"IDIOT PROOF"
I drove 230 miles south to Manhattan Beach, my old stomping ground between 1970 and 1986, to play a little basketball and see old hoop pals, and after the games, I sat in the Shellback Tavern drinking beer when Kevin Barry asked what I was up to. Well, surrounded by a crew of highly successful men who had always respected me as the former commissioner of Live Oak Park basketball and THEIR bartender while living here, I was too shame-faced to reveal I’d been fired from my last two jobs and that my unemployment checks had run out and I could not secure a job. I was 60 years old.
“I’m between jobs,” I told Kevin, a big man around 50, A New Yorker with a shaved head, who owned Barry Promotions, a ball cap business that had made him a mint over the years. He flew to college basketball tournaments in Hawaii and Las Vegas, where he sealed contracts with major programs. He was tight with tournament directors, and college sports administrators, corporate bosses. He had built a small empire. He had also taken my place as hoop park honcho and knew well my barbaric physical savagery and sly gamesmanship on the courts.
“I want you to open up a sales territory in San Luis Obispo County,” Kev said, pouring beer into my mug from a pitcher.
I realized that most of the guys drinking in the Shellback, about 20, were in sales, had bought homes in this pricey area, owned new luxury cars, were alpha males more than living the American dream. Currently, I lived in a tiny shack and drove a duct-taped 20 year old Toyota Tercel that sat out in the lot with my black Lab, Marley, on the front seat.
“You want me to be a…salesman?” I queried.
“Absolutely. In fact, down the line, if all goes well, and I’m sure it will, Dell, you’ll be a sales manager.”
“Sales manager? Doesn’t that mean organizational skills? Kev, I’m lucky if I can organize my sock drawer.”
Kev leaned toward me. “Dell, you’ve got first rate people skills. You know how to talk to people and handle different personalities from your bartending days. You’re smart, savvy, a hustler. It’s my observation, from knowing you, that you’d make one hell of a salesman. Also, in my system, if you follow my instructions, my sales plan, I guarantee you’ll sell.”
“A system?”
He nodded. “I got a system that’s idiot proof. I’ll write it out for you. All you do is repeat the pitch, the prices, et cetera. You do it on the phone, or the computer, or you can make cold calls, and I swear to God it will work, and you will make money.”
“I’m not good at following directions and systems, Kev,” I warned him. “I like to work from a creative framework and wing it. I feel weird repeating a spiel.”
“Don’t sweat it, Dell. It’ll work. So far I haven’t had one sales person who’s failed. The girls I’ve hired have really made it big. This is a great opportunity for you.” He witnessed the doubt in my expression, and I wondered did he detect that unlike most salesman I was not bouncy and optimistic, but a cynic prone to negative observations of humanity, certainly not an asset for a salesman. “Dell, of all these guys in here, and they can all sell and make money, you’ve always had the most dynamic, charming personality…”
“Yeh, when I want to…”
“Hey, just relax. I want you to go out and have a good time, with nothing to lose. I guarantee you’ll succeed. I have an eye for talent or I wouldn’t be where I am, Dell, and I’m positive you’re the man for the job.”
Kevin Barry extended his hand. I found myself shaking it. I was now a salesman, independent contractor, totally in charge of San Luis Obispo County’s territory, Willie Loman without a sport coat to his name.
********
I’d known a lot of good salesman. They had patience and tenacity and didn’t mind spending an inordinate amount of time with a prospective buyer no matter how tedious their company, ingratiating themselves, almost becoming a friend. They seemed to love their products and thrived on the hunt, the challenge, and the score. They smiled all the time and knew how to keep a convivial conversation going and had a knack for sizing people up and telling them what they wanted to hear, like Bill Clinton. Many of these people can take an inferior product and convince you it is wonderful, that you can’t live without it and eventually feel obligated to buy this inferior product at an inflated price, like swampland in Florida.
I’d also heard a good salesman could be sold anything, but nobody had ever been able to sell me anything because I was suspicious of all sales pitches and hated material items. So here I was, with a superior product, plenty of samples in a beautiful Barry Promotions bag, and an idiot-proof system that had made Kevin Barry rich and his sales people affluent.
