I have been a quota carrying sales guy now for over 35 years. I started out as a film major but joined a corporation and became a programmer…and technology became my field… but how to make more money? I became a sales rep.
Recently, my son started in sales — and I shared my “wisdom” — some advice and often a story (always a story).
So, this blog will be based on lessons learned interspersed with my stories as a road warrior and discussion of other sales topics.
I plan to record some podcasts where I discuss these tips with colleagues and sales professionals — as we gather around the campfire, our “bag” at the ready — we doff our chapeaus and we tell stories to celebrate, to commiserate, to pass the time.
I will recount my adventures in technology — its been pretty interesting … and it all had bearing on my career. Apart from technology and sales, I’ll occasionally supplement with articles on on other topics such as music and even lawn care (I was known in my neighborhood as The Sod-father)
I’ll also talk about the “invisible hand” that guided me …
Let’s start with a first story: At Symantec in the mid 90’s, I was assigned a tech rep — lets call him Ray — and we had a massive territory as the enterprise sales team for the Midwest and Pacific regions. We travelled 3-5 days a week. Houston for our oil and gas prospects, then on to Arizona for McDonnell-Douglas Apache Helicopter, LA for McDonnell-Douglas passenger planes and Grumman and then Seattle for Boeing. It was a Wednesday night after three days of travel and we were deplaning, schlepping computers and luggage, and as we shuffled our way out onto a freezing jet way Ray says:
“Paul, There is only one thing worse than being Willy Loman…”
“What’s that Ray?”
“Being Willy Loman’s assistant..”
How true. Here we go!
A blog by Paul Petersen 
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