OT: Tandy Silver

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004, Bill Vermillion wrote:
...
>When I got my Model I in 1977 the manager saw that this machine
>could be a real winner.  I remember seeing the promotion manager of
>one of the local TV stations walk out with three floppy drives
>under his arm.  He was writing a program that analyzed ratings.
>
>Later when the II came out the manager put on a full-time salesman
>that made calls to businesses.

I first went to work in October 1980 at a regular Radio Shack retail store
in Parkington, Virgina that wasn't allowed to sell the Model II.  The
manager and his District Manager basically conspired to let me sell Model
IIs from this store against company policy (the store manager was an EMT
who worked the SCCA races at Summit Point Speedway, and knew me from my
racing there).  January 1st 1981, I was transferred to an ``X'' department
at 19th and K Streets in downtown D.C. which I was to take over when RS
opened a new computer center a block away at 18th and M Streets (I first
met John Esak when he was a marketing rep. at the 18th street store :-).

>I got to know the manager quite well.  The store was in the Winter
>Park Mall - and was one of the smallest RS outlets in the US in
>terms of square footage.  It probably was in the bottom 10.
>
>I got to see Dave's sales figures [I was a good friend and he'd
>refer a great many with Model I questions to me - the ones the
>store could not answer].
>
>July 1977 - the month before the Model I was announced, the 
>story grossed $37,000.  Not to bad for that size.  July 1978
>he grossed the same about in computer sales alone.  He was second
>in overall sales in the US behind one of the largest stores in
>Chicago.
>
>These machines were not to be kept in stock and would be ordered
>when a customer wanted one.  But Dave always had two or three in
>stock at any one time.
>
>His early customers like myself - had standing orders for a machine
>- so he would order in our name - and sell them to people who
>wanted them.

I did similar things when I was at ``K'' street, particularly with the
Daisy Wheel II printers that were in very short supply.  My District
Manager was quite helpful in this as my store was the most profitable in
his district.

>I got Scott Adams his first floppy drives through Dave when you
>could not find them anywhere.
>
>Dave was agressive in selling these, and the other RS managers in
>the Central Florida region were not happy that Dave was making so
>much money selling them so they started complaining to the
>regional and district managers.

This was fairly typical.  It's always easy to blame somebody else rather
than actually going out and selling.

>RS saw a good thing - doubling store sales in a year did not go
>un-noticed.  Normally you'd get canned for going against company
>policy, but Dave did such a good job that Radio Shack did not want
>to lose him, but had to get him out of that district to placate the
>managers in that area.

I had a totally different experience.  At a regional computer marketing
meeting, Rich Hollander, who was Tandy's national sales manager, chewed me
out for having three computers in my office at the Rockville Computer
Center -- even though my store's sales were the highest in the region.

I was ``promoted'' from the X-department at ``K'' Street where my sales
were usually higher than any of the regular Computer Centers to a Computer
Center in Rockville, Maryland.  I had been making more money at ``K''
Street than any of the District Managers, and probably close to what the
Regional Manager was making.  That ``promotion'' resulted in about a 70%
pay cut for me.  I managed to get ``demoted'' back to another ``X''
department in downtown D.C. which got my pay back up again.  I won a week's
trip to Hong Kong at that store, and gave my notice the day I returned.

>They made him an offer he could not refuse.  And that was NOT like
>the Godfather type offer.
>
>They gave him a district managers job, paid for his relocation, and
>all expenses of the move.  And it was to the land of his dreams.
>>From Winter Park Florida to Austrailia.  
>
>You have to be a real performer to go against company policy and
>have them bend over in order to keep you.

When I gave my notice in October 1983, our Divisional V.P, Jim Nichols,
called to see if he could convince me to stay.  My District Manager sent a
letter to every store in his district telling them to help me any way they
could to close pending sales.  The normal procedure when a store manager
quit was to throw them out immediately.

IHMO, Radio Shack was in a position to dominate the microcomputer business
in the early '80s.  They had good products, an excellent store network, and
a distribution system second to none once Ron Stegall got TEW staightened
out.  The Model 16/6000s running Xenix were great for the SMB market.
Unfortunately the RS top management didn't have a clue about managing
professional computer marketing people selling to business and government
entities.  They treated their store managers and computer marketing reps
like the part-timers they would hire for retail in November, then fire in
January.

...
>When the II hit Dave went into high gear.  Hiring an outside
>salesman was not normal for RS, and I think Dave did this on his
>own. I don't think he was an official RS employee - but I'm not
>sure.   Were outside salesman that called on customers done
>by any other RS stores that anyone knows of?

I typically spent a good bit of my time out of the store making calls on
business and government accounts in the D.C. area.  My District Manager
basically covered for me with the Regional Manager when he asked why I
wasn't in the store all the time (I still had to clean bathrooms :-).

Bill
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