To take an idea, and turn it into something real and tangable. Wood, being relitively inexpensive, easily manipulated into whatever shape you’re looking to make. What a perfect medium!

I’ve always had an interest in design. For as long as i can remember, from legos mansons to dirt super highways, i’ve been taking those design ideas and tried to make them reality. It’s a blessing and a curse. It is great to have an idea, but more than frustrating to be unable to get those ideas out.

When I was in Middle School, shop class was less than intersting. I felt i was beyond bird houses and benches. Just like the rest of my formal education, instead of learning the basics, I dreamed of being advanced. But in the process, missed the basics. Now, as an adult, I wish i had the basic knowledge for alot of things i missed.

So, aside from the huge project that is my house, my intests in wood working have been reignited. Because of said house project, have grown a collection of decent tools. I’ve got a garage full of wood scraps (not much nice wood though). And now I’m itching to put some of those things to work.

I’ve gotten addicted to several wood working blogs and podcasts (i’ll include a list of those links down the road). They have really helped me to gain some of that basic (and not so basic knowledge) about tools, diffent types of wood, jointery, all that good stuff. So, I’ve got some head knowledge but not much experience.

On this blog, in conjunction with the blog network LERNr.com, I will document what I’ve been doing to learn more about woodworking.

This is what our upstairs has looked like for 4 weeks. I could blame my lack of progress on a lot of things. But mostly it is because i get stuck. Right now i’m just working on insulating the ceiling/roof and i’ve hit a point that i’m having trouble getting thru.

I will go thru some of the layout down the road, but I’ll tell you what the delema is right now. The joists are not the standard 24” on center. That makes it difficult to put up standard roll insulation in the gaps. So my plan is to put up the plastic barrier first and blow in insulation. I preffer blow in better, but getting the barrier up is proving to be a little harder than i planned.

It’s not a big deal, but i find myself just sitting trying to think of a better way of doing it instead of just climbing in and getting it done.

You can see in the picture on the left side (the east side) of the roof the barrier partially hanging and partially stapled in place. If you follow the plasticcloser to the camera, you can see the huge roll. What you can’t see is how far back the pitch of the roof meets the wall. I want a good seal, but it’s difficult to get in there to staple it in place.

Today, i just decided to do it. My back still hurts (as i wrote about in THIS POST) but i had to get something done today. So, the plastic is in place much better, but not done.

I’ve been telling people that I wanted to be in the upper level by the end of winter at which my dear wife would scoffs. I now scoff too.

( i will try to get a more picture and maybe a Google SketchUp of what’s going on.

Friday ($174.00) . People are strange creatures. It seems that, without being trained or prompted, we’ve learned to respond to certain situations the same way. For instance, even when someone is holding the door open for you, you still have to reach out and hold the door open yourself as if the person would let you walk half thru and let go, causing you to get wedged in between the door and the jam with your hands in your pockets. So it is when you walk in to a store, even if you are actually looking for something and could use a hand, you will inevitably, without thinking about it, with out hesitation, and most of the time without looking toward them, tell the inquiring sales person that you are just looking.

The phrase “Just looking” is really a knee jerk reaction, even when not really meant, that really means you just want to be left alone and you have no intention of looking but you just want to see what the store has. But we say it all the time. I would say 95% of the customers that walk thru the door and I approach say it. Often they will say “I’m just looking for a recliner” and that is good. Some will say “I’m just looking. But where are your recliners” and that is okay. What i really don’t like is when you hardly get “Hello there” our of your mouth and they say “Just looking”.

It is a constant battle to overcome. We’ve started asking a simple line (so simple it can be insulting or just Duh) “looking for what?”. I will usually ask “What in particular are you just looking for?”. But today it didn’t work. When someone repeats “I’m just looking” after further prodding I start taking the meaning of the phrase for real. Today, I had three people do that. I only sold one little thing.

Plus I had to run some errands for DG. Sometimes, like today, I don’t mind because it gives me a chance to get out of the store before it makes me crazy. But today, being such a crappy sales day, I might have like to be on the floor.

I always have to keep telling myself that at least I’m not still selling cars.

Saturday ($4117.97) and Sunday($3,951.97). Both these days, I made only one sale each. Both were “be backs” (the term we use for people who we’ve worked with and left without buying, who come back to buy.) They both bought just about the most expensive Tempur-Pedic mattresses we sell. It was nice to have met my sales goals in one sale, but it de-motivates me to keep working. I’ve not always been in sales, and am not made for sales. I hate approaching people and fear rejections so much that I don’t if I don’t have to and would rather clean up or sort things or make sure tags are out. That’s more my kind of job, but on the other hand, I don’t get paid to do those other things. It’s a hard thing to balance.

Monday ($410). My bleeping bleeping back. About twice a year my back goes out. Most of the time, the past few times at least, it gets to the point of not being able to get out of bed and crawling to the bath room. This time I think it was brought on by snow shoveling and moving things around at work yesterday. But I’m getting better at detecting when it is coming.

I could feel it getting bad and started using my heated back wrap and taking some pain meds (nothing fancy, just Doans or Aleve) and taking it easy. I still went into work though but asked if i could leave around 12:30 because i was pretty miserable. Instead, i came home to work on the stores website (which is also part of my responsibility). Only one sale today (and the topic of another post).

