My career in sales began in a logging camp high in the hills of North Georgia. Fresh out of college with a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing, I was making my first sales call as a Motorola rep . Locked in my car, dressed in a suit and surrounded by lumberjacks wielding running chainsaws above their heads, I was afraid to open the door. Not only was I afraid of my customers; I knew very little about how to sell anything.
After I completed my training, Motorola moved me to Rome, a small town in North Georgia. Contrary to what you might think, Rome wasn’t quite off of the beaten path, but it did appear to me that the part of the path that was beaten was the part being used by those trying to get out.
I spent my first night in Rome going through files of existing customers in the area. Only 47 existed, and all of the customer names sounded very similar: BRS Pulpwood Co., Johnnie Putnam Pulpwood & Logging Co., Willie D. Smith Hauling. And all they had were post office boxes.
The next morning I started making calls, starting with the first one in the file, AAA Pulpwood Co. “I ain’t in right now. Leave a message at the beep.” I did. In fact, I left about 20 that morning on various machines, dialed 10 or more numbers that just rang, and left a few messages with answering services. After lunch, I decided to drive north a bit and look for pulpwood companies.
CMB Pulpwood Co. was the name on the side of the first logging truck I ever followed up a dirt road into a logging camp. I remember the drive like it was yesterday. Sunlight filtering through the trees, the only sound was the roar of the engine as it plowed up the hill churning dust in its path. I followed it deeper into the woods, wondering when I should turn back. The truck finally pulled up into a clearing with me behind it, and I saw that the camp was filled with other trucks and dozens of loggers. When they saw my car appear from the dust storm created by the truck, they all hid behind trees.
So there I was in my beige Chevy Nova, wearing a black suit, a black tie and a white shirt. As I got out of the car, one of the loggers emerged from the trees. Obviously he was picked by the others to find out who I was. He began to shuffle over. He looked like the banjo kid’s grandfather from Deliverance.
I introduced myself and said, “You don’t want to buy any two-way radios, do you?”
He stopped shuffling about 10 feet away from me and then just gazed at me with a puzzled look while tilting his head from side to side. You know the look: your dog looks at you that way when you ask him to vacuum the house or fix dinner.
Then suddenly he blurted out, "Yoo ah govmen revnewer or from da infernal revnew suvice?”
I didn’t understand a word he said, but it sounded like a threat so I said, “No sir,” hurried back to my car, locked the doors and fumbled to get my keys in the ignition while two or three loggers emerged from behind the trees and began circling my car with chainsaws. I finally got my car started and backed all the way down the dirt road, dodging pulpwood trucks coming up the road into the camp.
Two months later at a Waffle House in Calhoun, Charles “Chuck” Michael Brown, the owner of CMB Pulpwood Co., explained why the loggers were hiding. “When you pulled up in that government-looking car, in a coat and tie, the crew went to hidin’ because they thought that you was a revenuer, a federal agent who busts up moonshine stills,” he said. “Or worse yet, an income tax collector.”