Selling is an art, but I never mastered it. Yet, in the late seventies, I worked as a sales rep for a major oil company. I had a territory of about 40 gas and service stations, gas bars, and a relatively small number of convenience stores. At that time, convenience stores offering self-serve gasoline and basic groceries were few and far between. Now, they have become the norm, and a lot of garage owners do not sell gasoline, preferring to concentrate on mechanical repairs. The markup is so small that it?s just not worth it to stop whatever job they are doing to pump a few dollars worth of gas.
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From the northernmost to the southernmost gas stations in my territory, I had to drive some 200 miles to get to them. Of course, I didn?t visit those in the same day. I planned my weeks accordingly, trying to visit each station once a month. Apart from a city of about 100,000 inhabitants where I had about five or six stations, most of my customers were out in the sticks. So, I drove a lot of miles and experienced white line fever, or is it yellow these days" In addition to covering my territory, I had to go to the district office once in a while for sales meetings with other reps, the sales manager, and the manager. The sales manager would have all the data on how much gasoline each station purchased, as well as oil, washer fluid, and so on. Since they were under contract with the oil company, they had to purchase their supplies from us. I never saw competito...