I decided to approach only people I’d gotten to know over 17 years in the nearby beach cities. I managed to sell a gross (144 was the minimum sale) to the owner of my home town Tavern, where I’d spent much of my wages since moving to Cayucos in 1989. A long-time current basketball teammate who’d opened a fitness gym in Morro Bay bought a gross. A gal who owned a local coffee house and another hoop buddy who ran a kiddy clinic bought the same. My confidence swelled. Another hoop pal who owned a liquor store bought a gross. Kevin was ecstatic and encouraging on the phone, sending me my 20% commission checks. I made another sell to a coffee house where I went after tennis on weekends. My confidence was so great I made a cold call to a bar owner in Los Osos, a hefty, hard-edged woman, and sold her a gross lickety-split.
I walked out on a cloud of foam. I had walked into her office like a man with a winner’s swagger. I decided to go on the road, outside of the immediate area, and make cold calls. Kevin suggested I make a circuit of the burgeoning wine country (over a 100 vineyards) throughout northern San Luis Obispo country.
I found a map and marked out a route in the Paso Robles area. The first day I hit 12 vineyards. I went 0 for 12. Not a nibble. When I walked in, trundling my bag of caps, pitch at the ready, they smiled, wanting to know if I wanted to sample some wine, and perhaps buy a case. I am not a wine drinker and cannot stand precious wine connoisseurs. The whole culture smacks of snobbery. But I decided to give it another try, and went 0 for 8. Fuck the vineyards. I called up Kevin and told him of my futile effort to sell to these pricks.
“Don’t get discouraged, keep plugging away,” he said. “Have you been using my system, my pitch, when you go in these places?”
“Yeh, they don’t wanna hear it. They all buy caps and hats from a local company. They want all sizes, we got one size. They want various colors, we got one color. They want to buy thirty, fifty, a hundred, we only have one forty four. Oh, our price is far less, but then some of these damn fools don’t wanna change horses in the middle of the stream. They’re all paying three bucks more for caps that are inferior. I feel like beating these motherfuckers over the head with a club, Kev!”
There was a pause. “Dell, calm down. Stay cool. Look, spend a day calling a bunch of vineyards, using my system, and set up meetings, then go and see them. That’s the way it’s done.”
“Yeh, okay.”
He delivered a rousing pep-talk, trying to rebuild my confidence and inspire me. Well, I was not about to visit any more vineyards and deal with those tight-asses, whose smiles vanished the moment I opened my bag and started my pitch, treating me like a beggar with dismissive politeness in which I did not fail to detect contempt, returning to my heap with tail between my legs, causing my usually happy dog great concern as he licked my face in consolation.
“What are you wearing, Dell, when you make your calls?” Kev wanted to know. “You’re shaving and everything, aren’t you?”
“Yeh, yeh. I wear my usual—my best pair of dress shorts, a polo shirt, and my newest sneakers.”
“For God’s sake, put on a pair of slacks, a dress shirt, and some leather shoes. Appearance matters.”
“Yeh, well, okay.” Sure. I had no leather shoes or dress shirt and was not about to buy them any more than I was going to network, and couldn’t anyway because I was sick of the phone and had no computer, which did not thrill Kevin, who wanted me to get one, as had my ex woman for years, who called me a troglodyte.
What I decided to do was hit every small business in the county with my flagging confidence. I went to surf shops. They only wanted a style of “flex fit” we did not have. I hit liquor stores, T shirt shops, kite stores, hotels, resorts, golf course pro shops, gift shops, bars, restaurants, auto dealerships, music stores, fitness gyms, coffee houses, high school and college athletic directors. As my confidence continued to dwindle, brush offs from prospective customers became more abrupt and demeaning, like I was a bug, an insect to be stomped by a shoe. Nobody looked me in the eye. It was almost as if the moment I stepped through the door they smelled my desperation and were offended by the sight of such a miserable, lowly shard of humanity. One man saw me start to enter and ran into a back room and hid until I left.
