Packing Heat at work

            Several years ago I got my concealed carry permit.  For the sake of this blog we’ll glass over the reasons why I have it to avoid some political issues.  …after all it’s a blog about sales, and its free…so you’ll get what you pay for.

            When I interviewed at the Ford dealership I worked at for a few years I had just started carrying my pistol every day.  Not only did I interview with a loaded handgun but when I filled out all the HR paperwork I used my CCW permit as a second form of ID.  (It was still in the stage where you feel like everyone should know you carry a firearm)

            After a few months most of the people at the dealership knew I always had a loaded gun on me.  When we had unruly customers or “shady” visitors in the dealership I found myself becoming increasingly more popular to talk to. 

            A few of my managers gave me grief for having it and I jokingly replied, “I do the one thing your mom told you NEVER do repeatedly ALL DAY…get into cars with strangers!”  We all kind of laughed it off and it was no big deal for 98% of the people I worked with.  As a matter of fact many of my co-workers mentioned how glad a “level headed” guy had a gun in the dealership should anything go horribly wrong.

            Rather than breaking these stories out into individual blogs I’ll just sum up the highlights of carrying a loaded firearm into work.

NSA CUSTOMER:

A self proclaimed “NSA Contractor” customer who told me on the test drive his previous job included “jumper cables, sponges, a metal folding chair, and a car battery” was giving me the run around one night.  He claimed he didn’t have credit because he was a ghost in another country and yadda yadda… 

We finally get ready to sit down an talk numbers on the used, high mileage, Volvo SUV he fell in love with and he says, “Before we begin…you need to realize you don’t know what I have under the table.”  And he motioned down with his eyes as he leaned back with a smirk and crossed his legs.

At first I thought the guy was referring to his penis.  (not kidding)  But after a few seconds and a few other leading comments I realized he was indicating he had a firearm.  I laughed and said, “Are we really playing ‘what are we packing’ at the dealership?”

His grin turned into a smile.  I said, “I’ve got 15 and 1 of 120 grain 9mm Hornady Critical Defense +P…what do you have?”  (serious business with lots bullets)  His grin disappeared and he shrank a little in his seat.   “I’ve got 7 rounds of 380…” (might do some damage if you hit the right spot at close range) 

We ended up not coming to terms because he had no credit…and no money to put down on the car.  If I had to guess it was a guy who’s wife and kids were out of town and he wanted to play badass at a dealership.

ANGRY COP

            I got pulled over while on a test drive with a family in an Explorer Sport.  The cop had been pulling over anyone without a tag from out dealership all week and I guess it was my turn to get caught.

            When he approached the car I had my window down and told him I was the salesman.  He angrily instructed me to head to the back of the vehicle, and I complied. 

            Now when you have a concealed carry you’re obligated to notify law enforcement you have a weapon immediately.  Once you tell them you have a weapon, and don’t make sudden movements, you’re also obligated to comply with their commands.  These can include everything up to being temporarily put into handcuffs.

            “GOD DAMNIT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW STUPID YOU ARE!?!?!?!”  he had apparently been building up a head of steam and started to vent.  “I told you guys to put dealer plates on these cars…”

            Every time he took a breath I put my hand up, as if to speak, and said “Officer…I need…” and he went back into his tyrade.  After 4 or 5 attempts to speak while he threatened to do all kinds of things that would suck I finally gently placed my hand on his shoulder.  “Officer, I’m legally obligated to tell you I have my concealed carry on my right hip…its loaded…and my permit is in my front jacket pocket.  How would you like to proceed?”

            He literally locked up for a few seconds.  When he finally processed I hadn’t been arguing with him this whole time I was trying to tell him I had a loaded gun on me his tone changed.  “Get in the car.  Drive back to the dealership…now.”

            We got back to the dealership and I introduced him to my “evil” manager who got the ass chewing of a lifetime.  When the cop came out I stopped him and apologized for our interaction and thanked him for not writing me a ticket. 

            My “evil” manager asked how I got out of the ticket everyone else in the dealership had got that month.  “Easy, I told him what I legally had to tell him and he let me off.” 

            “What did you ‘have’ to tell him?”  He asked in a snarky and condescending tone.  I replied, “That I have a concealed firearm that’s loaded…”  and with that my “evil” managers face went white.  My “good” manager let out a belly laugh and said, “You moron…Trowbridge is always packin’ heat…you can see it when his shirt comes untucked!!!”

