For those of you who don’t know, Santa Claus and I have a special relationship. It began way back when I was still knee high to a short elf. It seems my grandfather, who was a jolly sort of guy himself, was somehow connected with Mr. Claus. Imagine being 3 or 4 years old and learning Grandpa and Santa were buddies. Special feeling? You bet. I knew it was real when Santa greeted my Grandpa with, “Hey Red (my Grandpa’s nickname,) how late did you stay down at the Eagles’ Club last night? If they weren’t pals, how in the world could this jolly red suited man know these details? Santa knew me by name, too. Really! And since that day back in the early 60s, Old Santa and I have enjoyed a close and special friendship. According to Santa, yours truly has managed to make the “nice” list for 5 of my 62 years, but this story is not about me. It’s about distributors. During a slow point down at the local mall, I managed to grab a few minutes of the jolly old elf’s time. After our...

Santa in 1881 by Thomas Nast Everyone knows Santa Claus. Red suit, long white beard, familiar laugh and long-time leader of all things North Pole. For some strange reason, most don’t have a clue as to the early days of his career. So let me break it to you, Santa got his start in sales. A long time ago, hundreds of Christmases before occupying the big chair in the corner office up at the North Pole, Santa worked on the selling side of North Pole Distributing. Like many hardworking sales types with hundreds of years under his belt, Santa leveraged all the lessons learned in his territory to move up in his organization. Playing a front and center role in a global distribution organization with customers around the globe, Mr. Claus puts those lessons to work almost every day. It’s difficult for a lowly industry consultant to get an audience with big time executives, but last week I leveraged over six Photo Credit: GM decades worth of being on the nice list to score a ra...

Introduction and explanation: A few years ago, a friend (fellow writer) and I were bouncing around ideas for the future. Somehow we got off topic and started talking about the stories shared with our kids back in the day. In a world where none of the kids’ stories actually relate to the life of a distributor salesperson, we wondered what would happen if we created “Fairy Tales for Sales” – stories which carried meaning for the sales professional and the kiddos as well. This year we are providing a couple of Holiday Stories which fall under these guidelines. Good reading for the kids and a message for the grownups. We hope you enjoy…. Negotiating with Santa As Frank looks back, he may have been a bit like Billy... Looking back at the last year, Little Billy wasn’t sure his behavior would put him onto Santa’s nice list.  There had been a few temper tantrums, a little pouting and an issue at school with his teacher.  Just last week, Billy got into some trouble wi...