I finally could no longer go into these places. I could not call Kevin during a two month drought because I was ashamed of letting him down, and ignored his daily phone messages requesting my progress on the first answering machine I’d ever owned, and on which I announced myself as territorial salesman for Barry Promotions in a highly professional voice he approved of after several attempts. Not one person had ever called about the caps. Often I’d come home and see several blinking calls at the ready, only to be disappointed and angry when they were either sales pitches from con jobs or old friends mocking my message with horse laughs and disbelief at what I was attempting. Ha ha ha.
********
When I visited Manhattan Beach to play hoop, Kev observed my sheepish, hangdog demeanor and after the games delivered me another pep-talk over beers and made a list of places to call on, places he would contact on the internet or phone to lay groundwork.
But, once I returned home, I realized I’d reached the point where I could no longer go into these businesses. My psyche had been irretrievably crushed. I had come to hate with a bitter, murderous vengeance all these smiling, shifty-eyed business proprietors. The damn morons, they didn’t know what they were doing, not buying my caps. They were buying inferior caps for inflated prices and selling them for more excessive prices, while I had the superior product for a lower price, but the sonsofbitches wouldn’t give me the time of day! No wonder business stunk for the bunch of whiners.
I was never so humiliated. I’d played football, baseball, basketball, worked the roughest fisherman’s dive on the coast for 8 years and more than held my own in brawls, and yet here I was a quailing coward when it came to entering a store and following up a contact made by my boss. My stomach rumbled with queasy nausea. My hands shook. I couldn’t breathe or swallow. My legs quivered and turned to jelly. I could no longer force myself to go in stores. I stood outside doorways trying to gather my courage, but inevitably slunk away, vowing to return the next day, but I never did. I awakened every morning girding myself to hit several businesses, and ended up only driving by, not even bothering to park outside and stand out front like a lost stooge, sample bag in hand, again vowing to return the next day after finding a hundred excuses to skulk away, defeated again.
I began to drive by places where I’d failed to sell, or places I had not been able to gather enough courage to enter, and at first felt sick to my stomach, and afterwards found myself gorged with rage, grinding my teeth, clenching my fists, wanting to go into these places and slap the living shit out of the bastards who had rejected me and turned my life into a nightmare of ignominy.
Finally, I took my message off the machine, so that when Kevin—bless his heart—called, he’d know I quit, did not have what it took to sell fucking baseball caps.
I immediately went down and hooked on with the cab company in San Luis Obispo and got the late swing shifts I desired.
“I’m between jobs,” I told Kevin, a big man around 50, A New Yorker with a shaved head, who owned Barry Promotions, a ball cap business that had made him a mint over the years. He flew to college basketball tournaments in Hawaii and Las Vegas, where he sealed contracts with major programs. He was tight with tournament directors, and college sports administrators, corporate bosses. He had built a small empire. He had also taken my place as hoop park honcho and knew well my barbaric physical savagery and sly gamesmanship on the courts.
“I want you to open up a sales territory in San Luis Obispo County,” Kev said, pouring beer into my mug from a pitcher.
I realized that most of the guys drinking in the Shellback, about 20, were in sales, had bought homes in this pricey area, owned new luxury cars, were alpha males more than living the American dream. Currently, I lived in a tiny shack and drove a duct-taped 20 year old Toyota Tercel that sat out in the lot with my black Lab, Marley, on the front seat.
“You want me to be a…salesman?” I queried.
“Absolutely. In fact, down the line, if all goes well, and I’m sure it will, Dell, you’ll be a sales manager.”
“Sales manager? Doesn’t that mean organizational skills? Kev, I’m lucky if I can organize my sock drawer.”
Kev leaned toward me. “Dell, you’ve got first rate people skills. You know how to talk to people and handle different personalities from your bartending days. You’re smart, savvy, a hustler. It’s my observation, from knowing you, that you’d make one hell of a salesman. Also, in my system, if you follow my instructions, my sales plan, I guarantee you’ll sell.”
“A system?”
He nodded. “I got a system that’s idiot proof. I’ll write it out for you. All you do is repeat the pitch, the prices, et cetera. You do it on the phone, or the computer, or you can make cold calls, and I swear to God it will work, and you will make money.”
