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.

The "evil" manager Round 2... FIGHT

            With a deep sigh, its time for another installment of the one end of the managerial spectrum to stay away from.  That’s right, time to hear more horror stories from my old manager.  This time its got a positive spin on it.

            In my time as an Internet Sales Manager at the dealership I was the longest consecutive person in that position.  People had been promoted, fired, or a combination and ended up in the same role again.  The beauty of the position was it completely ignored what you were told about how to get promoted in the company.  (different blog)

            We were having our entire building renovated and we were moving offices for the fourth or fifth time to accommodate construction.  The three of us at the time were a little upset that the process took several hours to move and setup everything but we were still expected to make calls and have the same response time to emails.  This is kind of difficult when your computer is in a box waiting for you to finish reassembling your desk.

            This time one of our crew was off and the remaining two were moving for the three of us.  Needless to say we were less than excited and were having fun commiserating in the process.  Out of the blue one of our junior salesman stops in to avoid doing his work and talk to us.

            “Where’s mike?”  now this salesman was a bit of an arrogant and/or nosey person who would be upset about not getting enough deals but spent his time playing games on his phone or hiding from customers.  Frequently he would come back to our office to kill as much time as we would let him away from the managers who could actually fire him for this.  Today he happened to hit a nerve and I decided it was time to teach the nosey kid a lesson.

            “Mike quit.”  I looked at my buddy, who shared the same feelings toward him, and he instantly got where I was going with this.  “Yeah, he told us he was done and we’re just packing up his stuff for his wife.”  He gestured to all of Mikes stuff in a box on the table.

            “Nuh uh” and after a few shocked seconds he left, mission accomplished.  After about 10 to 20 minutes he came back.  “Hey, um…were you guys just messing with me?”  But he was asking it in an alarmed tone instead of a “you got me tone”.

            “Yeah, we’re tired of you coming back here and bugging us…you can’t hide from your job…” and with that he turned ghost white.  I stopped talking and asked “Why?” feeling something was amiss.

            “OH CRAP…I just told Gene (our General Manager) he quit!” and at that point I faught the urge to slap him, open handed, full bore as I walked out to cut off the damage he had done.

            “Justin to Gene’s office” rang out over the PA system as I was in the doorway.  I stopped dead in my tracks and hung my head.  Lets just say the words I muttered to the junior salesman had an impact as he slowly backed away from me and never came back to our office again.

            I ran in the door and I see my General Manager and my (evil) manager on every phone in the office trying to reach Mike.  I’m not kidding they had cell phones and land lines ringing trying to get in touch with him. 

            “I already know…it was a prank…I was trying to teach…” and with that they pulled the phones from their ears. 

            “So you’re saying Mike didn’t quit.”  I shook my head yes.  And with that it began.  My general manager cracked a smile in his own twisted way and hung his head.  My other manager turned beet red and it began.

            “WHYYYYYYY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”  He ranted and raved for a few minutes and I figured I had it coming so I didn’t say a word.  “If you spent half as much time selling cars as you do jacking around you’d be the top guy here!”

            As it sat at the time I was the number 3 guy in the dealership that month and only because I hadn’t written any “house deals” from managers that month.  So, in essence I was the legitimate top guy that month but on my own accord without a sweetheart deal handed to me.

            It was also at this point I realized I was standing fully upright, rigid even.  My jaw was clinched and my hands were in fists.  The kind of fists where you can see the tendons and bone glowing white through the knuckles.  I realized I was about to knock him out if I didn’t change my mind, and fast.

            I took a breath and relaxed.  From my time as a bouncer I remembered the most disrespectful thing you could do to a drunk was to put your hands behind your back.  It’s a visual que that you’re not afraid of them and you could take the hit.

            I slid my hands behind my back and looked my “evil” manager dead in the eye and said, “Ok”.  That’s it…nothing more, no implication of evil or being upset or really engaging in any other act than acknowledging him.  “Ok” in the same tone you’d give a grocery store clerk asking if plastic was ok.

            “Noooooo…that’s not ok…whats going on…whats wrong…what aren’t you telling me…” his tone went from aggressive and about to lose a few teeth in the fit of rage I was going to unleash to fearful and “in the dark”.

            “I need to get back to selling cars now…are we done?”  I looked at my General Manager who was in a state of shock.  I found out later he was waiting for me to unleash hell and had gone into “fear mode” trying to figure out how to stop everything.

            While my “evil” manager was still trying to figure out what I meant by “OK” I walked out the door.  Not angry or upset…just casually strolled out the door and made sure not to slam the door as I closed it.  In doing so I saw the start of an hour long conversation between the two on what had just happened.

