By meeting every customer I could see all of the everyday challenges that the salesman would face with each customer. It also helped me to see where opportunities were for gaining space and for new product placement or to sell even the smallest display. Most of the smaller customers told me that they had not seen a manager if ever at least in a very long time.
I felt that my plan was working and my sales manager, Doug felt that I was doing everything the right way too. Not every customer was great, some were to become a challenge for me too. I had a customer that owned three super markets in a small town in my territory, I had met with the buyer for our weekly appointment and I had sold him on putting a can display in the front of each of their stores. After the meeting I went to each of the stores to meet with the store manager to secure the display placement. I had two of the stores done and I was feeling pretty good when I went to the third store. I had never met this manager before and I understood before I got there that he was an old school tough case. I went and met with him. I told him who I was and his response was, “so what does that mean to me?” I proceeded to tell him how I would be there to take care of his needs with Coca Cola. He told he would be the biggest prick I would ever meet! He kind of smirked and asked me what I wanted. I told him that I had met bigger ones then I was sure he was when I was in the Marines. I told him about the sale and that there was an authorization for a display in the front of the store. I think I gave him a challenge, because, for the next six months he had to prove to me that he was indeed the biggest prick that I had ever met. Displays were hard to come by. Luckily he liked the route salesman and we still able to grow the account.
A few months later I was invited to play in a vendor golf outing and wouldn’t you know it, I was teamed up with the biggest prick that I had ever met. The store manager and I got along great. We both loved to play golf. I found out a lot about him. How much he loved golf and how he too had been a Marine. Now we had common ground. From that day forward I got the displays that I wanted and my sales grew even more.
