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Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 10: The Close

The scent of scorched coffee and fluorescent hum of overworked ceiling lights filled the open-air battlefield that was the ABM Online call center. Desks stretched endlessly in every direction across the Greenfield floor, stripped of partitions and layered in the clamor of ringing phones, objection-laced rebuttals, and hopeful negotiations.

In this sea of sales warriors, Vincent Scott strolled like a reigning monarch on campaign.

He never barked orders or flexed authority. That was not his style. He didn’t stomp into the trenches waving a title. He watched, he listened, he learned. Only when he understood the game fully did he move a piece. It wasn’t humility; it was strategy.

But when he spoke? Everyone listened.

As Vincent made his morning march through the kingdom, he would be stopped by several reps and managers alike, faced with questions about how to approach a potential sale, handle a situation where a local rep somewhere else was encroaching on their selling to a customer they failed to sell the first time, how to appropriately apply the credit policy or a discount, how to handle a sales dispute and so on and so forth. 

“Hey Vincent!” Ernie Carville waved, headset crooked on his ear, face taut with urgency. The guy was new but sharp, a rare find in this revolving-door operation. Most reps burned out fast, swallowed by bureaucracy and anarchy. But Ernie? He was hungry.

The life expectancy of a rep in this center was not long.  For someone to reach and maintain peak performance it was very challenging as the smarter, more industrious reps could see how flimsily the department was really held together.  The commission and clerical problems that plagued the division could eat away at the soul of even the strongest rep, manager or Vincent himself.  And the ineptitude of the people that should fix it and their unwillingness to do so was tearing the place apart. 

The place thrived off of “at the moment” superstars.  A scant few were constant performers who won the annual Top Gun trips.  But one misstep, bad string of events or faulty voice authorization (the recordings that served as a contract) and they fell from grace and Dickhauser pushed to have them terminated for a first offense of any kind. He had a one strike, zero tolerance policy on pretty much anything he felt like at any time. Dickhauser’s whims and the managers scrambling to address whatever he demanded is what dictated much of the flow of the division.

Ernie Carville was one of those at the moment stars.  He was perceptive and eager to learn; a breath of fresh air to Vincent who was trying his best to keep his wits about him.  As Vincent approached he saw Ernie doing battle.  He glanced at the screen: a $500 monthly program with practically everything ABM had to offer. 

Ernie muted his phone. “Can you talk to this guy?”

Vincent had no outward reaction, but his insides tingled and heart leapt a little. “What’s his occupation, average buy, location?”  Vincent said coolly.

“He’s a doctor – physical therapist.  Average client is $1,000.  He is in Tulsa.”

“What’s the hold-up?”

“He doesn’t want to start this big.”

Vincent smiled.  Most reps would start peeling away components and start throwing desperate, paltry programs at their customers just to get a sale. Ernie clearly hadn’t – he was hanging in there, defending his program and fighting to sell what he believed was best. The very rep Vincent most wanted to empower. 

“What’s his name?”

“Dr. Sumesh.”

“OK. Let me at him,” Vincent said, taking a seat on the edge of Ernie’s desk.

“Dr. Sumesh?” Ernie said into his headset.  Vincent picked up the handset and unmuted it.  “My supervisor is standing by and was going to go over some of the specifics of this program for you.”

“Dr. Sumesh?” Vincent asked, announcing his presence.

“Yes,” came the reply.

“Hi, this is Vincent Scott with ABM Advertising.  I’m Ernie’s supervisor and just happened to be passing by.  How are you today?”

“Doing well, thank you.”

“Fantastic, Dr. Sumesh.”  Name repetition: check.  “Is Ernie taking good care of you?” Personal touch. Feel them out. Their response to this shows how quickly you have to make it all business and how receptive they are going to be to you.

“Yes, yes.”

“Excellent. Well, the reason for our call today was because you actually came to us recently and opted to add some additional information about your practice to our online directory.  First, I want to thank you and commend you for that.  Honestly, I wish more of our valued customers took the time and cared as much as you clearly do.”  Reason for call: check. Ego stroke:  check. The customer clearly wanted more people to know about the practice – use that information.  “Let me ask you – what are you doing right now to market your practice?”

