Phase 2 of a tech career - back in the industry!

 In mid December 1984 I landed back in my home state of Washington with the clothes on my back, enough room on my credit card to buy  a car, and some skill in the industry that would drive the US economy for many years to come.   Before the end of theyear, I had a new job at a company I'll call "Micro".

(You may have noticed I'm only using people's first names and semi-fictitious company names.    I don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings with my recollections but you never know).

Gary, the CEO of Micro, founded the company in 1982 and quickly had 2 retail locations, both in malls including Bellevue Square Mall - at the time, one of the hippest and trendiest (and most expensive) malls in the country.    The business was primarily based on Apple Computer sales to consumers as well as educational institutions, which was and continued to be a cornerstone of the company.

Ass previously blogged, I was brought in to sell the IBM line direct to business through an "outside" sales effort, the first the company had attempted.    Gary was looking for high margin sales - and his definition of high margin really was high.   He believed (and time proved him right in my opinion) that value added sales of hardware and packaged software only made money at 70 points of gross margin, and such were my marching orders.

(My first question was "what's gross margin?  What are points? is 79 a lot?" - All the selling I'd done was from list prices, with allowed discounts.    This was my first exposure to margin-based sales).

To introduce a few of the players at Micro:

Gary (CEO):   One of the most business savvy people I've ever worked with, and a successful entrepreneur many times over.   Also a renaissance man - a skilled contractor who did all of his own leasehold improvements personally (retail store and commercial office) - well, and quickly, and with high quality.    Also one of the most physically imposing people in my experience.   a former athlete.    He was stern and firm in business dealings, yet one of the most fun people I've met as well, with an infectious laugh and a high likelihood to start a snowball fight.      

Ron (Bellevue Store Manager) - in many positions over the years, Ron was usually Gary's second in command.   Capable and well thought of, a good problem solver and a good person.

Jeff (outside sales) - Jeff worked in the Bellevue store with Ron but soon joined me in the new outside sales division.    Jeff was about my age but without the hard knocks.   Funny, funny, smart-ass funny.    Smart to the nth degree.    We imbibed many a pitcher of beer after work, and Jeff went on later to a double masters program at a prestigious East Coast school and a long career at Microsoft, whence he has recently retired.

Renee (outside sales) - the other addition to the new outside sales team.   Renee also came from Bellevue and looked the part - professional and smart.   No point in dancing around the fact that she was also very attractive and stylish.   She liked to make fun of my "new" '67 Camaro.

Doug (programmer).    Doug was a programmer Gary had hired to try to automate some internal controls.    We would work together on some projects and encounter each other off an on over the years.

While I was hired at an "outside" sales specialist, the simple reality was that I had no such experience and had always worked from a (business) retail base.   There was no appreciable marketing effort or personnel,   nor any real plan.   There were desks and phones.  The retail store provided some business-centric traffic, and that was a start.

At that time, the business PC lineup ;was the IBM AT.    The Intel 386 chip would not be released until later in the year, so one of our "R&D" efforts was overclocking the 80286 chip with faster "crystals" to get appreciably more speed - with similar efforts with hard drives and controllers.    Most configurations I sold were frenkensteined in such ways.    As PC-based networks were in their barely functional infancy, I immediately ran home to Momma and discovered that Xenix (a version of Unix put out by Microsoft and the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), but actually available through IBM) was available for the AT.  My very first sale for Micro was a three-user Xenix configuration to a local business in janitorial supply.   The IBM version of Xenix was limited to 3 users, but that's all they needed.   I sold them Open Systems Accounting software, and we were off to the races - at 70 points of gross margin.

This first sale kicked off a flurry of activity, not th e least because Gary was quite excited that we could actually get that margin and that I actually knew how to pull all the pieces together, and that the customer was quickly up and running and happy with the solution.

First, Gary wanted to implement Open Systems Accounting  for his own business, and wanted me (with Doug) to do what I'd done before in Alaska - modify the software to include Point of Sale functionality.   This will be a blog entry in itself.

Second, when Jeff came on board he did some pre-internet research  and found that Xenix was available from much better sources than IBM, and got us in contact with a distributor called PGI in Arizona.    This was a great resource for years to come.

Third, Gary accelerated his plans to expand the outside sales effort and added Jeff and Renee.

I was also very interested in exploring Mac for Business.  I had purchased (at full introductory price) a 128k Macintosh when they came out in early 1984.   I was as thrilled by the possibilities but as disappointed in the reality of the Mac as the rest of the market, and by early 1985 Apple was getting into serious trouble.     Steve Jobs would be fired later in 1985.   

The years I spent at Micro were great years, and it would not take long for key elements of my future in IT to begin to fall into place.