought of most of this and want to pass…goodbye”

            Now I’ll be the first person to admit I could have handled that better, but lets face it the guy lied to me.  I approached the meeting and subsequent proposal with the best of intentions and full disclosure.  I would have been fine if he declined my proposal based on any number of reasons, but he lied to me for over a month.

            The lesson learned here is to use the tools at your disposal very carefully.  Had I used a little more restraint I may have salvaged this proposal and made some money on the deal.  At the same time I feel lucky to not have done business with someone who has that little integrity and overall lack of business ethics.  From that moment on I sent every proposal through that system and took it very seriously when I was presented an NDA.

            On a final note I ran into this guy years later.  I have grown a full beard and lost a bunch of weight since then.  He came up to me at a city run convention and was trying to get me to stop by his booth.  After he hit me with his canned speech on the amazing things going on at his casino I smiled and said.  “Sure…will you sign my NDA first?”  The blood drained from his face and his smile evaporated.  He happened to be shaking my hand at the time and his grip went limp.  “Justin?” he muttered.  I nodded and he walked away.

The high road is paved with double stuff oreos

            Years ago I was working for New York Life Insurance out of Omaha.  I had just finished training and was well on my way to becoming a full blown agent with the company.  The only thing I needed was my first client.  As is the case you start with your family and friends to ease into things, but I wanted a challenge.

            I came home from work one day to see a note stuck to my door.  Apparently I was being served and the county sheriffs office had stopped by.  I was shocked and confused on what was going on so I panicked and called the number.

            A woman answered the phone and told me in a fairly dull tone that she had court papers for me.  Eager to know what the hell was going on I opted to meet her and get the papers sooner than later.  I definitely didn’t want them served to me at my new job, where image was important, so I asked where I could meet her.  “You can meet me at the county lock up downtown…” 

            After a hard swallow and a few heart palpitations later I agreed to meet her down there.  Honestly, all I knew was it was in a bad part of town and I never wanted to be anywhere near that place, so I Googled it.

            I opted to leave work a little early and meet her in the afternoon.  For some reason I felt like that was safer for me and I could just head home afterward to regroup.  I walked into the secure waiting room in a suit and tie with a cashmere overcoat.  Several of the people waiting in the room looked at me like I was either a lawyer or a possibly a detective.

            Pam (name changed to protect identity) was called and I waited a few awkward minutes until she came up.  When she opened the door she was a heavy set African American woman in her 50’s.  She, rather un ceremoniously, handed me the papers in one quick motion. (I was being sued for a car accident from two years ago, it ultimately was just an ambulance chaser trying to get paid.)  “That’s a nice suit…what do you do?”  I told her I sold life insurance for New York Life.  “That’s the building in New York with the gold top right?”  Still in shock I nodded yes  “I need to get life insurance for me and my family…can you help me?”  And with that I had my first potential client.

            We met at a village in down in Bellevue.  I had to take my mentor at the time Steve (name also changed).  Unknown to me Pam was a lesbian and her life partner joined us.  Between the two of them they had 8 kids and 13 grandkids.  Steve did a very “quick and dirty” version of the script I had been given to help me sell.  You could tell he thought this wasn’t going anywhere and wanted to get it over with fast.

            After he breezed through it Pam looked at me and said “what do you think I should do?”  They had a huge need for coverage but didn’t make a ton of money.  Plus her weight and the fact she smoked meant her premium would be sky high.  I suggested the cheaper option of term insurance and she agreed.

            Steve was in the habit of quoting the top rating for clients.  “We’ll just send it in and see what we get”  and with that we wrote up a 500k policy.  I sat between the two women and literally walked line by line through the entire application answering questions as we went.  I could almost feel the relief as we wrapped it up.

            On the way back to the office Steve said “There’s no way in hell she’s getting that policy at what I quoted her!”  He knew her rating would be 4 to 5 times more than what we told her and still wrote it.  “I’ve also go a new nickname for you…double stuff!”  Apparently the sight of me, a heavy set white guy, sitting between two heavy set women reminded him of Oreo cookies.  It took everything I had to not punch him in the face at that moment.

            For the next month the case was in underwriting.  Pam got issued where I expected her to, 5 times what we quoted her.  We went back and gave her the policy and explained how it worked.  I did everything I could to give her an “out” and provided just enough information that she could figure out she wasn’t completely hosed with this deal, but Steve was persistent.

            Pam was excited that she had been able to get a policy and it meant the world to her knowing her kids would be taken care of.  She cried a little and held the hand of her partner.  When we left both of the women gave me, and only me, a hug thanking me for helping their family.  She told me to expect calls from all of their kids for policies in the near future.

            A week or two later I get a call from Pam.  She had looked at the illustration I told her about in the paperwork.  Steve had hoped she wouldn’t notice it so the policy would stick.  “Justin, in 5 years this is more than my mortgage…I can’t pay that.”  We discussed options and ultimately we had to cancel the policy.  Steve was pissed he lost his commissions on the deal and continued to call me “double stuff” for the rest of my time there.

