The Great Ones

Two of the most important peers in my sales career have been Andre Hartness and Kenneth Caffey. They probably influenced me in more good and bad ways than any other people have ever done.

When Kelly Wilkie and I went to work for SunWest in the spring of 1993, Andre and Kenneth probably had 20 years as animal health reps under their belts. They had been around since Christ was a cowboy and were two well-seasoned veterans. Andre was a little, short guy who was easier to jump over than to run around him. He was the king of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. Kenneth was a suave, dapper and well-dressed man with a full head of silver hair. He told us he had been silver haired for twenty years and Kelly said, “I bet you used to look just like Charlie Rich did in the 70’s.” Charlie Rich was a country singer back in the Conway Twitty, good lookin’ older man days of country music. Kenneth just grinned and said, “You know, he did look a bit like me.” Kenneth was just too cool.  I wanted to be just like he and Andre. I learned very quickly the greatness of these two guys.

I tried to do everything that I thought they would do and I looked up to them as idols. They both carried cigar boxes in their car to store everything from loose change to breath mints to calculators. Andre is a prolific cigar smoker and kept he and Kenneth well supplied with empty boxes. Kenneth gave me a cigar box one day and I felt like he had just handed down to me something that belonged in the Louvre Museum. A phone call from the two of them was a pretty big deal. The first time Kenneth called me at home, I felt like I was getting a call from the president. I talked to Andre on the phone once and he asked me my opinion on a particular type of horse wormer. He wanted to know what I thought.

In the attempt to be just like these guys, I went as far as to copy the same things these two guys did. Kelly and I once (emphasis on once) stayed in the same motel as they did. The Royal Inn in Desoto, TX was probably nice about 20 years before we stayed there, but it had turned into a bit of a dive. The rooms were $35.00 or $40.00 a night and that was about $20.00 too much. First strike. When we pulled into the parking lot, Kenneth was already there drinking beer in his room and pricing his orders. We sat and visited a bit until Andre pulled in. Andre was driving a late 70’s model Ford LTD that looked like a homeless guy was living in the back seat. Boxes of literature, a TV and VCR, trash and his suitcase were all that could fit in the car. After he pulled in and parked, he pulls out his Club to lock up the steering wheel on the car. I asked him what he was doing and he said he didn’t want his car to get stole again. Again? He was worried about someone stealing a 25-year-old car? Second strike. After we went to eat, we sat in Kenneth’s room (Andre snored and smoked cigars, so they had separate rooms) and we sat around and watched dirty movies on the TV. Made you wonder what kind of clientele this place catered to. Third strike.

Andre had a nickname amongst his co-workers of Andre “One More” Hartness. We found out why at a sales meeting in Desoto one year. We had finished dinner and were at a Holiday Inn bar in Desoto. Kenneth, Andre, Kelly and me were supposed to be having a night cap and then off to sleep. One beer led to another and Andre kept saying, “Come on. One more and we’ll go”. Well, I had to keep up. I don’t think I paid much attention at the meeting the next day. 

Kenneth never met a stranger. He could carry on a conversation with a two year old if it could talk. One time on a plane to a SunWest Tradeshow in Oklahoma City, he was seated next to a middle-aged woman and Kelly and I were sitting behind them. Kenneth started out asking the lady where she was from. Then he asked her, “How much rain do you reckon you get there?” and he was off to the races. I told Kelly that he would be eating Sunday supper with her by the time we landed. Sure enough, I nudged Kelly and told him to look over at Kenneth. He was taking pictures out of his wallet and showing her his grandkids and she giving him a recipe to a pot roast. Kenneth was the smoothest.

I made a sales call with Kenneth once and he was asked what the cost was on a stock tank. He opened his price book and showed the buyer what the cost was and said to her, “Let me make 20% on top of the cost.” Over and done. The store bought 5 tanks. The “show ‘em yours” technique became one of my favorite sales strategies. Later in my career, Andre and Kenneth changed companies and I had to compete head to head with Andre. I looked at it as a challenge, but it still sucked. Here I was, having to butt heads with one of my heroes. Guess whose ass got kicked. I got scraps and back-orders and constantly felt defeated. One time I saw, or at least thought I saw, an opening to where I could beat him. I was asked a cost on an item and I thought to myself, “Now I’ll get him!”. I cut the price to the bone and the dealer looked at me and said “I think I’ll stick with Andre and get it from him.” I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong and asked why he did not want me to ship the order. The buyer said I had a great price, but he told me what Andre would say. Andre would say, “Buy it from Tim. That’s a little too close to cost for me.” Wow. What a lesson to learn. I learned that integrity is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. Especially when you’re learning about someone else’s integrity. I learned a lot about Andre that day.

