This Month’s first Featured Grownups entry is to write about some lesson we learned in our lifetime.  I’ll warn you now this is going to be a long entry – but I’ll try to make it as short as I can without skimping on important details.

First, let me say that the lesson I learned was not to let greed lead me, because even if the immediate payoff is great, there may be long-term consequences.

Of all the things I’ve done in my lifetime, there is only one time period that I have any regrets.

I went to work for a music store while living in Florida. We sold Lowrey organs.

When I got there, I was paid minimum wage plus a 2% commission on my sales. I sold a few “doorbusters” – organs that weren’t really much good, had an actual cash value of $1 but that we sold for anywhere from $299 – $999 depending on the size and features.  Eventually, I got out of my probationary period and earned a 25% commission of the amount over cost.

Sales is a cut-throat business. Especially commissioned sales. If you turn your back on a customer for one second, another sales person will swoop down and grab them away from you.

One day, a woman came in and talked to me about her neighbor. She said Jim had sold him a “doorbuster” and written him off as “no money”. She said “He needs a better organ and he could buy any organ in this store.” So I called him. He came in and I did a demonstration for him. He was enchanted and signed on the dotted line.

On the delivery day, I went along for the ride because he decided to make the purchase C.O.D. When we got there, he was getting cold feet, but I played a little for him, showed him a couple of new songs, and he was a happy camper again. He handed me his checkbook and asked me if I would write the check because he didn’t think he could. So I wrote a check for $20,000 and he signed it. I made a $2500 commission on that sale (25% of the profit).

This is where it should have ended.  But no….

A month later, we were going to have a special “luncheon” for our upper tier customers (those who had made purchases of over $15,000). I invited him with the intention of selling him one of our top-of-the-line organs. I remember it was called “The Heritage” – it had a beautiful sound and was so easy to play – just one step down from the MX2 which was Lowrey’s top of the line organ (retail value $40,000). (These were organs you would have in your house, not church organs, whose prices started at around $100,000).

I high pressured him into making the purchase, setting up the following Monday for delivery. I had never used so much high-pressure on a client before, although I had seen it done so many times. I have no idea what got into me, but all I could see was dollar signs and making it into the top ten in sales in the company (I was currently at 11 out of over 300 sales people).

On delivery day I was scheduled to work from 1pm until 9pm. At 10:00am my boss called me and told me my client had called and cancelled his order. He said “If you want to keep your job you’d better meet the delivery truck over there and make sure delivery is taken!”

So I drove to his house and used every trick I knew of to pressure him into this sale. Fake tears, fake telephone conversation, everything I could think of. Finally, I nearly coerced him into handing me his checkbook, I wrote the check and asked him to sign it. He did. I left.

On the way back to the store, I was waffling between extreme guilt and the prospect of a $1250 commission. Eventually the commission (greed) won.

However, my performance went downhill after that. I could no longer sell. I felt horrible – I felt like I had sold my soul for $1250.

I went from 11th in sales down to 200th by the end of the month. The district manager came to talk to me and asked what was going on. I told him about that sale. He said “Do you think we should give him a refund?” I said I didn’t know what we should do, but that I just wasn’t cut out for this. I left the company that day.

To this day I feel so cheap when I think of that incident. I wish I could give that man back his money (of course, I can’t, I don’t HAVE that kind of money!)

There have been things I’ve done that *could* have hurt other people if they knew but this was one time where it wasn’t a victimless crime. And I don’t think any amount of sorrow or regret is going to make me forget the helpless look on that man’s face when I reached for his checkbook.

And because of what all I went through in the two years or so that I worked for this company, I will never trust a salesperson, I will negotiate every deal and I will walk out if they don’t meet my needs. Before that, I paid the asking price for everything (including cars).

I’ve had people tell me that there were honest sales people. But when I see someone say “I have to go ask my boss” or “I have to go make a phone call” or go do anything out of my earshot, I figure they are going to waste some time, let me stew and then come back and tell me how hard they worked to get me a great deal, even if it’s a little more than I wanted to pay.

I even had one guy come back and say to me “You are lucky I was working today so I could get you this deal” when he went to get my final offer “approved”. All I could think of was “No, you’re lucky that I came by so you could get another sale.”

After that incident at the music store in Florida, I’ve made it my life mission to make up for that by helping people who are less fortunate than me out anywhere I could, wherever I went. And although I get a good feeling when I help these people, it hasn’t come close to making me feel atoned in any way. Because no matter how much I give to others, I am not giving back to that man what I took from him.

My lesson learned from this was to never let greed take over my conscience.