Tuesday ($979.97). My back was still pretty sore so day was pretty crappy from the start. Five customers in a row not buying. Much more crappy. Then i have a blowout caused by the owner and have to smooth over something with a customer (the same customer from the day before that will require another blog post). Drove out 30 minutes away to Belvidere to appease the customer and avoid Better Business Bureau involvement.

SUMMARY ($8653.94 - 50% of my weekly goal). Every day this week, I’ve only had one sale per day. This pay period is actually the worst i’ve had sence starting. even worse than my partial first pay period. It’s pitiful. It’s easy to blame this occurance on other things than myself. Sure, there were other factors, but really it comes down to me.

I’ve been told i take things too personal. Actually it’s more that i simply take things personal. I have to keep telling myself that it’s just a job. I need to just go in, sell things, and not worry about it anymore. I know that’s over simplifying it, but when people say “Just Looking” is not because they don’t want my help, it’s just because they don’t know how to articulate that they need help and it’s easier to just refuse my help. And when people don’t buy, it’s not (for the most part at least) because I did a poor job, but because we didn’t have what they needed. I need to start fresh with each customer and forget about my last failures. DG did the hard part of getting them in the door and having the merchandise to show them. Now i just have to do my part.

Yesterday Bill Gates wrote an article about the skills you need to succeed. His main point was on the value of ongoing learning.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

It’s great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it’s far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.

I used to hate school. And looking back it is one of my biggest regrets to have dwindled that opportunity. I think the reason was that I was forced to learn what I didn’t want to learn. Now as an adult, I’m constantly reading. I should be reading more things than blogs, but lately, I’m a blog fanatic.

I’ll pick up a book from time to time, but haven’t for a while. The last book I read (and recommend) was “The Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Farris. I’ve hardly read a “Fine Woodworking” magazine.

I’m going to try harder to read more books (which, by the way is against “4hww” ideas) . I should read more books on sales, but I’m not really interested. I should be reading books on how to get out of sales.

The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
~ Mark Twain

I was thinking today about the things i want to write about and i realized how beneficial it might be to me to look back at my day (or few days because i don’t figure it would be very fun a fun read at all) about what i did right or wrong in selling and write about them. Maybe i will try to do it per week. That would make sense. Maybe i will total what i sold (a good way to track it) to see if the things i did right made me money.

I won’t be doing this to brag or show off. You see, I’m NOT a good sales person. Really, in fact, I’m pretty bad. Sometimes so bad in fact I’m surprised i still have a job. Now there are some things I’m good at, but most things I’m not. Here’s the list…

Things I’m good at = learning the product (in this case furniture and mattresses), explaining the product, being nice to nice customers, the computer side (being one of the only people who understand computers, that means a lot),

Things I’m not good at = being nice to UNnice customers, dealing with “Just Lookers”, saying no to the jobs I’m asked to do that aren’t part of my job, “the close” (which is, after finding out what the customer is looking for and why, showing the solutions, getting the customer to like the solutions, “the close” is getting them to actually buy it.). I’m also having a hard time with realizing that people in sales (that’s in general, not only my coworkers), after some time, stop being real, normal people and become sales people. Not everyone, but most.

So, there is always room for growth. I will write about my week so that it gives me a moment to reflect in order to grow. I want to do better and be better. Not necessarily because I want to be the best or even to make tons of money, I just want to be good at what I do. Not great, but good. Good enough that when I go to sleep I can say I’ve done a good job.

Since my work week goes from Friday to Tuesday I will probably save these sales posts for Tuesdays. I will be making notes and working on the post thru the week but only post once a week. So after rereading this a couple times, i will post it and work on notes for next week.

It was a cold and windy night… [backspace] As I sit by my window with the snow outside [backspace].

Part of me wants to do one of those “up till now” sort of posts, but I don’t think anyone would care. Maybe someday I will go back and take a look in retrospect. But for now I will just say what I hope to accomplish with this blog (if anything).

I intend to just write about things that interest me more so than things about me. I imagine that I will still say what happened today and what stood out. But more this will be a place to track the things I’ve been researching and learning, the tech I wish I had or had the ability to make, the struggle of making time for all the things i should be making time for.

Those are the things that interest me: Technology, DIY, Productivity and Efficiency (and more)

I will probably use this blog as my portfolio as well. I do a little web design on the side. So i will track the sites I’d working on and the progress being made.

Our house is a huge project - two years so far. So, i will mention from time to time what I’d working on and how it’s going (or not going) and the level of my wife’s anger about it.

We are also trying hard to get out of debt. Maybe to write about it will help me to stay on track. We’ll throw a little of that in here too.

One more thing is that I’m a Youth Minister trapped in the body of a furniture salesman. One day I hope to return to Youth Ministry after a 2 year hiatus (a whole other story). So I may write about youth ministry and youth culture as well as sales and therefore growing hate for humanity and the internal battle between the two.

We’ll start there and see how that goes.

(Isn’t it funny that I’m writing this as though someone else, other than myself, might be reading it)