Imagine what a job offer given to a college student will do to an ego to a college senior who was months away from graduation day. Mr. Walker had been a mentor to me for several years prior to graduating college. The last Christmas break of college, he just happened to “planted a seed” in my ear. He strategically dangled a carrot in front of this serial entrepreneur’s face. I was sitting on his couch in his living room waiting to collect my check for delivering and spreading pine straw in his yard.
We got into the conversation about what I wanted to do after college. I didn’t have any set plans yet, but I knew that I was not going to be slinging straw for too long after graduation. I looked up to him greatly at the time because my dad was buddies of him and I knew he had been successful at public speaking. He told me that he was planning to sell his Priority Management franchise in a few years.
I had been using my Priority Management system for a few years at that time. I had the cache brown leather case. This system kept be straight and organized. I had participated in a few of the time management seminars and really got alot out of them. I believed in the paper based system because I could rely on it. It was not something that I was vulnerable to to losing if my computer crashed or battery died. I could pull it out on the side of the road to take a note, check the calendar or look up an important document. It was a smoothing running machine and I was excited about the opportunity.
After a few nights thinking hard about this idea and the implied offer, I decided to accept the straight commission sales position and give it a shot. There was no question in my head that I can sell…but this product, I might have jumped in a little too quick. Al and I met multiple times to share and generate ideas. I planned to graduate May 12th, 2006 and started working full time on May 15th…the following Monday.
Most of my buddies went on big trips or took a few months off while they relaxed after graduation, but I didn’t do that at all. Al’s office was in Chapin, SC. Plans were being made for me to eventually purchase the franchise from Al Walker & Associates. It was known that I planned to continue to own and operate Pinestraw Plus on the side while I grew and transitioned to take over Priority Management. This move in hindsight really caused a conflict in my time and my self-centeredness came out. I was working on growing the pine straw business sometimes while on the clock at the office in Chapin. Ashley, Al’s assistant, a few times checked behind my desktop computer to see what I was working on and I guess she saw document saved as Pinestraw Plus. Lesson learned, when on the clock and working for someone else’s business, work for their business…not your own. If you are going to start or operate a side gig, GREAT!…do it on the side.
One-time Ashley told me to always wear an undershirt. Another time, she told me to never send a work email after I had been drinking. That might have been a sign that I needed to get a handle on my drinking. She really wanted me fired because I was cramping into her normal, don’t do anything kind of day. She had been there for something like 10 years and was set in her ways. Here I was making more than her selling and running my pine straw business at the same time and she was landlocked at a dead-end job with a guy who had his own issues. I swore something was going on with them but I was the new guy and didn’t really care. I had a goal of buying his franchise. She probably realized that she was not apart of the package deal. I wanted no part in her services when I had the franchise.
Meanwhile, it is important to know that Meagan was working at the Columbia Museum of Art. She was making a salary under $30,000 and to put that into prespective, we found out that the leader of the non-profit museum, Karen Brosius, Executive Director was making over $300,000. Wow! Really.
Working Sm@rt with Outlook®
I found it hard to sell ‘paper’ calendars and a few thousand dollar all day training seminar when I was using Outlook for calendaring. If you are not passionate about what you are selling, it ain’t gonna work, my friend. So, I learned all that I could from Al’s daughter who knew a lot about Outlook. I believe she was a part-time teacher at Midlands Tech.
It is kind of comical to me now, but just to show you how I believe I was a networker and born salesman, I found a note from 2/9/07 where I “met at a bowling alley Friday night Tim Vogel, CPA with Elliot Davis, LLC. It was a charity event for Junior Achievers, found out he has locations Greenville, Anderson, Laurens, Columbia, Greenwood, Aiken, and Augusta. 2/16/07, I mailed him email tips.
Al Walker recruited me several months before I graduated Clemson to come work for him to sell Priority Management WSWO “Working Smart with Outlook.” When people would call, like Tonya Hays on 8/29/06, she called in to order more paper supplies. I was supposed to up-sell her and talked to her about the benefits of using Outlook instead of paper. She was interested in making it work. She didn’t like that it showed up different on her home computer with what she had on the work computer. This was because her work Outlook was probably purchased by her company and not the online version. This entire program I was selling was back when Microsoft Outlook was still figuring everything out. It was so new, very similar to the solar business that I started later in life….I had to figure out so many things on the fly.
Al had a sign in his office which I think I resented, “Selling is like shaving, if you don’t do it every day, you are a bum.” I replayed that quote in my head all the time. There were times when I wanted to have a beard or a little facial hair, but that picture on the wall with that quote calling my a bum made me think otherwise.
One pivotal trip that I took was to Vancouver Canada for work. It was the “Priority Management Worldwide Conference” for sales training. Before this trip, Al told me that he was going to pay for my meals, but not for alcohol. At the time, I was fresh out of college (the frat life), newly married with no kids, and a high drinking tolerance. I actually tried to turn in receipts from my solo drinking by just turning in the receipt that had the total, without itemized numbers.
I thought I was slick, but remember that assistant who realized her job was threatened, well…Ashley called the restaurants and got them to send her the itemized receipts. She said, even a hamburger out west doesn’t cost this much. I thought I would be able to pull one on them, but it didn’t work. I was drinking more than what I even turned in for my business expenses. I would put the first drink or two on the same tab as the meal, but the drinks afterwards would be on my personal card. I think I was drinking to blackout during those days trying to escape the fact that I might be on the wrong track.
My wife wasn’t happy with her ultra low salary, I didn’t believe in selling paper calendars when the corporate world was embracing Outlook, my wife’s job had corporate handcuffs on us because the Mueseum of Art did offer health insurance and my job didn’t…so she couldn’t just quit. I had to get out of there. It ultimatly lasted for about 9 months until one day, Ashley had prepared a 7 page write up with bullet points listing why I needed to be fired. WOW, seriously. That actually happened.
When I showed up for work one day, Al said we needed to talk. He sat me down in the little cardboard table sized conference room and started to read down the list of issues that Ashley had with me. I just grabbed my stuff and left. I have since apologized and asked for his forgiveness. I don’t regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on this. So many lessons learned right out of college in my first “real job.”
