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Sales Success Magazine | Sales Training | Success StoriesHow I Went From a Shoe Shine Boy to a Millionaire and Found Passion for Life
A Series Written to Inspire Those Who Want Passion for LifeChapter 7: A Different View Click here for "Millionaire" directory. Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. SALES SUCCESS MAGAZINE ©2001,2002,2003 Published 7/20/2003 
"Now who do we call?" I looked up from my desk at the young lady working in one of the three telemarketer’s desk, and answered, "What do you mean?"
"I finished dialing through the phone book, now who do I call?" She repeated. I walked over and picked up the phone book she was using. We had finished dialing though the entire book. I could not believe it. I never imagined that we could have ever been able to call everyone in the phone book. I was stunned. Keep in mind, that Sheridan, Wyoming only had 13,000 people, and 5000 listings in the phone book. "What do we do?" she asked again, this time with a worried tone. "Well, I guess we dial through again. It’s been about a month since we called the first people, and their carpets may have gotten dirty in the mean time." I retrieved three new phone books and handed them to my telemarketers. Since I had a crew of 3 telemarketers working in the morning, and 4 in the evening, we were calling though the entire phone book every 2 weeks. This led to other problems I had not foreseen. I was pretty proud of my company, "Miracle Maintenance and Cleaning," and if you were not acquainted with me to know that I was the owner, I made it fairly obvious by always wearing a full white uniform and jacket, with the company name and logo in black. Also, since it was such a small community, eventually you would bump into almost everyone that lived there. It started about a month later, I was walking down Main street, past the old west buildings to meet my father for coffee at Brown Drug. Brown Drug was a great place to get a donut, and the waitresses were everybody’s friends. "Hey, are you that feller that keeps calling me on the telephone?" I stopped and turned to look at the gentleman asking me the question. "Well, I am the owner. I have people that work for me calling," I replied. "Well stop it! I get called every dang time I turn around!" I apologized and asked him for his phone number. I continued on down the street toward Brown Drug and walked in to wait for my Dad to show up for his break from Boyd’s. The waitress came over, poured me some coffee, and said, "You know, why do you keep calling and asking if my carpets need cleaned? I will be glad to give you a chance at it, but I don’t clean until spring time." Again I apologized, making a mental note to leave a pretty good tip today. Obviously, people thought that calling every 2 weeks was too often. This left me in quite a predicament, since I had already hired people to work. If I slowed down how often we dialed everyone in town, I would have to let some of the worker’s go. I held a meeting with my telemarketers, and told them we would have to cut back on hours. To my surprise, they all decided to quit, so I lost my entire telemarketing crew. I decided I would have to start over, but I was going to wait a month or two, and then only hire 2 telemarketers. The following week I was sitting in my office, when a Crow Indian Lady walked into my office. Without even looking at me or saying one word, she sat down at one of the telemarketer’s desks, picked up the phone, and started to make sales calls. As I have explained before, we were neighbors to the nation’s largest Crow Indian reservation, and they visited our town quite often. I was used to the fact that they saw life differently than I did, but it still surprised me to see this happen. I had seen this lady before, about one month earlier. She had requested a job as a telemarketer, and I gave it to her. She worked one day, and never showed up again until this day. I had assumed that she had quit. "What are you doing?" I asked. She looked at me, as if I were stupid, and said, "Working." "Where have you been?" "I went on vacation." "But, you did not tell me you were leaving. I assumed that since you had not shown up for a month, you had quit." "No." And she went back to work. Well, I needed a worker anyway, so I let her stay. The same day, another person walked in, a man by the name of Keith. Keith was a young man, about 20, and was very anxious to go to work. He had never worked with sales before, but he was so excited I decided to give him a chance. I did notice that he kept his right arm close to his side. I started to show him how to keep track of who he called, and handed him the phone. He took it with his left arm, cradled it on his shoulder, and dialed with his left hand. I noticed that when he was finished, he put the phone down with his left hand, made his note with his left hand, and started to pick up the phone again with his left hand. "What is wrong with your right arm?" I frowned. "Nothing much," he said, "it’s paralyzed." So I had my crew. A Crow Indian lady who thought I was stupid, and a young man with one arm. It turned out this was the best crew I ever had. Both were very polite and professional on the telephone. I could not get either of them to make my quota of 100 calls per hour, because the Crow Indian lady did as she pleased, and Keith was slow doing everything with one arm. However, they set me more appointments than all 7 of my previous telemarketers combined. As our company grew, I needed more janitors. Keith decided he would rather be a janitor than a telemarketer. This guy seemed to keep forgetting that he had one good arm. I told him that I did not think he could mop a floor, or run a buffer with one hand. I did not see how it was possible. And even if he could, I could not afford to have him operate slower and increase my labor costs. Keith insisted he would be the best janitor I had. He demanded a chance, and said that if he was not faster and better than my other janitors, that he would work for free for a week, and then return as a telemarketer. I accepted his offer. That evening I learned that a handicap isn’t always a handicap, it just makes you think and do things in a different way, to get the job done. The technique that Keith used that evening to handle a mop with one hand, totally amazed me, I never even thought about doing it the way Keith did. Click here to go to chapter 8. This article is copyrighted by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. and no one has permission to copy or reproduce any part without written notarized permission from Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. ©2001,2002,2003 |
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