“Ah, well, uh, I am in some medical magazines, the local paper and have done some radio spots.  Stuff like that.”

“Tremendous, Dr. Sumesh.  Obviously you’re a man who is serious about his business and I applaud you for diversifying your marketing portfolio a bit. Much more effective than throwing your eggs in one basket.” This compliment also serves to set up the prospect of further diversifying the portfolio by adding ABM marketing to the mix. Psychology.  “What types of results are you getting from those mediums?”

“Eh, well, I’m not 100% sure.” Gap in process. Jackpot. Keep exploring this.

“What do you have in place to track it?”

“Uh, nothing right now.” Bingo.

“OK, fair enough.  I am sure you are a busy guy so your goal is to put yourself out there wherever you can. I take it you are running the practice and running the marketing decisions?” Another potential gap.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Wow – that can be overwhelming. I’m impressed. I can definitely see why it’s so important that your marketing works but also that right now, I’m guessing you are wanting to get some results prior to justifying hiring someone to run it full time?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I get that.  When you enhanced your free listing with us were you just hoping someone would see it or do you actually want new customers?”

“Oh, well, yeah, I would certainly like new customers.”

“Perfect.  This is cosmic, then, us talking like this.  Reason being, right now, and pardon me for saying this, I am concerned you might be putting yourself in a position of weakness with these other mediums, especially if you are unsure of the results.  Sure, they occasionally work, but it’s a crapshoot.  It’s a gamble. And you’re not seeing your money at work.  See, with us, we saturate the web with your business, so it’s like playing with loaded dice; we put you in a position of power.”  Powerful words to invoke and elicit emotion: check.  “I’m looking at the program you and Ernie were discussing.  I’m excited we can potentially be partners with you in advancing your practice and taking it to the next level.  How far out do you attract customers from geographically?”

Confident statements, building up the program, referencing the weaknesses he has currently all while bridging into fact-finding and staying in complete control of the conversation.

“Oh, just in Tulsa.”

“Fantastic.  See, that’s exactly what we do; we put you everywhere you need to be to be seen so those customers know about you. It can be as targeted or as all-encompassing as you want it to be.  Right now, you are merely listed with a basic listing on our site.  Our featured listings are plastered all over the web, you get guaranteed searches – 100 per month in your case from the program you guys were discussing – and you also appear in our physical printed publication.  Obviously one customer who does business with you because of all of this presence pays for two months of this program.”

Pause for impact.

“What we do here is get the ball rolling through voice authorization.  I’m going to bring on a recording device where Ernie will basically read through the items in this program and you can walk through them together.” 

Softening the blow: check. 

“We will be back on the line in about forty-five seconds, okay?”

There was hesitation.  He was closing in.

“Oh, no no no…I just can’t do it,” Dr. Sumesh lamented.  “That’s just too much.”

“Too much?  Okay, well, certainly, Dr. Sumesh, I understand it’s probably more than you spend on your current advertising.  That’s why I don’t want you to look at this like additional advertising.  It’s an investment in your business.  See, here we give you the highest probability at a return on investment.  You do understand the concept that one customer would pay off two months of this program, correct?” Cost justification: check.

“Uh, yes, of course, but it’s a lot of money for an advertising campaign.”

“I understand that is your initial reaction, Dr. Sumesh,” Vincent continued. “However, relatively speaking, if your current methods are bringing in nothing and this program gives you a better chance of an actual return on investment we give you enhanced monthly tracking reports showing you where the business is coming from, what search terms people are finding you under and metrics showing where on your website people are going, can you see where that is superior to current methods?”

“I do. I just can’t afford to pay that much more.”

“Of course you do, you’re a smart guy.  So here’s the thing: with the 500,000 books I am putting you in, the 100 guaranteed online searches per month we target for you on the major search engines meaning 1,200 over the course of the contract and with the business listings we post for you on some of the most highly trafficked sites in the world—” he paused for effect, “how do you not get the minimum of seven customers out of those hundreds of thousands of appearances that you need in a full year to make this a goldmine?”

