Thunder Dog - Michael Hingson [40]
As I worked my way up from humble sales rep to sales manager, I traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, and I worked with some great people at a company called Artecon.
My sales reps and I had a good time. I used to egg them on to make their sales calls by telling them we were “dialing for dollars,” a theme I took from a low-budget TV game show by the same name. We worked in cubicles and I kept the atmosphere fun and lighthearted.
Once a month I rounded up all the salespeople, and we piled into a motor home and headed to George’s Burgers, a greasy joint in San Marcos. One time they let me drive the motor home in the parking lot. “Just put the thing in D for Drive,” they told me.
“When I hit the bumps, the Braille keeps me in between the lines,” I said.
One of my favorite sales reps of all time was Billie Castillo. She was a firecracker and didn’t know much about technology when she started, but she made up for it in moxie and energy. “I was a sales rookie who didn’t know the difference between computer disk and tape, and you turned me into the World Wide Web Queen,” she said recently.
Billie didn’t much like to fly, especially in the winter when they were de-icing the wings of airplanes. She always said I had a calming effect on her. “Something about your personality, your no-fear thing. You’re so used to adapting and reacting to the environment.”
I traveled a lot of miles with Billie. We developed a great strategy using my guide dog Klondike at trade shows when we took walks around the other booths to check out our competitors’ products. Klondike would draw attention with people wanting to touch him or ask questions. “Oh, your dog is so cute. Can I pet him?”
After we gathered a group of dog lovers, we’d slowly saunter back to our booth with Klondike, bringing the crowd with us. Once or twice Klondike accidentally stepped on power cords and interrupted the power supply to other booths. But who could get angry at a beautiful golden retriever?
In 1996, I ended up with an office in the World Trade Center for the first time when I opened up a regional sales office in New York City for Artecon.
One thing that impressed me about the World Trade Center was the stringent security. After the bombings in ’93, they put strict measures in place to control and monitor who went in and out of the buildings. In the lobby, you were asked to provide your ID. If you were a visitor, they either checked your name off of a clearance list or called up the company you were headed to in order to verify that you were expected. After your identity was verified and your visit authorized, they took a photo and created a badge for you with a bar code. But just because you had a badge didn’t mean you had the run of the building; the badge limited your access to certain floors only.
A few years and a couple of jobs later, I ended up in the World Trade Center again, this time with Quantum. In the year 2000 we opened an office on the 78th floor of Tower 1, the North Tower. I was regional sales manager, and this time I got an all-access security badge from the Port Authority, which meant I could go anywhere in the building, including the underground parking garages. I kept up my habit of taking a different route each time, and I explored the building and developed an array of shortcuts. Before I ever brought my guide dog, I used my white cane and explored the building, constructing my mental map so I would always know where I was.
One of my best sales reps ever was Kevin Washington. If you can sell in New York, you can sell anywhere. And Kevin could sell in New York. He was a hoot and always gave me a hard time. He started calling my white cane a “ninja stick.” He also liked to challenge me and try to get me lost. He would walk with me to a certain point in a basement or parking garage then walk away and see if I could find him.