How a goalie mask rescued me from a hostile audience

All top sales people mature by reading books on sales, talking with others and work to strive to improve. I discovered Brian Tracy in 1988 and turned my car into a "university on wheels" listening to his audio cassettes to the point that I could recite key phrases.

We enter a phase where each new deal is bigger than the last. We break new ground in both applications and industries and bring the work back to the office. We then have to conquer the "internal sale" of convincing the company to buy into the idea.

I was fortunate working for Jack Rozran, the chairman of Cannonball. Someone recently described Jack to me as being 25 years ahead of his local competition in Chicago. He had degrees from Harvard and Northwestern university and has a very facile mind.

During my many meeting in his office, I knew he would ask me a question I did NOT have the answer to. I took it in stride and would reply, "I don't know but I will find out." Jack kept you on your toes. Decades later, Jack's oldest employee, Larry Powers told me, "Eric, that was very wise of you. If Jack ever catches you exaggerating or lying, you are out the door."

I landed a million dollar deal with the largest photo lab in Chicago in 1993. It took a year of weekly meetings with the owner and his business consultant. Jack attended the first meeting and the owner, Ben Lavitt asked him, "Why would a man as busy as you take a meeting with such a small company (?). Ben was very humble. Jack replied smugly "Because I want to be at the 2nd meeting."

The operations manager Staale Johannessen found this to be off putting but grew to like and respect Jack. I later read in a local busines trade journal that we saved Gamma $750,000 by outsourcing. They also escaped a key liability issue by outsourcing. I later closed their Hillside office. Doug Goddard - a snake - gave my proposal to our largest competitor who was also bidding on the work.

We took over in January of 1994 during an unusually harsh Chicago winter. It either snowed 8 inches a day or was 5 degrees above zero. Tom What's His Name was dispatched to deliver the first week's payroll. and the meeting did NOT go well. Tom was very arrogant.

He quickly found himself in a confrontation over the drivers being short changed on their first pay check. He almost got beaten up by a hulking courier had the six foot four, 240 pound Staale had not been there to quell the situation. Tom later told Larry, "I got my head handed to me."

Staale immediately called Jerry and said Tom was NEVER to set foot in Gamma ever again. Moving forward, Eric Field was to deliver the payroll each Friday afternoon. This was a blow to Jerry who was corrupt and Tom was his henchman. Jerry would do this FDR thing of having people plotting against each other. I learned this from a great book called The Charisma Factor.

Staale read Tom Clancy novels and thought very mechanically. And like a buddy recently told me, "The best thing I learned from Law school was to think rationally rather than logically." That was Staale.

Getting out of my car, knowing that my mettle was about to be tested from a hostile audience, an idea popped into my head. I played goal in two floor hockey leagues every winter. I had my equipment in the trunk. I walked into dispatch wearing my Brooks Brothers suit and my Tony Esposito mask.

The room broke up starting with Staale who was beaming. I carefully eyed the hulking courier who, to my surprise and immense relief, laughed the loudest. The tension broken, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Sales is all about being able to read a room and being nimble and fast on your feet. It is the difference between being Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie on that hit 1960's TV show. You either cart wheel over the ottoman or you side step it as he did to great comic effect.

Recently a close friend and mutual friend of Staale's told me something I did not know for decades. Staale would tell Diane, "I like Eric so much. He is such a good guy. I just wish he could find a nice lady and settle down. He deserves that."