He stopped talking.  There was a pause of decent length that Vincent had absolutely no intention of breaking.

“OK, but I don’t see why it’s so much money.  I mean, I talked to Online Plus the other day and they have a similar program that is only $200 a month.”

“Yes sir, exactly, Dr. Sumesh, and again – I commend you for doing your homework.  You have obviously given this a lot of thought; it’s important to you, and I respect that.  Personally, it does me no good to set you up with something that does not work.  I am not comfortable moving forward unless you’re comfortable.  My reputation is at stake, quite frankly.  And consider what you’re getting here.  How many guaranteed searches do you get from Online Plus?” Draw out the specifics of the competing offer so you can go toe to toe.

“Uh, I’m not sure.  They said something about bidding on keywords.”

“Certainly.  Any respectable business would do that for you.  How many keyword combinations are they bidding on for you?”

“Uh, well, they were going to put me under physical therapist in Tulsa so I come up on the first page on the major search engines.”

“Okay, that’s a start.  What else are they giving you for that $200 monthly fee?” Draw out the differences and find ways to undermine the competing offer without insulting it.

“Uh…I would show up on their site, too.”

“Sure, sure, Dr. Sumesh.  What else?”

“Uh, that’s all they told me.”

“Certainly, Dr. Sumesh.  And it is my obligation to tell you, especially since you took time out of your busy day to fill out a listing on our site that you’ve got to compare apples to apples here.  For a moment, look away from the expense you see so you can compare investments and potential return.  You are thinking about dropping $200 into a program with a competitor that I will not disparage on this recorded call for fear of FCC retribution so you can appear under your heading on one website.  That’s how thin that program stretches your $200.  Now, with ABM, a company who has been in business since our great-great grandparents roamed the earth, I am putting you in 500,000 books.  500,000.  In addition, you not only are featured prominently on our site, but there are several additional sites with the same listings and similar placement. A dozen in all. Twelve times the online exposure.  Lastly, while Online Plus is going to bid on, what it sounds like, one keyword combination for you, we bid on hundreds.  Hundreds, Dr. Sumesh.  Do you know why that is important, Dr. Sumesh?  It’s important for multiple reasons.  One, let’s say you have an area of specialty, like – let’s say sports injuries.  We would bid on ‘sports injuries’.  We would bid on ‘sports injuries Tulsa’.  We would also bid on the misspellings because, let’s face it, not everyone is as articulate and gifted as you and me.  We bid on misspellings so that if someone misspells physical therapy or sports injuries or, God forbid, their home city of Tulsa, they still will find Dr. Sumesh.  That’s where your $500 goes.  And that’s why this is a no-brainer.”

Vincent paused again briefly for effect and for the information to soak in as much as it could.

“Clearly, you owe this to yourself.  You work hard.  Let ABM’s marketing team start working for you.” 

Another pause. No objection. Time to close again. 

“So what happens next is I am going to go ahead and bring on that voice recording system.  Ernie will come on and just basically read off a script that protects you and will detail each of the components of your listings and where they appear.  You have the chance to walk through this together.” 

A gentle close that made it sound like walking together through a dewy meadow rather than clubbing him with a blunt object.

“We’ll be back on the line in about forty-five seconds, okay?” 

Always ask a question.  It forces them to answer.  Even if it is not the answer you want, it’s the answer you need to hear to know how to proceed.

Pause.

“Okay.”

“All right, Dr. Sumesh, congratulations on this step towards major success with your business.  Ernie will be back on the line with you in just a moment.”

Vincent put the handset back in its cradle as he hit the conference button on the phone. 

He looked up and practically the entire floor, mostly staring in wide wonder, erupted in applause. 

Vincent did a double-fist pump and high-fived Ernie. 

What a rush. 

The close. 

It was the best physical high that could be had within ABM’s policies on its premises. 

When Vincent was on the phone, people listened, jotted down notes and knew he was for real.  Vincent waved to the crowd as he walked away, smiled and winked and pointed at Dean Yamnitz and made his way to his regular home base at Cal’s desk where Johnny Slade would always saunter up shortly thereafter.