FIRED PTSD CO-WORKER

            This one pisses me off to this day.  But they fired, for the second or third time, a guy in my department.  He was definitely a bit “off” and had a military background.  He claimed to be special forces but many of us had our doubts based on things he said.

            One day I was delivering a car and I get a call from my General Manager.  “Justin, do you have your gun on you today?”  I replied “yes”  “…does ______ have a gun that you know of?”  He in fact had a handgun in his truck.  “…where are you by the way?”

            I found out when I got back that my co-worker had been fired.  Not “let go” but shit canned…hard…and with no remorse.  HR was there because it was a bad situation all around.  My genius GM wanted me back in the dealership to protect the place should he return with his gun.

            After I regained the ability to speak I told him “I don’t like you well enough to shoot my former co-worker to protect your ass.  If you have a problem or a concern like that CALL THE POLICE FIRST!!!!”

            After they fired my co-worker they went to a “gun free zone” and almost lost half of the people who worked there.  My somewhat unstable co-worker has been rehired and refired a few times from there as well.

            The crazy part of it all was the times I really struggled to connect to my customers the subject that dropped the walls was firearms.  It could have been anything from hunting to handguns to carrying concealed…but when it came time to talk about firearms I sold a car.  A few of my customers even sent me photos of their latest purchases after they were driving the car for a few months!

            The lesson learned here is to never underestimate the person on the other side of the table.  I found out that more often than I expected I was dealing with an armed person.  It may have been the location in somewhat rural Nebraska, but there are a lot of people who support the second amendment.  Sometimes its best to treat everyone you meet like they’re packin’…you might get an unexpected sale out of the conversation.

The power of merchandising, and a scary looking power tool

            In my time as a wine and spirit distributor I had a blast merchandising my territory to sell more alcohol.  Its no surprise the reason Budweiser sells so much beer is because everywhere you look you see their logos.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the more your brands are seen in a location the more likely they will be purchased, and then reordered by your customer.

            With that in mind I started to cover my territory with point of sale materials.  At one point I was actually yelled at for taking out too much point of sale materials from the warehouse!  My manager at the time laughed and told the vice president who wanted to write me up “you’re going to write him up for doing what nobody else is doing?”  and after a long pause the subject was dead.

            He was right, we had TONS of stuff sitting in the warehouse collecting dust that nobody was using.  So, being a resourceful person, I started taking everything I could get my hands on and using it to promote my stuff.

            One of my favorite accounts was a marina on the river just north of town.  The place wasn’t much to look at but it was a great summer hangout for locals and boaters going up and down the river.  They sold a ton of drinks and until I showed up hadn’t really had anyone supporting them from my company.

            I brought up anything island themed I could find in the warehouse.  Fake palm trees, inflatable beach balls, necklaces, blinking lights, you name it.  The industry term for some of the smaller items is/was “trinkets and trash” by the way.  I billed out a few bar kits with other supporting items like shirts and table tents.

            After I get their attention they let me decorate the entire bar with whatever I wanted!  They were selling my stuff like it was going out of style and the orders were starting to show it.

            I billed out a few bar mirrors and took them up with a box of 6” long deck screws.  As I was driving in the screws with my cordless drill the owner came up.  “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!”  I finished the one screw I was working on and turned to her.

            “I figure someone is going to steal these mirrors…they’re nice right?”  She nodded.  “So…if some drunk wants to back 36 inches of deck screws with a dime or their bare fingers…they can have this.”  With that the shocked look on her face turned into a smile and she began to laugh.

            “You’ve got a point!”  and with that she walked off to tell the rest of the staff the story.

            After a few bar parties and a few weeks of proving I was there to stay it came time to pitch the big pitch.  They finally trusted me with their signature drink recipe and wanted to see if we could make it cheaper for them.  In their hay days they would take 55 gallon trash cans and mix up 5-6 at a time to keep up with demand.

            I worked out the numbers and grabbed my Black & Decker reciprocating saw with a 10” blade on it.  The day I decided to make the big pitch I happened, not entirely on accident, to show up when my biggest competitor showed up.  I was planning on stealing one of his biggest accounts for rum.  At the time they happened to use Captain Morgan Parrot Bay for their coconut flavored rum…I sold Malibu.

            I sauntered into the bar and saw my competitor walking through a normal shelf order, a few bottles here and there.  After nodding to him I pulled up a chair at the bar and pulled out my reciprocating saw and dropped it on the bar.  I went about my business and ignored the two of them while he hurried up his final few points.  He made a back handed comment about my saw and left, seemingly unconcerned about what I was doing.

