My first day on my new job, and it was the kind of day like so many others for a first day. This day was going to be spent learning. Learning about the company from another employees view. Learning from working on the job. I was assigned to a twenty year veteran female employee. I could only think that she had to have been the first female to break into the route sales part of this business. I was however wrong. One other female had a year on her. She was filled with an abundance of knowledge. She was also a perfectionist, when she stocked shelves every single bag looked perfect. The companies term for this way of merchandising was called ‘snapping and popping’ the bag of chips. I told you a long while back in my book that I was told that I swept streets like Michelangelo painted paintings. I’m here to tell you that this woman had a presentation on the shelf and on here displays that I felt that she was a fine artist in her own right. I tried to perfect the style of snapping and popping but I could never get it to look as good, twenty years of practice was needed.
Here I was back in the food industry, and I was with the largest company in this line of business. I had the best trainer at least the best trainer for teaching me the business of company procedures. I learned about merchandising this type of product and that rotating the product was probably the most important part of my training.
I made it through training and became the Swing Route Sales Person on the route. As a swing I split my week working the weekends that the Lead Route Sales Person had. This company serviced their customers seven days a week. So as swing my weekends were Wednesdays and Thursdays, one route was off Fridays and Saturdays the other was off Sundays and Mondays. Tuesdays were split between both routes. This was going to prove challenging for me. I was used to having the normal weekends off, but there was nothing normal here.
On the two routes that I was on there was only two stores. One on each route, both stores were super centers. Both did over a million dollars of business each. Each account would take eight to twelve hours to service depending on what day it was and if there was to be displays built. Being a glorified delivery and stock boy was not going to be enough for me. Though it was mostly the Leads job to sell in displays, I found myself doing that too. I excelled at gaining display space.
The first year though it seemed tough, turned out to be rewarding. I was given Rookie Of The Year. At the age of fifty three I felt that was some accomplishment. I was soon offered a chance at an assignment to a route. An assignment was not getting your own route, but it was taking the route and running the route as if it were your own. Usually this happened when the regular route sales person was off injured or off for some reason for an extended period of time. If the individual returned the you would return to you former job title. I was on this route for about six months.
The day I met my new supervisor, which their job title was District sales Leader or DSL, was a day that I’ll remember for a long time and so will he. Myself and my swing met with the DSL and a local fast food eatery. He was asking me questions about my experience and what my plans were for my future. His real concern was really about the route. I got cocky with him and made some statements about how I was going to grow the business and how I was going to get the customers to give me what I wanted. How my first goal was to be Salesman Of The Year. Then to become a District Sales Leader. He told me that he respected my ambitions but felt that they were lofty. I promised that I would prove myself.