“Guess that went well, huh?” Cal asked, smiling.

“Yeah, you know.  Gotta bring the jersey down from the rafters every once in awhile so you pups know who is still king,” Vincent cheesed.  Cal laughed.

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with a customer, too,” Slade said, looking disheveled as usual.

“Did you close it?” Vincent asked.

“He told me he was going to call the police if we called him one more time,” Slade said seriously.  Vincent and Cal laughed hysterically. “Dude, seriously, how can you keep calling these leads?” Johnny asked.

“Dude, seriously, have faith in me.  When have I steered you wrong?” Vincent asked.  “Calling these Enhanced Customer Listing leads twenty times is better than calling non-customers once. 15% close rate to 0.01%.  Would you rather call those? Because I can arrange that for just your team.” 

Slade shook his head.

“Besides, if your reps would disposition the lead properly that the customer doesn’t want to be called a second time, they wouldn’t be,” Vincent added.

“Yeah, yeah,” Slade muttered.

Slade was susceptible to pessimism and allowed the job to eat him alive more than most.  Dickhauser’s assessment of Slade was that he was the one who constantly cried “the sky is falling”.

Clyde sauntered over to the trio as the 11 o’clock hour approached.  “What’s for lunch?” he inquired.

“I brought mine,” Slade said.

“Who cares, let’s get Chinese,” Vincent responded. There was a spot they frequented down the street and probably went there at least twice a week on average. It was a buffet, but there was a side room with an extremely large table that was conducive to their group outing.

“I’m game,” Cal said.

“You know Sander won’t go for it,” Clyde said. Jimmy Sander did not like the Chinese buffet.

“He’ll go.  We have to discuss the next leg of the plan,” Vincent said.

“Good point.  I will gather the Brotherhood,” Clyde whispered as he backed away.

Vincent looked at a nearby computer monitor and saw a blank dialer screen. “Shoot,” he muttered.  “We’re in ‘stop’ mode.”

This meant the dialer was out of leads in the current campaign and Vincent had to sprint to his office in the other quad to move to another one. 

Nothing made Vincent’s skin crawl like idle employees, hence the sprint. 

He darted down the hall and back into his quad.  Of course, employees were just standing around shooting the breeze, having ended their last dial and not having a new lead on their screen. They rarely – if ever – alerted Vincent to this fact when it happened. It didn’t happen often, but in the hubbub of closing a sale and strategizing with his team, Vincent missed a beat. 

A couple of reps threw a small Nerf football around.

“Nobody throws a ball until they hit objective,” Vincent pointed, laughing.

He ran into his office, unlocked his computer desktop, ignored the blinking instant messages from managers telling him they were out of leads in this campaign and moved the reps to their next revenue-generating venture.

He looked and had received 27 new e-mails since his last stroll on the floor.  He sat in his chair, sipped his Diet Coke and smiled. 

This life may give him a heart attack but he didn’t know any other way.  A job with less responsibility that was not as fast paced would bore him to tears.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 9: The Mutiny

As Vincent headed to his office to turn on the dialer for the day’s work, he passed Clyde, who muttered, “I’m McHungry.”

“You and me both, brother,” Vincent replied.  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting,” came the reply.

Once the stand-up dispersed, the reps and managers broke up into their crew level pow-wows.  Vincent activated the dialer and began his schedule, which required him to be there every time a campaign ran out, and the managers regurgitated the morning message with varying levels of skill and accuracy. 

No one but IT guru Eric Aames knew the dedication it took for Vincent to be there every moment a campaign ended in the dialer and a new one needed to be activated.  He could have pawned off this responsibility but he wanted complete control over the schedule.  Often he would make decisions on a whim or play with the leads and he alone knew how to get the best results out of any lead set at any given moment based on his religious studying of the statistics.  It was a cocktail only he knew the ingredients to.

However, every day around 10 AM, Vincent made sure the dialer was set on a campaign that would last until 10:30 or 11.  Reason being?  “The Breakfast Club.”

