The route was still growing and I had grown it to second place, not bad for the first year. Then something happened that wasn’t expected. Coca Cola’s management decided that some of their business was really growing especially my route and they decided to add some more new routes. In order to do so they had to cut some accounts off of the better routes. They made a fifty percent cut to my route. Well, the good news was I would be getting home earlier, the bad news was we weren’t prepared for this. We had bills to pay. What were we going to do? I know my wife was being stressed with the bills. To top that off I was up for Salesman Of The Year for the first time in my life. Because of the changes with all of the routes there were no awards for that this year.
I received a call from a friend that was trying different networking business and while he was he came across a product that you could make thirty percent on each sale. You didn't have to wait to get paid you paid yourself out of each sale. There was a small investment and I decided to give it a try. I thought a little extra income was just what we needed. The new item was a little key chain device that sprayed a pepper spray called, The Mugger Slugger. They were small and I figured that I could take them to work with me and sell them while on the route. There were after all, a lot of female employees of my customers out there on the route. I had several schools that I sold to also. They had vending machines in the teachers break rooms. I arranged to deliver during their breaks. I presented this new innovation that cost very little and offered a piece of mind toward their protection.
I sold quite a few of these Mugger Sluggers. I was on a roll and was putting a lot of money in my pocket. Then one night on a Television show called 20/20 they investigated this new device and others like it sweeping across the country. They found that the devise did not offer much in the way of protection, it only made the attacker more angry. Well I don't need to tell you that I stopped selling it right then. I didn't receive any complaints from my customers, and I was very grateful for that. I remembered back to a lesson that my father had taught me about putting my name with only quality products because you are selling your name first and regardless of the product the customer associates your name first as a salesperson that sold them a product.
This was a mistake that I would remember for all of my life. I would learn that putting my name and my companies name with the product would come first and I should only sell a quality product.
