Part 1 of 3: The first Seattle startup: honeymoon with Ron, robot survey takers, fired by Leo Burnett,

Dateline: 2005-2007. The bad apple I wrote about had me looking elsewhere for a proper sales gig. Not one where I was doing 4 jobs at once. I was checking out the competition when I found an impressive website from a firm I'd not hear of in the consumer survey research industry, using opt-in 'panels' of people. This was my world. Lobbed in a note saying 'Doesn't say you're hiring but I'm in Twin Cities, I can sell, your firm looks fascinating & I want to be a part of it.' 

The head of sales called me that evening. HQ was in Seattle. Great intro chat (he had MN roots). Then a day later talked to the CEO/Founder who grilled me, as was his norm. Actual question: 'are you an A player? How so?' Anyhoots they made me the offer: $60k/yr + 5% commish. Training was 2 weeks onsite in Seattle. Starting the week after next. I ended up being so financially successful at this job after working like a maniac that I wrote about it earlier specifically what it's like to make $20,000 a month.

Well, here's the rub. Had a ladyfriend visitor from Europe visiting me on a 90 day visa. We met 2 years earlier in Munich during Octoberfest. Will write about that adventure someday. Anyhoots, regarding her travel visa, we were halfway in, that's what she said. Suddenly had this intriguing job offer from a company that seemed on the go. An offer that required 2 weeks in Seattle. What to do? What would you do? 

Correct! Get hitched! 

My buddy's mum was an ordained minister & she did the service in my living room. On New Years Eve! My 3 childhood buddies attended, along with a prior boss & friend who over time turned into a backstabbing pos, but let's focus. My pops the snowbird even flew in from AZ to witness this improbable event (I was in my 30s). And so, a simple, short non-religious service, a few signatures, and we were yolked. 3 days later I was on a plane to Seattle. Not much of a honeymoon, alas. 

Another twin city resident was hired at the same time to be a project manager. Amy, a cute as a button little blond, fresh out of college. She & I flew from MSP to PHX to Seattle. I got a kick how young she was. Turns out she turned into a rock star pm & we became friends over the next 3 years. 

And so, the next 2 weeks in a rental with Ron another new hire. Same sales job, he came from outside the industry. He had hot rod magazines with him, I had chess books with me. Ergo, we were not alike. However, we became chums for many years. Even reported to him years later at another company. He's a guy who came from outside the industry yet worked hard and made truckloads of money. I would tell today's teens: go into market research. It's a pseudo-science filled with English Lit majors making a nice living. Sometimes a very nice living, like Ron (I'm talking he's made millions). Work hard, soak up info, start at the bottom. That's what I did actually. I've worked with dozens of temps, art history majors, various imbeciles, who are at or near exec levels in this industry. Anyhoots. 

So 2 weeks in Seattle as outlined earlier, working all day, training sessions, role playing (gak), learning the industry (me teaching it). I recall sitting in some boring arse session & my boss the VP of sales enters room points at me and says 'we need him.' I get up, go to other room where somebody was making a pitch to an exec on the speakerphone and were in over their head. I sat down, they repeated what they needed and I immediately replied, 'right so you're seeking a relational & a transactional feedback loop.' 

There were audible gasps in the room from my new colleagues. The prospect's voice said 'yes! exactly!' I recall this vividly. My boss was staring at me & beaming. My other colleagues were also staring at me, not beaming. At that moment, I became 'the guy' who could rub antenna with client prospects, who wouldn't embarrass the company, who actually knew the industry. And a teacher's pet, aye. I had been ensconced in the space for 10 years at that point, had an M.S., had even taught college statistics for fuck sake. All this was child's play to me. My new colleagues had been selling mortgages (true) or luxury suites to the Seattle Supersonics (true) a month earlier and knew fuckall about sampling theory & standard deviations & significance testing. Let's focus. 

Here's one of my 1st clues about the intensity at HQ. And the sales driven work culture in general. I hadn't received my laptop yet. Attended a strategy sales meeting. Head of sales standing & speaking. A dozen around the table. Every single one had laptop open staring & typing. Nobody was looking at the speaker except for me. I was observing this wondering what the hell is so important they're not able to stop & listen for a few minutes? Glad you asked. What they were all looking at were project bids. Specifically, projects from our clients, the MR agencies, for their clients, the big household consumer brands (Mcd, Pepsi, J&J, whatnot). 

The 'projects' were online survey gigs. Think: we need 200 people each in Italy, Germany & Spain, in their 20s, half male/female, to take a 10-minute survey on their grocery buying locations. Or what laundry detergent they use & why, or why they prefer Coke over Pepsi. Or whatever. So we in sales would get these bids, literally day & night, 7 days a week. Getting the bid back fast, like in a couple hours helped seal the deal from the agency (who often themselves were bidding on a larger project but needed to plug supplier dollars into their own proposal). 

The worker bees around the table were emailing & IM'ing usually with the Bulgarian survey operations team. That team literally never closed. All 3 shifts, 7 days a week. They would figure out the 'feasibility' of the requirements, & the price, then shoot it back to us, we'd pass it on to whatever agency worker bee was on the other end of the emailed bid, yadda yadda. 