It started with Cal, Slade, Jimmy and Vincent, over a year and a half ago.  They started to go to McDonald’s and discuss the state of the union.  As time went by, Frankie and Clyde would tag in and they would all end up there.  Eating, drinking coffee and sodas and eating greasy breakfast to soak up the hangovers from the night before were the orders of the day.  They discussed happenings in the department and the treatment they got from Dickhauser.  Lately, they discussed what should and would be his fate.

With tensions high amongst the team in anticipation of the eventual conclusion to the Dickhauser investigation, they were not going to miss an opportunity to discuss the latest.

“I hear the calls have stopped,” Clyde offered, referencing the calls from HR leadership to each and every member of ABM Online management about the tactics of Keith Dickhauser.  “A little birdie told me that he will be put to pasture in a staff job downtown and away from us.” 

A “little birdie” was code between Clyde and those he kept close to the vest for Agnes Landry’s best friend Helen Johnson.

“What is the timeframe?” Frankie inquired. The group also had a pool, drafting the days they anticipated the demise of their falling leader.  Each had a vested interest as the pot was over $250.

“No telling,” Clyde responded.  “But they won’t waste time.  Every day they take he is a liability to the company.  If he makes further movement against someone they can sue ABM for inactivity.”

“He knows, boys,” Vincent dropped.  Everyone looked at him with concern and disbelief.

“Shut up,” Slade muttered.

“Mark told him,” Vincent offered up.

“How do you know?” Cal inquired.

“Keith told me,” Vincent revealed.  “Don’t worry, I played cool.  I had to, I wasn’t about to let on that I knew something.  I just played it off like – ‘why would they want to talk to me?  I’m the bad boy of ABM and everybody knows HR hates me’.”

“Well played,” Clyde said. 

“I anticipated this and intended to reveal knowledge of the whole thing at the end,” Vincent continued.  “It sounds like we’re there so I will go to him today saying I got the call.  I can’t have them say they talked to everyone and him not hear from me that I got a call.”

“Are you sure that’s the right move?” Jimmy asked.

“It is,” Clyde said.  “Vincent can’t do anything to expose him or us as traitors.”

“Precisely,” Vincent said. 

“And then the Vincent Scott regime begins,” Cal boomed.

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Vincent said.

This was more of a reckoning than mutiny.  This was years of oppression and being screamed at and cursed at and targeted wrongfully and condescended to and it had finally culminated into enough people wanting to do something about it.  Vincent was just along for the ride. 

He had not initiated this firing squad.  He had received a call and, as he knew more than anyone and could provide a unique insight to the tactics and demeaning activities, he did just that.  He told the truth. 

It was not a foregone conclusion. Vincent knew he could either tell Dickhauser what was happening and help Keith by giving him a heads’ up, or he could join the resistance that was – HR assured them – going to be successful. Now it was just a matter of seeing what transpired in the aftermath. It could not happen soon enough.

But would this company actually promote Vincent Scott to Dickhauser’s vacant position?  Vincent had a track record of battling policies, dating females in the company, a child out of wedlock with a former rep in the department and a known affinity for partying – he was the last thing many in this company wanted despite his overwhelming charisma and ability to flat out execute. 

The conflict for Vincent was that no one took the time to look at the reasons for any of those things.  It is easy to cast stones at people like him. 

Vincent may not have always reacted to things the right way, but he was never prepared by anything or anyone for some of the attacks thrown his way. Vincent battled superiors for the greater good of the people who worked for him.  Yes, he was sometimes borderline insubordinate but he thought he was doing it with just cause.  He became romantically involved with females in the company because he was a workaholic and never had the opportunity to meet anyone else. 

He had to escape from his own mind, his debilitating fears and insecurities, and being social and burying himself in work were all he knew. 

The company needed Vincent Scott but would much rather someone else – anyone else – who would march to their drum without controversy, would come about and be able to provide the work ethic, contributions and results that he could. But such a creature never came, much less existed. 

“But you know that will never happen,” Vincent lamented, continuing his thought after the brief mental escape to a world where he would actually get the reward he deserved.

“Vincent, you know that’s the whole goal of this,” Clyde said.  When Clyde said it, he wanted to believe it.