            I realized in a split second how to handle this jerk.  He was the kind of person who enjoyed manipulating and instigating drama.  By simply not engaging in his games I not only pissed him off, but avoided being tied up in a aggravating situation.

            For the next month or so I decided to take it to an extreme.  I made it a point to use as few words as possible with him as I could.  “Yes” or “No” were ideal…almost like the bit from the original Tron movie from the 70’s. 

“Did you they tell you anything about their trade?”

I nodded and said “Yes”.

“Ok…what did they tell you?”  I pointed at the trade appraisal slip with notes on it.  “Are you going to talk to me today?” 

I barely smiled and said “No” and then walked back to my customer.  Its important to note that I had given him everything he needed to complete his job as my manager without engaging in the typical drama that came with it.  It was heaven, the guy was so put off by my activity he started avoiding me whenever possible.

To save face he even handed a few deals off to other managers because he was “busy” when I had a deal to work.  The culmination of the over simplified communication project was during a contest where the managers were picking teams.  I had just finished my best month in the dealership and was the salesman of the month.  Interesting how that worked out when I wasn’t fighting pointless arguments for his amusement every 30 minutes.

“I can’t pick Justin because he’s mad at me or something…”  and the room didn’t laugh like he hoped.  It was the awkward chuckle you give someone so it isn’t creepy quiet.  Two of the other managers had to look away because they began to laugh at the reaction of not only me, but the room.

The lesson learned in this case is to choose your battles wisely.  Understand your “enemy” and don’t feed into their process.  Use a “pattern interrupt” to get outside of the norm.  Break the cycle that gets you worked up and, occasionally, in trouble by hyper focusing on your duties.

Had he written me up for my actions what was he going to say?  “Justin is doing his job and won’t fight with me when I feel like being an ass.”  Or “Justin is mad at me because I interfere with his job duties on a regular basis.”  Take away the power the bully has and they become helpless. 

I’m not going to lie…I’ve had some vivid dreams since that instance where I took that shot in the office.  The first punch always feels so damn good in the dreams.  It always gets way out of hand after that and I would probably be writing this on toilet paper in my cell had I not had that moment of clarity. 

Booze, Bribery, and a man named Bob

            As a wholesaler of wine & spirit you find yourself in all kinds of weird places.  Quite often the people you work with are also a little odd.  But that’s where the challenge and fun of working with people comes into play.

            Not all people are fun to work with.  Some people are a downright nightmare to work with and they seem to work hard at making it difficult.  In my “rookie” year at the wholesaler I learned a lesson the hard way in just how difficult people can be.

            One account I had was notoriously a “difficult” account to work with.  Not only did you have to write a minimal shelf order but you had to transcribe the order to the companies own manifest for double checking.  The manager of the account, Bob, would frequently cut the order and make you do the whole process over again so it didn’t look like he was being lazy.  (you were doing his job for him by the way)

            On my second or month on the job I was finally cut loose on my own to take care of my accounts.  Bob was out that morning doing god knows what and I wrote a conservative shelf order.  Because of the pricing structure of the chain neither of us controlled the prices they were getting.  So it didn’t matter what I sent it was at the correct price for his shelf.

            I noticed a few of the displays on the floor for his ad were extremely low on product.  Being a rookie I wanted to be sure I didn’t run out and so I added a few cases to the order to restock the displays without being excessive.

            The next day I got a heated phone call from Bob.  I’ll spare you the details but I told him I was sorry and I would be taking the product back, no problem.  I was trying to help and meant nothing by it.

            Fast forward to a few months later.  As a company we were chasing a huge number on several products I sold.  Bob’s account was known to do a lot of volume on these items so I knew I should pitch him. 

            I walked in and saw him by the front door.  “Hey Bob!” I called out to him.  “Bob…hey Bob” and he kept walking away from me.  I walked behind him across the entire store like a little kid trying to get a parents attention.  “Um…Bob…hey Bob…wait up!”  He finally stopped in the back corner of the store as if he ran out of real estate.  “What the f@ck do you want?” 

            Pitched him what was the biggest order I had ever presented to the store.  It was all stuff he was going to run on his ad and he would probably go through it regardless.  I was able to get him the pricing he needed in advance to get the sale.  It was a win/win scenario if I’ve ever seen one.  “F@ck you…no” and he walked off.

