PART THREE - SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS STORY(Michael D. Warner) PART THREE SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS STORY

Learning it the Hard Way ..among other misadventures.

by Michael D. Warner

Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Warner All rights reserved.


Shaking my head, I replied, “It was probably our fault. I’ll make sure that that never happens again.”

“Well, you be sure and see that it doesn’t,” came the gruff reply. “Ms. X will be two hours putting that stuff back in there.”

The accused was now off the hook. I could almost feel his sigh of relief. Why did I save him? This young buck, a new guy, had screwed up his county’s fuel control system, acting hastily by not taking time to understand what he was doing: Clicking the wrong button at the wrong time. He and I both knew he was about to be in a big bunch of hot water with his boss.

The director was referring to the young lady who would have to reenter lost data into their system. No permanent harm done, and I had earned mucho gratitude from the errant young man for whom I had just taken the heat. But, why would a contractor like myself be willing to admit a mistake (not mine) in order to save face for a county employee?

Well, one big reason: I was totally insulated from repercussion and he wasn’t. Like, I didn’t have a personnel file which could receive unsatisfactory comments. More importantly, he would forever remember me with a warm place in his heart or in his mind or in somewhere. As it turned out my instinct to take the bullet for him paid off. Years passed, but finally the neophyte became the main-man. Hey, who do you think he’s gonna call when he needs something? You guessed it: Me, and my little company, every time!

So, somehow I learned to take the heat whenever the opportunity presented itself. I believe it always paid off. What the hell, it never cost me a red cent!

As you may recall, I never spent a nickel on advertising other than the signs on my truck and at my place of business, a rented house converted into an office and electronics shop and zoned commercial by the City.

Now to another boon: I was about to call upon the director of maintenance at a medium-sized county road department when I thought about who was it that really benefitted on a personal basis, like in the real world, when lightning strikes no longer became a problem for the facility?

Hmmm? I wondered, who is that? Suddenly came that mental snap of a finger usually signaling an important revelation. I thought for a minute. Okay, it’s the guy who always gets called out in the middle of the night to handle vehicle fueling and fill out all the forms. I’ll just dig around and find out who that poor soul is. I did exactly that. I found him, told him of my wonderful stuff, gave him a customer list and told him to check it out. Two phone calls later, he was convinced. Now, he would sell my system to his boss for me. The only time I had to spend with the director was when I toted the contract down for his signature.

Okay, my devices are guaranteed to protect my customer’s equipment. As you may recall from earlier notes, when I first started out there was no way in hell I could replace thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damaged equipment. But after the first three or four sales, I actually had money in the bank, enough to cover almost any unforseen calamity. Well, one day my second eldest customer called saying his modem had been blown, and was sure that it was the thuderstorm of the previous night that had blown it and he wanted me to replace it. “Today,” he demanded, “and I mean right now!”.

Puzzled, I bought a new $39 modem, tossed it into the truck then headed the fifty-two miles to the site. Upon arrival I quizzed the lady who ran the system. She told me that her modem had been, “..sort of crapping out for the past few days and in fact wasn’t working when she left work last evening.”

Well, this would have been long before the thunderstorm had blasted through the area. Oh-ho! I was sure the modem had simply died a natural death, nothing to do at all with a lightning strike. Now, a dilemma: The main-man was out of town and it was his assistant who had called me demanding service. I went to his office.

“Here’s your new modem, Sir,” I told him. “Sorry you had a problem. I’ll get it running in just a few minutes.”

I knew that my stuff hadn’t allowed that modem to blow. But, look at the situation. All it cost me was a hundred mile round trip plus $39. Now, that official will remember me as someone who responded promptly, got his stuff going again and caused no hassle. Again, in later years he became the main-man and always called my company for anything he felt we could help him with. Maybe I shouldn’t feel so smart, but really that call was just common sense now that I look at it. Anybody probably would have done the same.

Atlanta was selected to host the 1996 Olympics, having won the Baseball World Series in 1995. The whole metro area was buzzing, money was being spent on nearly everything one might imagine: The beltway was in the process of adding lanes, cities held serious meetings determining where their worst road traffic tie-ups might be expected when all the visitors arrived. Counties planned expansion of their law-enforcement departments and etc.

A year earlier, I had come up with an isolation device suitable for protecting traffic signals which had just begun being controlled remotely from a central office. Lots of two-way communication was required to program and monitor performance at all important intersections. (Cameras at intersections would be installed in the near future.)

I had sold one of the Metro Atlanta counties four devices for traffic signal controllers. As far as I knew, they were working just fine. One morning, an unusual day when I had no “lovely and talented assistant” to answer the phone, it rang. I answered.

“I have a purchase order number for sixteen Transit traffic signal lightning protection systems. Are you ready to copy?”

What is the matter with me? My mind had been all wrapped up in technical stuff when I answered the phone. I found myself thinking of that county customer and how they would never need another sixteen units. I had accompanied their chief tech evaluating sites which had lightning problems. We had covered all of them.

‘Maam,” I began. “You don’t really need another sixteen units.” I frowned in thought. “Actually, another one at (such-an-such intersection) maybe, and maybe another one out there on Barrett Parkway, but really nothing like sixteen.”

There was a pause. Then, a little miffed: “Do you want to copy this P.O. number down or don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

She read it off and we double-checked the digits, then hung up.

I was beginning to wake from my technical coma. “Whoa. They are buying SIXTEEN UNITS!”

This was my biggest sale to date and I here I had been arguing with someone who could care less about the actual need, just somebody plowing through her morning paperwork, making a routine call and getting all of my blather. Well, live and learn. The lesson is well received: Don’t look the proverbial “gift horse” in the mouth.

It turned out that the Merchant’s Association (having much local political clout) had demanded of the county that there be absolutely ZERO traffic light problems during the Olympics. An employee who had the typical “cover my ass” attitude and who had plenty of extra (Olympics) money to spend sort of panicked and thought it best to spend that money in such a way as his derriere was covered should something come back to try to haunt him.

Another day, another hasty appraisal: I took the telephone from Lovely-and-Talented-Assistant. “Yes?”

He identified himself (a vehicle fleet manager at Atlanta’s most populous counties) and told me: “You need to go to each one of our fueling sites and inspect each one of them.”

I squinted. “What?” I thought. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Look, we are real soon coming to the end of our fiscal year and there’s still money left in the maintenance budget.”

“Oh...?”

“Yes, and we need you to help use the rest of it up. If we end with a surplus they’ll cut our funds by that amount next year.” He paused. “Just take all the time you need but get an invoice in here before the end of September.”

I rationalized the boon to my company’s income as I drove to the first installation. There ain’t nothin’ as good as an unscheduled inspection ..of anything. Maybe, I’ll find something? Yet, I felt somehow a bit unethical, like I was abetting a non-truth or something. Anyway, they got their proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Next, on to bad debt or the lack thereof, and a couple observations for someone wondering if they have “what it takes” to start a business.

STAY TUNED !

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