PEANUTS AND COKE COLA

I was born and raised in New York. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island (LongIsland – One word to the locals) I came to Atlanta to attend Oglethorpe University. Right out of school I started my first sales job. It was about 4 years later that I had to sell out of the city of Atlanta. It was a whole new world.

My first trip to North Georgia to sell was an experience I will never forget (and nether will my very first customers), allow me to tell you my story.

I decided to work in a little town called Lafayette (pronounced La-Fay-Ette, not to be confused with La-Fe-ette as in Louisiana) because my wife had an Aunt and Uncle that lived in the town and could give me some leads. On my way to Lafayette I stopped at a small country store. It was an eye opener for a city boy like I was. I walked into the store and there were 4 .. Let’s call them gentlemen, sitting around a small wooden barrel playing cards, dipping snuff, and drinking Coke-Cola with peanuts in the bottle. (I had never seen peanuts in a Coke before) These gentlemen stopped everything they were doing when I walked in and just stared at me as I stared back at them. (At this point Deliverance wasn’t out yet thank goodness or I would have run for the door).

I took a step towards them and started my sales pitch (It was a pitch not a presentation). I thought I was doing great until I looked into their faces and all 4 had “deer in the headlights” looks on their faces. I stopped talking and asked what was wrong. One of the gentlemen stood up walked over to me and said in the deepest southern accent I have ever heard up to that time, “Boy, you are ready to say goodbye and we are just startin to digest your hello”. I didn’t know what to say so I did what I do best, I started laughing. At that all 4 of them started laughing along with me. (I am not sure about that, they might have been laughing AT me not with me)

The gentleman who stood up walked me over next to the barrel and offered me a chair. I sat down and that is when I got introduced to peanuts in a Coke. After about 20 minutes of learning just how S-L-O-W I needed to talk, I started my sales pitch again. I have never taken so long to get to a demo in my life, but yet there I was.

To this day I know that none of these gentlemen needed anything I was peddling, but each one of them bought something from me. More importantly I learned a few things from them;

1)      You don’t need a degree from a University to be smart

2)      You can’t expect your customers to change to your way of doing things, you need to change to theirs

3)      Expect the Unexpected

4)      Never be afraid to try new things (I recommend peanuts in Coke, BTW they need to be salted “Red Skin” peanuts)

5)      Learn to laugh at yourself at least as hard as you laugh at others

I hope you enjoyed this story, what makes it so good (at least to me) is the fact that it happened exactly like this. As a matter of fact, I started typing this post at 4PM today, I am just finishing at 11:30 PM because I am typing it in SOUTHERN…

Real S-L-O-W.

Lorin