            When I returned to my office and told my managers he said “No” they both shook their heads and looked at each other.  “Anything in there?” one of my managers said to the other.  With that he opened a locked drawer and pulled out an envelope with $100 bills.  He grabbed $300 and put them into an envelope and handed it to me.  He then pulled out the “dealer loader” page and ran through items connected to the order.  “Give him the cash and the things I just told you about…don’t worry about the case requirements I’ll override them.”

            For those of you not familiar with the concept of a “dealer loader” its merchandise used to enhance a display or to give away to the public.  “Enter to win this TV” or some branded kind of merchandise.  Frequently these items end up going home with the manager or the salesman and never make it to the display.  They’re also usually attached to enormous numbers of cases to keep it profitable.

            I walked back into the store and this time had them track down Bob for me.  He was in the back so I knew he had less real estate to drag me across.  I found him and got a lovely “Whaaaat?!?”  when I saw him. 

            Pulling him aside from the rest of the group I walked through the order again.  “Damnit I said NO and I meant it!”  I acknowledged our earlier conversation and then pulled out the list and the cash. 

            “If you take the order like I have it written here we’ll give you all this ($600 worth of stuff including a full size basketball hoop, inflatable boat, and other crap) plus $300 cash.  But we need to write it this month.”

            He looked over the list and smiled.  He looked at me and said, “Ok…bill it this month and ship it next week…thanks” 

As he reached over to grab the envelope with the cash I pulled it back and put it in my pocket.  “You know what Bob…I changed my mind…don’t worry about the order.”  And with that I turned and casually strolled away with Bob in tow screaming profanity.  I never turned around in the tirade that followed but I can imagine it looked similar to our exchange earlier only with an angry child throwing a tantrum.

I returned the cash to my boss and told them what happened.  Strangely, they already knew as Bob had called them to complain.  He also had me banned and barred from the store and threatened to put a restraining order on me…for not bribing him.  The managers smoothed things over and made the sale without me in the mix.

At the end of my first 6 months I went in for my performance review.  The management had decided to pull me from my current territory and division and move me to a rural route in a different division.  At the top of the list why I was being “demoted” was the experience with Bob.  The VP at the company said, “Honestly, I’m amazed we’re letting you stay here after you were thrown out of an account in your first 6 months.”  When I defended what I did about what had happened they said “I can’t believe that’s true…and we’re not going to discuss it.”

My now “former” managers were in the room and they denied it ever happening.  My new manager was in the room and was shaking his head in disgust.  He had already told me he knew what had happened and was on my side.  Apparently the entire wine & spirit community heard about it and I was somewhat of a hero for all the people who Bob had treated like shit.

Flash forward a decade or more.  I learned more and had more fun working for Tom in that “punishment” territory than I did in the first one.  He and I are still in touch today and I give him credit for being the type of manager I would want to become some day. 

Bob, on the other hand, hadn’t had the level of “personal growth” I had in that time.  He had been fired from the chain as a scandal about bribery and even extortion surround him.  Apparently another company had enough of his actions and ran it up the flagpole.  In the middle of charges being filed on him Bob got cancer and ultimately died.

I have never wished ill will on another human being in my life.  Having lost family members to cancer, I always feel bad when I hear someone losing that battle.  However, when I heard Bob had died I didn’t feel bad.  I didn’t smile either, for the record, but I definitely felt a sense of Karmic justice.

I may have lost the account and the territory but I kept my integrity.  From that instance on the two managers who sent me into the account that day avoided me if at all possible.  Occasionally I would walk by their office and I would hear them go silent, as children do when they are planning mischief.  Sometimes the big sale isn’t worth the cost on your soul.

The power of doing the right thing

            So last week I wrote a story about my old manager in the car business.  I had some good feedback from people who read the article and they expressed condolences for having worked with someone like that.  While it’s a bit comical to have that reaction it helped me “purge” the experience from my mind.

            Rather than sharing the horrible negatives of the experience with one manager I decided to not only share more stories about the “evil boss” but examples of the “good boss” who also worked at the same location.  Much like the yin yang in every bit of negative there needs to be positive.

            One night early in my career I was working with an airman from Texas.  He was interested in trading in his two wheel drive FJ cruiser (yes they exist) and buying a truck for the Nebraska winters.  After giving him plenty of grief about his “poser” FJ with knobby tires and winch we were having a good time.

            We had two trucks on the lot that met his criteria.  Ironically they were parked next to each other and the one was a dark blue and the other was black.  There was an $8000 price difference between the two as one had much higher miles.  That more expensive truck was out of the budget we were looking at but it was the truck he wanted.