            Pam left the department and gave me a call to roll over her pension several months later.  Steve went with me and tried to write it as a variable annuity so only he could get the case count as I was not licensed for variable annuities.  Her pension was a hair over $2000 and paid out $20 in commission.  Steve was calculating how much he made per mile, per minute, and so on.  Pam ended up cashing out her pension to pay her bills and Steve never got the $20.

            My first client in the life insurance industry was an overweight smoker who served me process papers in a jail.  Pam unintentionally taught me a huge lesson about myself and the power of doing the right thing.  Throughout the entire time we worked together she knew in her heart I had her best interests in mind.  She could see right through Steve and his ways, but knew I was the rookie who had to have him there. 

            Pam was going through a tough transition in life and needed someone to not only listen to her but to be kind to her.  I can only imagine the number of times this kind grandmother of 13 grandkids had been treated poorly serving process papers.  The number of times someone treated her like crap or with hostility.

            At the end of the day Pam needed someone to be kind to her and to have her interests in mind.  Steve faked his sincerity with her.  I remained genuine and from the moment I opened my mouth she trusted me implicitly.  Had I been a man of lower moral fiber I could have sold her a $20 million dollar policy…but she knew better.

            From that policy on I began to put quotes into my policy holders.  I printed out dozens of quotes that were inspirational or compassionate.  Every time I worked with a client I remembered that feeling of relief I felt in a Village Inn between those two women.   Every client I “signed up” from then on got a quote that I felt fit their life…a way to put into writing the relief I wanted them to have.

            I would never have gotten rich off of Pam and her family.  But that wasn’t the point of working with them.  Sometimes you’re in a position that you need to put the salesmanship aside and do the right thing for your customer.  Strangely enough that might be not selling them a damn thing and just teaching them about your business.

Give me commercials...not tears during a football game!

            I feel like this week I’m almost obligated to talk about the Super Bowl and the commercials.  It seems like no matter your view of football, you watch the Super Bowl.  Even if your favorite teams arch nemesis is playing after knocking yours out of contention you watch the Super Bowl.

            Companies pay millions of dollars for the spots.  Sometimes they only play the spots once during the game and we never see them again.  Other times the same ad will play for months after the game.  The one consistent thing about these commercials is that they are designed to make an impression.

            Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s to some extent my memories of Super Bowl commercials were some of the iconic ads.  The Bud Bowl with the animated bottles and cans, Budweiser Frogs, Diet Pepsi, Crystal Pepsi, and many more.  The ironic thing is I wasn’t old enough to drink alcoholic beverages until the late 90’s.

            The majority of these ads were hilarious and cleverly written.  The years where the teams were terrible or it was a blowout early on they carried the event.  Recent years these ads have changed and are starting to backfire on the companies themselves.

            Companies such as GoDaddy.com didn’t exist when I was a kid.  But I can only imagine my parents reaction to the scantily clad women they use to sell their products.  I also remember hearing that the CEO of Info USA wanted his ads to be so terrible that they were all you could talk about the next day at work.  The focus seems to have shifted from humorous and fun to an expensive game of pitch.

            This year I watched the game with my girlfriend.  Or, more appropriately she watched the game and I watched the ads.  (After playing football for years I lost the love of the game and don’t watch regularly)  Several times during the game I looked over at her to see how this years ads were effecting her.  She’s not a “Creampuff” by any means but she was in tears almost every other commercial break.  I don’t remember any of the deep belly laughs of my youth this year.

            Has the paradigm shifted to where the companies are focusing on making such a poignant impact on the consumers that they need to be so brutal?  Have we as a society walked away from humorous commercials and need to be clubbed with sentiment to be engaged?  From what I saw over this past Sunday there is definitely a school of thought that thinks so.

            Now I’m all for the power of making a bold statement.  The puppy that gets lost and then the Clydesdale sticks up for him takes you on a journey.  But does that journey do anything to contribute to their brand?  Does watching a puppy almost get devoured by a wolf make you want to drink Bud Light?  Its almost as if they’ve (Budweiser) been at it so long that they have lost sight of what these are for. 

            Also, how does the tearful sad or emotional story effect how you watch the game?  Your team is in the red zone about to tie the game with 3 minutes left to play and then they cut to a break.  The commercial is about prosthetic limbs and a little boys courage to adapt to his life with them and you’re left a sniffling mess thinking of your kids.  Without so much as a minute to collect yourself you’re back in the game…or are you?

            There is a fine line that needs to be walked with Super Bowl commercials.  The two that stood out as “appropriate” for me was the McDonalds commercial and the Dodge commercial.  Both of which were positive in nature and had that “warm fuzzy” feeling.  Both commercials gave a positive brand experience and supported their values.  Admittedly I got a little misty eyed at the McDonalds ad because it was such an affirmation in the human condition.  But other than being a little moved it was easy to segue back into the game.  The Dodge commercial with the 100 year olds made you feel good about being older.

            Any way you look at it the Super Bowl is going to be an emotional rollercoaster.  If you’re a company with a few million dollars burning a hole in your pocket for a few seconds worth of air time you can do what you want.  The risk of using such a highly anticipated event as the Super Bowl to essentially “manipulate” millions can be a risky venture.  The challenge is coming up with the next big idea that will become the fond memory of children in the future.