It’s All in the Presentation!

Al has experienced a tremendous amount of success in his career, growing up in a blue-color L.A. neighborhood in the 50's.  He started out in retail sales, and then moved into a manufacturer's representative position where he quickly found out that if he ". . . . wasn't as good as [his] competitors, [he]can always out-work them."  Hard work became his hallmark; and, he demanded the same of those around him.  As an example, I remember getting a phone call from him in my Sioux Falls, SD hotel room at 4 A.M. to discuss the sales and merchandising of a new product.

After working for a manufacturer and distributor in his industry, he (at 30) and his partner (at 23) decided to form a company focused on the high-end niche' of the flooring business.  After a few years of moderate success, they were pushed out by investors and forced to begin anew.  That's when Fabrica was formed-the mid '70's-with a Small Business Association loan and money borrowed from a friend.  Thirty years later, Fabrica was viewed as the "tip of the spear" (a quote to me from a supplier) in the industry from a quality and design standpoint--a leader in the business.  In 2004, the company was inducted into the Small Business Association "Hall of Fame" along with other organizations such as America Online, Callaway Golf, FedEx, General Mills, and Intel.  Quite an impressive feat.  As a local business leader in "The O.C.," after selling Fabrica, he was recommended for a leadership position in Washington as the first Manufacturing Czar, and accepted the post as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing and Services.  He has enjoyed a lifetime of great achievement. 

In addition to dedication and hard work, what really set Al apart was, and still is, his attention to detail.  This is a natural gift, and when casually observing him, you'll notice he can't help but examine every detail.  He can spend hours in a local hardware store, continuously sizing up the quality of a product.  I once caught him staring at a pair of needle nose pliers for a few minutes, opening and closing it, weighing it in his hand, examining the handle.  I'm sure he was formulating how he would present the product.  He really can't help himself.  And, he has turned that appreciation for, and attention to detail into success beyond measure.

Let me give you some examples.  Working in textiles, we used samples to present our products to our customers in various distribution channels.  The "hand" (how it felt) of a product was very important.  I remember him examining my worn-out looking samples with disgust; he almost turned his head.  He explained that they were a representation of me, like the clothes I wore.  He immediately began snipping the edges-couldn't stand not to--which became sort of ragged through use.  Then, he handed me his fancy scissors that actually came in a holster (a leather holster), as a gift-I promised to use them from that point forward.  He treated his products like they should have been encased in a glass shadowbox (a good lesson) and further instructed me to take a spray bottle and lightly mist my samples after checking into my hotel room in the evenings.  He stated that the water would ". . . . open up the yarn and make the tips feel softer."  The weather during the winter in the Midwest is extremely dry and made our samples feel kind of crunchy.  We sold our products for roughly five times the industry average, so we couldn't afford anything unappealing.  If you can imagine a young man, right out of college (me), lugging all of his samples into a dimly-lit cheap hotel room in a small Midwestern town, spreading his samples out along the walls, on the spare bed, across the dresser-they were everywhere-hunched over and lightly misting them as if watering my favorite plants in the greenhouse.  Quite a funny picture.

From that point on, I went through an hour-long ritual, and watered my samples, clarifying for me what attention to detail meant.  I'm sure I was the only manufacturer's rep in my business, other than Al, that took such care in presenting products.  Or, hopefully other reps in the same company were doing the same.  That, along with many other small differences taught by Al had an impact on my success in sales. 

Another example of his attention to detail, which became the lever in his overall "Presentation" was his ability to build strong relationships.  If we entertained a key account, we would cook to make it more personal, it would be at his home, and we would have a theme and a band playing by the pool.  If we dined with an account at a restaurant, the restaurant and the location of the table was pre-planned to have the most impact, a tremendous amount of thought was put into the menu, and every detail was thought through to provide the right presentation or to reinforce that we provided a unique product in a unique way (and we sure did charge for it).  The care he put into all of his relationships with customers was remarkable.  The emotions elicited by his contact were feelings of being special.

The same went, of course, for the packaging of the products in shipping, the packaging of the samples, the way the colors were laid out, even the quality of our business card stock.  The overall "Presentation" of the company was an extremely consistent message of quality.  The act of actually presenting products, in his method, was an art form. 

He practiced and practiced, and when selling to a customer, he was remarkably adept at building value.  He picked apart every detail and added romance; every objection was thoroughly thought through and overcome; the descriptions used in his presentations were memorable.  After every point he'd follow with the rhetorical question:  "Over-priced or undersold?"  Describing the company, he would create lasting sound bites that would stick with the sales force and our customer base:  "We're a gourmet restaurant in a fast-food industry."  A product:  "It's built like a tank, but paint it pink and put Mary Kay behind the wheel."  Watching him was like watching a magician; by the end of the presentation, all heads in the audience were nodding "yes" in agreement as if in a trance.

In an effort to reinforce the importance of his process, teaching me, sweeping his index finger through the air, across his body (like John Wayne) and tilting his head to the right:  "Presentation, presentation, presentation."  This simple concept of putting so much care into the process of selling exemplifies one man's ability to achieve great success and help build an organization once recognized as an industry leader.  Of course, this applies to not only the sales process, but all forms of current marketing. . . . even more so, today, with less face to face interaction via a website, email, blogs, etc.  It's all in the presentation!