Kelly and I used to have quite a few giggles at their expense. One time one of the telemarketers at SunWest said that she knew why Andre wrote so much business. She said,” They look at him and see him dressed in double knit slacks and driving a run down car (remember the Ford LTD) and they feel sorry for him and buy from him!” We used to laugh at how long it took Kenneth to eat. He would chew his food for what seemed like an eternity and he would eat for what seemed like days. Talk about a hollow leg. He once told a fellow rep, “If someone is going to pay for my dinner, I’m going to enjoy it”. When we first received our laptops at SunWest, Kenneth and Andre couldn’t even turn them on, but they wanted us to show them how to look at the “girly pages”. Priorities always come first.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was living in California when Kelly called me. For Kelly to call me at home and on a Sunday was weird. “Kenneth passed away yesterday”, was what he told me. I was so shocked and in disbelief for a few days. I hadn’t seen him in several years and I kicked myself for a long time for not calling him after he and Andre changed companies. I thought it was awkward talking to him since he worked for a competitor. I wasn’t able to go to his funeral, but Kelly said there was a packed house. There was someone from every animal health company that ever did business with Kenneth.  Andre and some other good friends of ours were pallbearers. Kelly was at the funeral with another good friend of ours, Jay Quade. During the viewing, Kelly told Jay that Kenneth didn’t look so good. Jay quietly told Kelly out of the corner of his mouth, “Hell, he’s been dead for a week.”

Kenneth would have smiled at that.

Fun With Customers Part 2

Where a person ends up living is always anybody's guess. Just ask me; I've lived in 6 states and around 15 different cities since I graduated high school. Obviously, I don't mind moving and starting over.

I had a customer (Ferguson was his name; Fergie for short) in Brownsville, Texas who was part owner in a pet store there. He was originally from Scotland and was a great guy who had a serious Scottish accent. I enjoyed talking with him and learning a little about Scotland in my bi-monthly sales calls. How in the hell he ended up in Brownsville, Texas is a good question.

Fergie partnered up with a lady, Irazema, in Brownsville and opened this pet store in a Brownsville mall and confounded everyone with his accent. You have to remember that the majority of the customers were Mexican citizens who crossed over to shop in Brownsville.  I laughed to myself every time a customer who spoke little to no English would try to converse with him. Picture a Scotsman with rolling r's trying to figure out what a Mexican with as many rolling r's is trying to purchase. It got better when the customer tried to bargain with him and get a better price.

Fergie's partner spoke Spanish and bailed him out from time to time when matters got tense. He would get red-faced and his accent became thicker as he tried to close the sale. I would be walking the shelves writing the order and would get nervous myself. Finally Irazema would come over and bail him out. She got a bit of a kick out of it and would grin and Fergie would fume. I learned to not look at him speak and just listen to what he was saying and I could understand him better. I think that made him madder.

One day while I was finishing up their order and Fergie told me he had a special order to add. He said, " I need you to odd (add) some moose traps to the order." I looked at him kind of funny-like and asked him to repeat himself. He in turn, looked at me a little bewildered and said " You sent them to us before laddy." He pronounced it "loddy". I said to him about as confused as a hillbilly looking at a washing machine, "Fergie, are you sure that's what you need? We don't have traps that big." The look on his face was priceless. He started to get red-faced again and he said "Moose traps! For the little brown furry buggers!". I stood there for a couple of seconds and thought about what this pissed-off Scotsman was saying to me and it hit me. I laughed and said "Mouse traps? You mean mouse traps!".  He rolled his eyes and sputtered back at me, "Yes that's what I said! Send me soom (some) damn moose traps! What the bloody hall (hell) did ya think I was sayin?"

Good times.