Gus O’Shaughnessy’s Email
From: Gus O’Shaughnessy
To: D. Willoughby
March 23
Dear Mr. Willoughby,
I received your email once I landed here in Canada, near the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in western Ontario. The air travel was challenging, to say the least, but the last leg on a vintage Aviat Husky pontoon plane was well worth waiting for, in spite of the bad weather!
You had expressed some minor concern about our servicing the Omega Smokehouse that had the fried motherboard, so you will be delighted to hear that the customer’s insurance company, where my daughter’s college roommate’s father is apparently a bigwig, has agreed to pay off the machine entirely!
For that reason, the Omega owner agreed to sell it to Willoughby Meat Processing Supplies at a 30% discount from list, and also pay shipping to the new Ontario customer. The new customer, Bob (I didn’t catch his last name, but it’s probably in our sales database) was so delighted that he agreed to the first price I named. It is well in excess of what he was planning to pay for our Highland Model 6L.
I don’t know who negotiated that 6L sale with Bob, but they sure left money on the table! It’s a good thing I happened onto him when I did.
I wrote up a contract with him, using the backside of a sheet from the Husky pilot’s logbook, which I will fax to you as soon as I can find a working fax machine up here. What is your fax number, by the way?
To top it all off, our fishing trip was a great success, and I learned that Bob is the main smoked meat supplier for the Ontario Northern Pike Fighter’s Annual Congress, a convention attracting professional sport fisherman from all over North America. He was especially interested in our Organic Zesty Salmon seasoning, which I found listed in our commercial catalog.
He placed an initial order for 150 cases, after I negotiated a special one-time discount with him because he was buying the Omega Smokehouse from us, to be followed with a regular monthly order of 50 cases at the regular price.
The reason Bob ordered so much was that I had given him a sample of the snack sticks that my wife’s uncle’s brother-in-law’s cousin had made up for the Shastaville Spring Fling and Sausage Festival, which you may remember I wrote to you about a few days ago. The snack sticks came out great! They were a little salty, but that really improved their sales of beer and soft drinks, and made it the best year ever for concessions at the Festival!
Anyway, Ontario Bob liked the snack sticks and that’s why he ordered the Organic Zesty Salmon. After this year’s Northern Pike Fighter’s Annual Congress is over, he wants to add a couple more Highland Model 6L smokehouses to the Omega installation, just to give him some backup in case there is any other problem with that delicate motherboard from Kazakhstan.
I am really surprised and frankly a little disappointed that whoever negotiated that first 6L sale with Bob did not recognize the incredible volume of smoked fish Bob is planning.
And also, on the subject of that problematic motherboard, I spoke with the manufacturer in Kazakhstan by cellphone from the last hangar I was in up here – the only place I could get a signal – and he offered to air freight the replacement parts direct to Ontario. Now that I have seen the condition of air travel here, however, I asked him to ship it to my home address in Shastaville and I will handle the delivery myself.
While we were talking, he also said something about a new distributor agreement they are trying to work out for the American channel, and wanted to discuss it further with me when we had more time. At least, I think that’s what he said. We were speaking through an interpreter I had found at a local college, a student whose dad is the airplane mechanic at the hangar, and the three-way connection to the girl’s cell phone was pretty spotty.
Anyway, it has been a successful trip so far!
Sales this week are:
Omega Smokehouse (refurbished) $435,500.00
Highland Model 6L qty 2 @ $237,500 = 475,000.00
Organic Zesty Salmon initial order qty 150 cs @ $106.25 (discounted) = 15,937.50
Organic Zesty Salmon (1st year) qty 600 cs @ $124.99 = 74,994.00
Total first year revenue $1,001,431.50
And to think, that first sale of a single Highland 6L was a puny $237,500! It’s a good thing you brought me on when you did, Mr. Willoughby!
Bob agreed to send us a wire transfer for half down on the Omega and the full amount for the initial order of seasoning. It should be at your office by tomorrow.
Now I’m off to see a few of the other meat processing plants while I’m up here. And then, as soon as I’m back in the lower 48, I’ll try to catch a flight to the home office, as you suggested. I look forward to meeting you!
Your Man in New York,
Augustus “Gus” Rudolphus O’Shaughnessy
Mr. Willoughby’s Reply
From: D. Willoughby
To: Gus O’Shaughnessy
March 25
Gus,
We are in receipt of a Wire Transfer from Woodland Caribou Smokers for $233,687.50. Presumably this is related to your ill-advised sale of a yet-to-be refurbished Omega 12,000 Digital 8-Truck Smokehouse, along with an order for 150 cases of Organic Zesty Salmon. The Salmon seasoning price appears to be reduced by 25%, an unheard-of level of discount.
How on earth do you anticipate getting the Omega Smokehouse rebuilt to working order, when it is to be direct shipped from New York to Ontario rather than to the Willoughby Service Center? Have you considered the difficulty in moving it through Customs? Where are the instructions for the motherboard replacement? What specifications is the finished software to meet? How is acceptance testing to be carried out?
I am shocked that I must point out that this is why you, as a sales representative, have no business negotiating traded-in equipment.
And how exactly do you plan to get the motherboard from your home address to western Ontario?
Also, you ARE NOT authorized to negotiate product discounts.
Gus, our salesmen sell items we have in the catalog, at the prices that are published, within timeframes our suppliers can support. You might try that rather than casting about for far-fetched solutions to problems that are not ours.
I cautiously admit that I am glad to hear of the additional Highland Model 6L sales to Woodland Caribou Smokers, and the significant follow-on orders for Organic Zesty Salmon. However, I will look forward to seeing the actual orders.
And, by the way, I personally negotiated the sale for the original 6L with that customer.
Your sales territory, as I believe I have made clear before, is Pennsylvania, not New York and certainly not Canada.
Come see me. In person. Soon!
D. Willoughby
Author’s Note
Not that I have ever fought a Northern Pike, but I hear they are quite the aggressive sport fish.
However, NO ONE is as positively aggressive as Gus O’Shaughnessy.
I hope this post brings a ray of light-hearted humor to your day, as you contemplate a world in crisis and a civilization (ours) that shows all the signs of being in decline. Remember, a thoughtful reading of the Old Testament affirms that where there exists national condemnation, there also exists personal reconciliation.
It is hope worth clinging to.
And speaking of clinging to something, I received a quite complimentary private email from a man I met during my cancer unit visit last week. He said my visit was a highlight of the hospital stay, and that he had found my book brought “the power of faith and a positive attitude into focus” for their journey through his wife’s recurring bouts with cancer.
It was humbling and gratifying to hear from him.
To offer this “power of faith and a positive attitude” to others so afflicted, make your own contribution to Via Christi Foundation. Your monetary gift will be used in part to purchase copies of Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward, my personal story of battling Acute Myeloid Leukemia from a hospital bed.
Your gift will be hugely appreciated. I know, because I regularly speak with those who have received a copy. Click the link just below.
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