Other people's opinions are just that, opinions

This guy is just a waste of time.

It was 1984 and I had just started a new job. I loved my job at Tait Electronics, but the Colonel had retired. We had been through, on average, a new sales manager a year over 6 years. I was no longer using my Sinclair Spectrum as a business computer.

I was now the senior sales representative. It said so on my photo business card. I was acting Sales Manager and I was ready to step up. I applied for the job and the Managing Director, Andrew McMurray told me that if he let me have the Sales Manager role, he would lose his best rep.

Always the same, it’s just a shame, that’s all.

I had my Sales and Marketing Management Diploma after 3 years of two nights a week at night school. I had won every sales campaign, had enough Moet and Chandon to take a bath in, and had been reading a book called How to Master the Art of Selling Anything, by the legendary, Tom Hopkins.

I read this book dozens of times. I still have it and the faded highlighting hasn’t diminished the wisdom on the pages. It was my bible and while it was very American, I had pretty much followed everything he said and it had made me very successful, allowing me to buy my first house when the interest rates were at 18% and rising.

With Tina Turner on the radio, I went for a job interview at a company called Dimock. They sold everything for retail. Scales, scanning systems, cash registers and much more. The job was ECR (Electronic Cash Registers) Sales Supervisor.

The person who had been in the role had lost interest and hadn’t been performing. There was a team of 4 people and they needed a leader.

Now here’s the thing about synchronicity. The Marketing Manager who was interviewing me, Ian Bailey, had just finished the same book. We struck a chord, both focused on personal growth and business success.

AD McMurray at Tait Electronics was right, he was losing his best rep. I hadn’t wanted to leave. I loved the company and was very loyal to Angus Tait, but I had to be loyal to myself too.

Ian went out with me for a few days and showed me how business was done at Dimock. He was a great salesman and trainer and I quickly learned the ropes. I was very lucky that we had made a connection, which was in part about the book, but I also had evidence that I was very successful in sales, and ready to step up.

Now the previous guy had still been using the same type of tickler cards I had discovered at Tait’s and I inherited his box of cards. One day I had been going through these cards and there was a company called Greenlane Wines and Spirits on one of them.

The card had a person’s name on it, Darryl Warren. Under his name, were the scribbled words “Waste of time!”

That got me intrigued.

We had recently come up with a number of innovations including connecting scales directly to cash registers and also connecting bar code readers, or scanners, to Point of Sale terminals.

Greenlane Wines and Spirits were one of a number of liquor stores in Auckland, owned by Lion Breweries. Lion Nathan owned one of the two biggest breweries in New Zealand and this was their flagship store.

After a few phone calls, I managed to get an appointment with this “waste of time!” I quickly discovered a fellow geek. He loved computers to the point that Microsoft tagged him as a VIP and often invited him to Redmond to check out new systems and applications. He was a Beta tester for them. He loved the leading / bleeding edge of technology.

I remember the day well. I sat in his office having a coffee and chocolate biscuits and asked him if he would like to collaborate with me. His flagship store would become the first liquor store in New Zealand with scanning. I painted word pictures and he was dead keen, seeing the benefits instantly.

In the liquor industry, inventory management was not only everything, they had to pay tax on alcohol before the product was sold, so shrinkage was a big thing.

Darryl was innovating with all sorts of things including deli food and being able to integrate all of their products into the PoS had significant benefits.

When I told Ian that I had a great sale coming up, he said “What about scales?” Whoops, I had almost missed an important opportunity. I needed some help with this one because I didn’t really know anything about scales.

The rest is history. They renovated the store and the opening day was exciting.

So I had to thank Andrew for not giving me the Sales Manager’s role at Tait’s. Ian for reading the same book as me, my predecessor who will remain nameless, and Darryl who I had a good laugh with when I showed him what was on the tickler card under his name. I didn’t show him that until we were a lot closer and he had given me a purchase order to put the same solution into all of their stores.

Life is all about connections, people, and taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. I had some happy years at Dimocks. There will be more stories about my time there. I made some good friends there among the staff and our customers.