“I’m not good at following directions and systems, Kev,” I warned him. “I like to work from a creative framework and wing it. I feel weird repeating a spiel.”
“Don’t sweat it, Dell. It’ll work. So far I haven’t had one sales person who’s failed. The girls I’ve hired have really made it big. This is a great opportunity for you.” He witnessed the doubt in my expression, and I wondered did he detect that unlike most salesman I was not bouncy and optimistic, but a cynic prone to negative observations of humanity, certainly not an asset for a salesman. “Dell, of all these guys in here, and they can all sell and make money, you’ve always had the most dynamic, charming personality…”
“Yeh, when I want to…”
“Hey, just relax. I want you to go out and have a good time, with nothing to lose. I guarantee you’ll succeed. I have an eye for talent or I wouldn’t be where I am, Dell, and I’m positive you’re the man for the job.”
Kevin Barry extended his hand. I found myself shaking it. I was now a salesman, independent contractor, totally in charge of San Luis Obispo County’s territory, Willie Loman without a sport coat to his name.
********
I’d known a lot of good salesman. They had patience and tenacity and didn’t mind spending an inordinate amount of time with a prospective buyer no matter how tedious their company, ingratiating themselves, almost becoming a friend. They seemed to love their products and thrived on the hunt, the challenge, and the score. They smiled all the time and knew how to keep a convivial conversation going and had a knack for sizing people up and telling them what they wanted to hear, like Bill Clinton. Many of these people can take an inferior product and convince you it is wonderful, that you can’t live without it and eventually feel obligated to buy this inferior product at an inflated price, like swampland in Florida.
I’d also heard a good salesman could be sold anything, but nobody had ever been able to sell me anything because I was suspicious of all sales pitches and hated material items. So here I was, with a superior product, plenty of samples in a beautiful Barry Promotions bag, and an idiot-proof system that had made Kevin Barry rich and his sales people affluent.
I decided to approach only people I’d gotten to know over 17 years in the nearby beach cities. I managed to sell a gross (144 was the minimum sale) to the owner of my home town Tavern, where I’d spent much of my wages since moving to Cayucos in 1989. A long-time current basketball teammate who’d opened a fitness gym in Morro Bay bought a gross. A gal who owned a local coffee house and another hoop buddy who ran a kiddy clinic bought the same. My confidence swelled. Another hoop pal who owned a liquor store bought a gross. Kevin was ecstatic and encouraging on the phone, sending me my 20% commission checks. I made another sell to a coffee house where I went after tennis on weekends. My confidence was so great I made a cold call to a bar owner in Los Osos, a hefty, hard-edged woman, and sold her a gross lickety-split.
I walked out on a cloud of foam. I had walked into her office like a man with a winner’s swagger. I decided to go on the road, outside of the immediate area, and make cold calls. Kevin suggested I make a circuit of the burgeoning wine country (over a 100 vineyards) throughout northern San Luis Obispo country.
I found a map and marked out a route in the Paso Robles area. The first day I hit 12 vineyards. I went 0 for 12. Not a nibble. When I walked in, trundling my bag of caps, pitch at the ready, they smiled, wanting to know if I wanted to sample some wine, and perhaps buy a case. I am not a wine drinker and cannot stand precious wine connoisseurs. The whole culture smacks of snobbery. But I decided to give it another try, and went 0 for 8. Fuck the vineyards. I called up Kevin and told him of my futile effort to sell to these pricks.
“Don’t get discouraged, keep plugging away,” he said. “Have you been using my system, my pitch, when you go in these places?”
“Yeh, they don’t wanna hear it. They all buy caps and hats from a local company. They want all sizes, we got one size. They want various colors, we got one color. They want to buy thirty, fifty, a hundred, we only have one forty four. Oh, our price is far less, but then some of these damn fools don’t wanna change horses in the middle of the stream. They’re all paying three bucks more for caps that are inferior. I feel like beating these motherfuckers over the head with a club, Kev!”
There was a pause. “Dell, calm down. Stay cool. Look, spend a day calling a bunch of vineyards, using my system, and set up meetings, then go and see them. That’s the way it’s done.”
“Yeh, okay.”