            The bar manager asked “What the hell is that for?” and I told him not to worry about it.  I went about pointing out the half empty bottles on the bar and seeing what he needed.  “No, seriously…what the hell is that for?”  He kept breaking the conversation to ask, each time I pushed on with the normal order.  “DAMNIT…WHAT IS THAT THING DOING ON MY BAR!?!?!” 

            I smiled and said “Well you know what this is right?”

            “Yeah, it’s a Black & Decker power saw…”  I slapped the tool like it was a good dog.

            “And how did you know what it was?”  I asked.

            “Everybody knows Black & Decker…its one of the biggest names in power tools…”  I nodded.

            “So if everybody knows the quality, the reputation, and the pedigree that comes with this brand what does it say about someone who uses it?”  I asked.

            “It means you know what the f*@k you’re doing…”  I smiled.

            “So if you use a knock off brand what does that make you?”  and with that I leaned in to hear his response.

            “It means you’re a moron…”  he threw back with an indignant tone in his voice.

            “Ok…so if all that’s true…why are you NOT putting Malibu Coconut rum in your main drink?  It’s the original coconut rum everyone knows…”  and in the middle of the somewhat corny response his jaw went slack.  “Captain Morgan is a cheap knock off brand that imitates Malibu.  I know it, you know it, your customers now it.  If they cost the same per ounce what would you choose?  Better yet, if I could get you a better deal on the original brand and support it with island themed signs and other fun stuff for the bar do you think you’d sell more?”

            I’ll spare you how the rest of this interaction went and get to the punch line.  The next week the very same VP who wanted to write me up for taking out too much point of sale materials called me to make sure I hadn’t made a huge mistake on an order.  “Justin I’m looking at 3 ½ pallets of product going to a Marina in your territory…did you mean to put in bottles and instead hit cases?  We need to cancel this order before it goes out!” 

            I wish I could have been there to see the look on his face when I said, “Nope…no mistake…all $12,000 of that order needs to ship.  They’re on the way with 3 trucks now to pick it up.  We may need a refill by the end of the summer too.”  My little stunt with the power saw had sealed the deal to switch over everything in the bar they could to me.  I went from 15% market share in the bar to 75% or more because of the volume we were now doing.

            Unfortunately the bar ended up on some hard times later that summer.  The owners son was found dead in the bed of his pickup truck, he had aspirated on his own vomit.  The bar manager who was sleeping with the owner had ran off and the “kids” who ran the bar had left without warning.  1/3 of the order had to come back to avoid losing it to the bank in the bankruptcy.

            The VP never got on my case for merchandising again.  Suppliers actually started asking me what I wanted to put up in my territory directly!  Never underestimate the power of brand awareness.

The smelly truck that sold - Good Manager story #2

            So I tipped my old manager off that I was writing a “compare and contrast” blog between his management style and my other manager while in the car industry.  True to form he was very thankful of the praise but humble in his response.  With that kind of attitude I was reminded of a deal I got caught in the middle of.

            In the auto industry the “holy grail” for some guys is a diesel truck with a stick shift.  Why major auto makers don’t offer this anymore is beyond me, they sold like crazy with HUNDREDS of thousands of miles on the odometer.  We happened to have a truck like this in inventory one week.

            The demand for these trucks are so high this truck had a unique story to it.  A tree had fallen on it during a storm.  The tree had dented the fenders, roof, door, and broken out some lights on the flat bed on the back.  (no rails just a flat metal surface)  But rather than fix it we left it as is and sold it that way.  The phone rang off the hook for days on this truck.

            I finally got ahold of a guy who wanted the truck.  He had a truck that was 2 years older and used it for work.  He was a (legit) professional cowboy in North Platte NE.  He was a pen rider in the cattle yards and spent his entire day in the saddle on horseback.  In his spare time he made and sold saddles!  His truck had the smaller engine offered by Dodge and was an automatic.

            “You realize a tree fell on this thing right?”  I said skeptically over the phone.  “Yup, don’t care…its perfect!  I’ll take it!” you could hear the excitement in his voice.  So we worked out the deal over the phone and because he was a nice guy I offered to meet him half way between Omaha and North Platte.  Cutting his 5 hour drive to 2 ½ and meeting him on a Sunday to boot!

            My finance manager dragged his feet on getting the paperwork for me all week and finally handed them to me on Saturday night.  I looked through the paperwork and noticed a $1800 charge for undercoating on the truck.  When I asked him about it he said “Don’t worry about it…it helps her hit her number for the month.  You’re good…just get him to sign it.”  “Her” in this case was our aftermarket specialist who was making money for nothing and had her own issues.

