I had this young man that was a top sales person for me for a number of years. He was truly a character for the ages. For the sake of this post I am going to call him William. Every time I would promote this young man into management he would amaze us with his bizarre behavior. Here is just one of the funniest stories from this young man’s tenure.

It was the beginning of the summer and all the college kids came to us for summer employment as usual. Because it was a commission job it attracted college students from all over the country. It was not uncommon at all for a student to pay an entire semester’s tuition in just one summer. Well, the day before the summer rush of students William bought a 15 passenger van to take the students around that he was going to teach and work with during the summer. I questioned him about the wisdom of buying a van when he always had a problem retaining people. William convinced me this was the “NEW” William. I went along with him and proceeded to fill his van up with people.

Then the fun began… After the first night with his 15 people William came back and reported no sales. Nothing new there for William. It only gets funnier. At work the next day only 11 of his people showed up for work and I questioned William who proceeded to inform me that he was weeding the garden and he was just keeping the best people. Well that night he came back with his crew and again there were NO sales. Again no surprise.

The next day at work only 9 people showed up and I confronted William. Again William proceeded to inform me that he had everything under control and I shouldn’t worry. Well that day I decided to follow the young manager “wanna be” and see what was up. I followed him and observed him getting out of his van at a driving range and he made all 9 reps sit on a bench while he proceeded to hit a bucket of golf balls. After the 1st bucket I approached him and asked him what on earth was he doing? With the straightest face only William could display he actually told me that he was teaching his crew an important sales lesson. He told me that he had a horrible slice with his drive and he wanted to teach his crew that PERSISTENCE BEATS RESISTENCE!

I almost couldn’t contain my self. Maybe if I had used that method of training years ago my golf game wouldn’t be so bad.

“The Specialist”