            At this time most of the sales staff and managers had left for the night.  It was getting late and we were down to minimal staff waiting for me to close this deal.  My “non-evil” manager was cutting to the chase but staying within the procedures set fourth by the dealership.  We were having fun joking around while he crunched numbers to keep our moods positive.  I always enjoyed working deals with him because he gave you the information and then double checked to make sure you understood what it meant.

            After several hours of working the numbers we were close to making the deal.  We were within $100 of the figures working out and getting the deal closed.  I pulled the CarFax to show that the vehicle hadn’t been in a wreck.  It was then we noticed something somewhat shocking.

            The truck we had been working numbers on was the more expensive VIN trucks VIN number.  The tricky part was we had been using the financials of the cheaper truck the whole time.  This was a huge error that had slipped through the cracks.  The airman was blown away, as was I, and the thought of potentially starting over was hanging in the air.

            I brought the mistake to the attention of my manager.  When you’re the last people in a dealership you can get away with some things you normally wouldn’t do.  In this case the loud bellowing “YAWP” from my manger went mostly un noticed.  After some chewing on his toothpick he simply said, “well…lets do this.”

            He walked back into the room with my airman nervously texting away on his phone.  My manager sat down and with a heavy head said, “Well…we screwed up and have been working the wrong truck this whole time.  I’m a man of my word so if you want this truck for that price I’ll sell it for that…tonight only…so we can wrap this up and get out of here.  What do you say?”  with that he held out his giant catcher mitt sized hand to shake.  (He’s a friend to this day so I can’t write a glowing article about his positive attributes without giving him some grief)

            The airman, who wanted the black truck from the start, lit up and smiled ear to ear.  “Deal” and with that we hastily wrapped up everything so we could all get the hell out of there.

            The truck was a major loss in terms of profitability for the dealership.  I made the bare minimum you can make on a car deal.  I felt like I had failed the dealership in some way.  But my “non-evil” boss sensed my feeling off.  “You can’t win them all…and sometimes you need to do the right thing no matter what it costs you.”

            It was then I knew it was possible to have integrity in the auto world.  An industry full of “misfit toys” and a history of being despicable still had some bastions of hope and moral fiber.

            The airman not only loved the truck but he came back to buy his dream car from me later that year.  We ordered it from the factory with every nut and bold with his name on it.  To this day it was the only glass roofed Mustang GT I’ve ever seen in Omaha.  Its also “Gotta Have it Green” so its not to hard to miss on the streets.  If you don’t know what that color is imagine hooking up a lime to 100 watts of power and covering it with baby oil.  It’s a color that stands out from miles away and looks alive when you’re close.

            While these deals weren’t the deals I was going to retire on they did set a few things in motion.  Firstly, I found an example of what I wanted to become in the auto industry.  Luckily for me he was willing to mentor me when my “assigned” mentors did little to help me grow.  The Mustang was the first USAA purchase in the dealership.  Within a few months of his purchase we became the USAA dealership closest to the large Air Force Base down the interstate.  The volume of cars we sold to USAA members at home and even deployed more than made up for the loss on the truck.

            Both guys are still good friends to this day.  I’m constantly referring buyers to my “non-evil” boss who is running on of the highest rated dealerships in the Midwest.  When asked what his secret was by one of the owners his response was so simple it was genius, “do the right thing, every time”.  While I can’t refer much to the airman I still enjoy seeing photos of his mustang as it has morphed into “Hulk”.

Bipolar manager who loved to hate

            Of all the managers I’ve ever had, the all time worst manager I’ve had almost killed me.  I know you may think that’s a figure of speech but I mean it in a literal sense.  The managerial style of this man was so far out of whack that I began to respond to it physically, and my health declined.

            It all started off well, nothing out of the ordinary and I kind of enjoyed the way we interacted.  As time went on and the “honeymoon” phase of being the new hire wore off the reality set in.  As time went on it grew worse and worse and there wasn’t much we, as a sales staff, could do.

            There are so many examples of how terrible this guy was that I could write a whole series of stories about him in this blog.  Having just written that I may have to do that as part of my ongoing process of moving on from this nightmare.

            In the car business, as a salesman,  you have to bring your deals to the sales manager when you’re working them.  The process starts with filling out a worksheet on your customer.  Once you’ve got all the pertinent information you take it to your manager and they go to work.

            “Oh my god…what do you want?” he would say.  “You’re ruining my life…why are you up here again?!?”  Once you handed him the worksheet his demeanor would change.  “Ok…cool…well lets work and get you a car deal.”  He would pencil the details on the sheet and hand it back.  “Here you go, you got this you can do it.”  And then you’d walk back to your customer.