            “(Expletives deleted) you’re giving me a hot deal for me to deal with, on a Sunday, knowing I have to drive a truck that has been used in a cattle ranch back to Omaha?!?!?”  And, he laughed…she laughed too…they thought it was hilarious and I was stuck with nobody left in the building to change the documents.

            That night I happened to spend some time with my (good) manager outside of work.  He could see that something was bugging the hell out of me and when he asked it came spewing out of me.  I could see he was also pissed about the situation as he had worked hard to put the deal together on his end.

            I decided to take the truck out there and present the information to him.  In the back of my head I knew we could always amend the paperwork and send him the papers in the mail.  I left the next day for my all day affair in the trucks.

            About 30 minutes into the drive an alarm went off in the truck.  The diesel particulate filter was (apparently) full and the truck went into “limp mode” where it “limps” into a dealership to be fixed.  In a panic I get on my phone and try to figure out what the hell happened, only to have my phone die…with no charger.

            I get to town a little early and stop by 3 different auto stores seeing if they can fix it.  They weren’t any help and in the process the drivers side window got stuck open.  Apparently the damage to the door wasn’t allowing it to roll back up.

            After taking a deep breath and buying a charger for my phone I drove over to the truck stop to meet my customer.  He shows up with his wife and kids.  The little boy gets out, in full cowboy attire, and runs up to his new truck and calls “SHOTGUN”. 

We walk around the truck and he’s in love.  I show him the damage spots and he’s ok with them because they’ll probably get beat up when he uses it.  He even knows how to fix the window and isn’t worried about it.  The diesel particulate filter isn’t even a problem for him because he’s got a diesel guy at the yard who can fix it! 

After introducing me to the family and walking around the truck I ask him if they were doing anything else in town while they were here.  “We’ll probably grab a bite to eat since they’ve got restaurants we don’t have in our town”

            “Lets go do the paperwork at Buffalo Wild Wings then!”  The family blows up with excitement… “On me as a thank you because of the window thing too”

            After a lunch I’ll never forget where I learn more about cows than I’ll ever need to know I hand him the papers.  He signs them all and reads through everything.  He even puts his finger on the $1800 charge but doesn’t say a word, my heart breaks.  We wrap up the paperwork and I swap keys with him.  The kids give me a hug and he gives me the kind of solid handshake you would expect to come from a solid guy like this.

            His trade had at least 1” of “dirt” on the inside along with horse hair, cow hair, dog hair, and god knows what.  I drove home with the windows open so I could see through the tears in my eyes.  Oh yeah, did I mention he drove his truck home, with the window stuck open, in 35 degree weather for 2 ½ hours?

            On the drive home the base of my skull goes numb.  I’m so angry at what had just happened I felt like I was on the verge of an aneurism.  I get back and call my manager and he calms me down.  “Don’t worry buddy…I’ve got a plan for Monday”

            Monday morning comes in and I literally throw the deal in my finance managers face.  I have a few choice words for him too but you can guess what I said.  As I walk out of his office I’m met in the hallway with my (good) manager.

            He’s got a copy of the deal in hand and has the charge highlighted.  He closes the door and has a long conversation with the finance manger.  I never get to find out what was said but things changed from that day on with our finance department.

            We call the guy who has since noticed the strange charge.  I agree that the charge shouldn’t be there and we give him a few options.  We could send him a check for the amount or we could buy a brush guard/cow pusher bumper for him with the money.  He was planning on putting one on the truck when he had the cash and we could get a discount on the deal.

            He ends up taking the bumper and uses the remaining money to buy a second hand exhaust to fix the diesel particulate filter issue.  We fix the paperwork and everything goes back to the way it should be.  When I call him a month later he invites me to stay with his family and go Coyote hunting sometime.  The kids are in the background and I can hear them ask “Is that Justin?!  Tell him hi”.

            The way that deal went down the (evil) manager could have made it stick.  We delivered papers and the customer accepted them with the vehicle.  “Congratulations, you’re an owner” goes the line from the movie Suckers.  But instead the (good) manager and I found a way to work around the wrong doings of others and in the process put a stop to future shenanigans.  From that deal on our “shoot from the hip” finance manager cleaned up his act and never pushed a dirty deal through me again.  Finding an ally when it comes to doing the right thing is always important.  I was so furious my “options” at the time were to punch the finance guy in the face or quit, or both.  Cooler heads prevailed and while the process was a bit painful, and smelled terrible, it worked out benefiting the rest of our group.