Weird business model, no? Totally anonymous survey takers, claiming to be a 25-year-old Spaniard, clicking dots on a computer screen somewhere for a buck or three in points, or maybe a lottery entry (which were total bs there was no lottery). 

The whole model is based on this assumption: anonymous people on the internet are telling you the truth, for money! It's laughable then & laughable now. It exists to this day. Only the fraud has become automated, because hey, who needs people? 

Anyhoots, the 2 weeks went by quick & I dug our evening Seattle outings (the space tower, Experience Music Project/EMP rock & roll museum, good dining). Wasn't thrilled to be away from the new missus but was excited to start a new gig where I could decide my future. Every single other sales rep, maybe 10 total, were on the coast. I was the only Midwesterner ergo my territory was immense, from say, Denver to Detroit. And I started blitzing every market research firm I could find. There was a bunch of them, esp in Chicago, Mpls, Detroit. I lined up meetings constantly, in my backyard and other cities. When I got back from HQ I wasn't home much. My 1st six months I barely remember other than hotels, airplanes & rental cars. Not a good way to start a new marriage but she was cool about it, understood the challenge of a new sales job. 

In fact the head of sales did this quarterly with me & I assume others: email stating 'I'm coming to MN next week, line up 2 days of meetings, 4 per day.' Ergo, not only would I need to line up a buncha in person meetings with high level business owners who were total strangers, but with my boss in the room watching me. 

This is why I've always got a kick & bit my tongue when I hear civilian types with regular office jobs complain how 'busy' they are, how 'hard' their job is, how they had to skip lunch, work late, etc. Please. You know fuckall about how much pressure a white-collar gig is until you've been in outside sales. 

Another example? Every single day an xls was emailed to the sales dept, all 20 of us around the globe with daily, weekly, monthly sales totals. Ranked top to bottom by revenue. If you were at the bottom? Better start moving upwards or look for another gig because yer gonna get chopped. New hires had a few months to show progress, if not in revenue, then meetings secured, bids received, etc. You ever have a job like that? Where you & your office mates are publicly ranked every day by productivity? Didn't think so. 

Sometime in my 1st year I blundered away a lucrative opportunity that fell into my lap, in my city also. An agency firm had the Department of Defense as their client. We bailed them out of a huge jam but I priced it wrong. Still haunts me 17 years later (nah not really).

Oh, forgot to talk about the suburban office I was working out of; western burb of Mpls. At the end of a bike path. I could bike there and from my house have only about 1 mile on road, the rest on bike path. The twin cities are extraordinary for bicyclists esp bike commuters. Other than Amy the new girl, there were 2 people there, a guy from India & a woman from Russia. I got to know them well over the next 3 years. The guy was fairly senior in the co, head of Ops whatever that entailed. The woman led a pm team remotely somehow. Will circle back on them. Mebbe.

On of my first wins was the big Leo Burnett advertising agency in downtown Chicago. Actual building pic above. Went there onsite when I was 'carrying a bag' hitting up the agencies on & near Michigan avenue in the belly of the beast. Lotta action in downtown Chicago for a sales rep trying to bust into agencies. It was just me, carrying my bag of brochures and a laptop with pitch deck. In the room would be anywhere from 2 to 10 around the table staring at me wondering if this is gonna be worth their time. You kids out there who wonder what sales is, this is a big part of it. It's called Showtime. Not getting stage fright. Being completely alone. Me & them. Having 30 seconds to command their attention & respect. Not to mention all the work to even get in the room about which entire books have been written. 

Let's focus. Visited the 2 research folks at Leo Burnett, giving my pitch why this Seattle firm they never heard of is worth giving a shot. Back at home base, bids from them arrived to me, won one. The gig went smooth until it finished, where it all crumbled to shit, never to hear from them again. Por que? This agency had a habit of never asking basic demographic questions in the surveys. Their usual survey supplier would 'append' them to the data set. As if they never changed. Nobody has a birthday, has kids, moves, gets divorced, nope never. Static forever. So I didn't see their survey, we just connect our anonymous survey taking warm bodies to their programmed survey url. And of course they asked me after 'where's all their demos.' I'm thinking wtf? You don't ask them in the survey? They said nope never our supplier extracts & appends. I said ok will check. 

in the next few days I realized why this would be a problem, not just for this single gig but the company overall. I explained to my Russian colleague we needed to append demographics from our data set. She resisted. I said not an option we need them they're pissed. We went back & forth, finally she agreed. She talked to Bulgaria presumably, got an xls, sent to me. It was mostly blank. There were no basic demographics, not gender, age, it was swiss cheese. More swiss than cheese. Well maybe 5% of 'our people' had offered up info. I knew then my new account was gonna crater before it began. Which it did. That was the 1st & last gig for Leo Burnett. Can't blame them. If you're in sales, and you mad scramble for that 1st opportunity to displace an incumbent, then your team fucks it up, that is that. You only get one bite out of that apple. I was to come to learn at that place, if you poke around too much, you learn too much. And it ain't good. It's all smoke & mirrors. Anonymous people clicking dots on a computer screen isn't exactly the height of security. It's a pure pseudo-science industry. If you drink the Kool-Aid it doth pay the bills though. Paid mine.  

But hey: you do get data in the end. Garbage data is still data if you don't look too closely. amiright? 

Part II, the deuce, coming. The trauma story heats up. This was just the preamble.