            Ninety percent of America realizes the first offer from a dealership is designed to put you on the ceiling.  Its so far from what  you asked if anyone took the first pencil you knew there was a bigger problem waiting down the line.  You did what we were trained to do and get an offer, sometimes with a check in hand.

            “How’d you do?” he would say as he read the paper you handed him with the new offer.  “Oh my god…this is pathetic!  That’s the best offer you can get from this customer?!?  Do you want me to get a real salesman to go over and fill out the order form?”  Sometimes he would grab a salesman working another deal and “jokingly” ask if he could step in and close the deal. 

            After some scribbling and some number crunching he would hand the paper back.  “Ok…you’ve got a car deal here you just need to get their thinking up a little from this offer.  You’re close and you can do this.”  And with that he’d send you back.

            After yet more negotiation with the customer you’d head back up to the “tower of power” for more bludgeoning from him.  “Holy catfish!  You’re doing a great job representing the customer today…you know we’d like to make some money here.”  It was at this point, by the prescribed procedural guidelines he had the option of stepping in and working with the customer himself.  Sometimes he would grab one of the newer sales managers to do it for him.  “Can you go sell this guy a car…he apparently can’t do it.  Get out of my face.” 

            So now, assuming he got off his ass and didn’t take a phone call from his wife in the middle of the deal, he’s walking in to work with your customer.  The same customer who you’ve been telling him “$10,000 down and $1500 a month is the best we can do” when they asked for zero down and $500 a month for 60 months.

            He would walk in with a big cheesy smile and a token laugh at a bad joke.  He would make small talk about anything obvious and then act like he’d never seen the numbers in his hand.  As the salesman you were required to sit there and not say a word.  Frequently, you were standing behind him looking like a moron staring at his chicken scratches.

            “So if I could get you close to that $500 a month for 60 months would you buy the car today?”  The would obviously shake their head “yes” and he’d say.  “Ok, let me go to work for you and see if we can make that happen.”  And we’d walk back up to the tower.

            “God damn it why didn’t you do _______” was usually the first thing he said.  Ironically followed by “They’re nice people though…you’ve got a car deal here…hang in there.”  If there was an attractive woman in the mix he would make a comment about having her move in with him in the small town he lived in. 

            In the final stages of the deal he would sometimes tell you to “write it up ya big softie” and you’d go write up the deal.  Other times he would take another stab at the customer to ultimately find a middle ground.  Regardless of how the deal was struck as you gathered the 15 different forms to put the deal together every time you walked within ear shot he would make a cutting remark about how worthless you were.

            This happened every time you had to work a deal with him.  It took different forms when you had to interact with him on different things as well.  Ultimately I was so enraged by the way he treated me I was drinking the 5 Hour energy sleep aide in the middle of the day to calm down. 

            There were half a dozen times where, in an argument started by him, I found myself gnashing my teeth and with a white knuckled fist repeating, “You can’t hit him…you can’t hit him.” 

            In the car business it’s a dog eat dog world, there’s no getting around this.  But the difference between horsing around and poking fun at your buddy and managerial bullying is night and day.  For one month I chose to only respond to him with “yes” or “no”.  Anything else was in as few words as possible. 

            Because I wouldn’t engage with his crap he would try it and it wouldn’t go anywhere.  It infuriated him so much he began to badger me when I was away from him.  By not engaging in the bashing and berating behavior from him and waiting to work deals with the other managers I found a loophole.

            That month was the salesman of the month and sold the most cars in my career.  I sold them to spite my manager and the hatred of this man drove me in a way that was scary.

            This was also the month I was pulled over on a test drive and got out of it when I disclosed to the officer I had my concealed carry on me.  That’s right, I carried a loaded 9mm handgun on me at the dealership from my interview until the day they banned it.  When I got back he was giving me shit about the ordeal and asked how I got out of it.  “You’re not that good of a salesman so how did you get out of the ticket?”  I smiled and told him “I told him what I was legally obligated to tell him…I have a concealed carry, its loaded, and my permit is in my wallet.”

            The look on his face was priceless when I showed him the imprint of my handgun on my shirt.  My used car manager at the time was a close friend of mine and belly laughed.  “You dumbass, he’s been packing since he started!  Trowbridge is always strapped!  You might want to lay off him in the future too you jackass!”  He did for a few weeks but went right back to it.

            I’ve run into dozens of people who worked with this man over the years.  Almost every single one of them has similar stories.  The part that really disturbed me was that he was a sponsor for AA.  Someone trying to get their life back in line had this asshole to rely on when they were fighting their demons.  It makes me sick just thinking about it.  I will always remember working with him…and I’ll always remember how NOT to manage people.