He delivered a rousing pep-talk, trying to rebuild my confidence and inspire me. Well, I was not about to visit any more vineyards and deal with those tight-asses, whose smiles vanished the moment I opened my bag and started my pitch, treating me like a beggar with dismissive politeness in which I did not fail to detect contempt, returning to my heap with tail between my legs, causing my usually happy dog great concern as he licked my face in consolation.
“What are you wearing, Dell, when you make your calls?” Kev wanted to know. “You’re shaving and everything, aren’t you?”
“Yeh, yeh. I wear my usual—my best pair of dress shorts, a polo shirt, and my newest sneakers.”
“For God’s sake, put on a pair of slacks, a dress shirt, and some leather shoes. Appearance matters.”
“Yeh, well, okay.” Sure. I had no leather shoes or dress shirt and was not about to buy them any more than I was going to network, and couldn’t anyway because I was sick of the phone and had no computer, which did not thrill Kevin, who wanted me to get one, as had my ex woman for years, who called me a troglodyte.
What I decided to do was hit every small business in the county with my flagging confidence. I went to surf shops. They only wanted a style of “flex fit” we did not have. I hit liquor stores, T shirt shops, kite stores, hotels, resorts, golf course pro shops, gift shops, bars, restaurants, auto dealerships, music stores, fitness gyms, coffee houses, high school and college athletic directors. As my confidence continued to dwindle, brush offs from prospective customers became more abrupt and demeaning, like I was a bug, an insect to be stomped by a shoe. Nobody looked me in the eye. It was almost as if the moment I stepped through the door they smelled my desperation and were offended by the sight of such a miserable, lowly shard of humanity. One man saw me start to enter and ran into a back room and hid until I left.
I finally could no longer go into these places. I could not call Kevin during a two month drought because I was ashamed of letting him down, and ignored his daily phone messages requesting my progress on the first answering machine I’d ever owned, and on which I announced myself as territorial salesman for Barry Promotions in a highly professional voice he approved of after several attempts. Not one person had ever called about the caps. Often I’d come home and see several blinking calls at the ready, only to be disappointed and angry when they were either sales pitches from con jobs or old friends mocking my message with horse laughs and disbelief at what I was attempting. Ha ha ha.
********
When I visited Manhattan Beach to play hoop, Kev observed my sheepish, hangdog demeanor and after the games delivered me another pep-talk over beers and made a list of places to call on, places he would contact on the internet or phone to lay groundwork.
But, once I returned home, I realized I’d reached the point where I could no longer go into these businesses. My psyche had been irretrievably crushed. I had come to hate with a bitter, murderous vengeance all these smiling, shifty-eyed business proprietors. The damn morons, they didn’t know what they were doing, not buying my caps. They were buying inferior caps for inflated prices and selling them for more excessive prices, while I had the superior product for a lower price, but the sonsofbitches wouldn’t give me the time of day! No wonder business stunk for the bunch of whiners.
I was never so humiliated. I’d played football, baseball, basketball, worked the roughest fisherman’s dive on the coast for 8 years and more than held my own in brawls, and yet here I was a quailing coward when it came to entering a store and following up a contact made by my boss. My stomach rumbled with queasy nausea. My hands shook. I couldn’t breathe or swallow. My legs quivered and turned to jelly. I could no longer force myself to go in stores. I stood outside doorways trying to gather my courage, but inevitably slunk away, vowing to return the next day, but I never did. I awakened every morning girding myself to hit several businesses, and ended up only driving by, not even bothering to park outside and stand out front like a lost stooge, sample bag in hand, again vowing to return the next day after finding a hundred excuses to skulk away, defeated again.
I began to drive by places where I’d failed to sell, or places I had not been able to gather enough courage to enter, and at first felt sick to my stomach, and afterwards found myself gorged with rage, grinding my teeth, clenching my fists, wanting to go into these places and slap the living shit out of the bastards who had rejected me and turned my life into a nightmare of ignominy.
Finally, I took my message off the machine, so that when Kevin—bless his heart—called, he’d know I quit, did not have what it took to sell fucking baseball caps.
I immediately went down and hooked on with the cab company in San Luis Obispo and got the late swing shifts I desired.