“They aren’t going to put a wild card like me in that post.  They will bring in someone who knows nothing about our business, which could be more dangerous than our current situation,” Vincent stated.

“Vincent’s right,” Johnny Slade agreed.

“The ‘evil we know is better than the evil we don’t’ philosophy,” Frankie offered.

“Exactly,” Vincent said.  “That’s why phase two is my letter to the executives in the aftermath of Keith’s removal.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked.

“I’m going to tell them what their play is.  Very respectfully, of course,” Vincent tempered.  “If they don’t want to promote me, that’s fine.  They would be better off having no one take Keith’s job.  Let Mark and I run this as we are now.  Keith is nothing but a political figurehead who has worn out his usefulness and beats the will to live out of the people making this place successful.  I will offer to be their single point of contact, maybe a temp promote on a trial basis until they feel comfortable making the change permanent.  Meet them halfway, as it were.”

“That’s smart,” Cal said.  “Because you’re right, you look too risky on paper.”

“It’s the only move I’ve got,” Vincent said.

“Then it’s settled.  The Brotherhood’s mission is near completion,” Clyde said, beaming from ear to ear.

The group toasted with their McDonald’s cups, then dispersed.  It was back to the ranch. 

Upon returning, Vincent walked across Block 1 to his office.  Once he got in his office, he unlocked his computer interface and logged in to see how many leads were left in the campaign bucket and check his e-mail.  The company’s instant messenger system had several incoming messages.  He perused e-mails me missed and re-focused on his day.

Vincent knew what he needed to do.  With the Dickhauser investigation seemingly over, he had to go to Keith and tell him something that would keep his suspicious eyes off his back. 

Vincent did not feel guilt for applying nails to the coffin for Keith.  The relationship had been tumultuous since the starting gun of his ascension to running the department.  He had been cursed at, yelled at, hung up on and threatened so many times he knew how his subordinates felt and then some.  He had been their only buffer and lately even that dam was weakening. 

There was only so much he could now prevent and with the floodgates opening against them, they took the opportunity to return fire on Keith.  He had to go and Vincent felt no compassion; he had brought it upon himself.

Vincent walked across the building, passing the crew areas for Clyde, Cathy and Steve.  He could never make a journey from any particular points A to B without being stopped by people with questions about accounts, sales strategies or soliciting advice on some idiosyncratic situation and this trip was no exception. 

About five minutes later, Vincent walked past secretary Marla Mooney’s workstation and rapped on Keith’s door. “Is he available?” Vincent asked.

Marla scoped the phone line situation and nodded, “Yeah, he just got off the phone.”

“Come in!” came the response from behind the door.

Vincent opened the door for what seemed like the millionth time and walked in, closed the door and parked himself in the chair facing Keith Dickhauser. 

When summoned into this office, Vincent never closed the door.  He could always tell if there was a hint of danger to the meeting when Dickhauser asked him to close that door.  This time, the door needed to be kept secure.

“I got the call,” Vincent said. 

“Really?  When?” Dickhauser asked, focused on Vincent, looking up from his sports news on his desktop computer.  For Keith Dickhauser to give anything the preponderance of his attention was a rarity in and of itself. 

He was a classic case of a disturbingly short attention span, even notoriously walking away from people mid-sentence on occasion, but this was one conversation he did not want to miss.

“This morning, first thing.  She called during our stand-up and I called her back.”

“Who was it, Agnes or Lydia?”

“Agnes.  And don’t worry,” Vincent answered coolly.  He paused momentarily before adding, “I took care of you.”

Vincent had wanted to deliver that line so badly for so long.  Obviously Dickhauser would interpret it to mean he smoothed things over.  Vincent meant it in quite the opposite fashion.  And he did not tell a lie.

“What did she say?”

“It was pretty much like Mark described.  She asked if I had seen you tell someone in an open forum that if they couldn’t do their #@$%! job you would find someone who could.  I said I had never heard you curse in an open forum,” came the selectively worded reply. The threat in question had happened in a smaller assemblage.

“Right,” Dickhauser said, clearly on edge.  “What else?”

“Just the same stuff, apparently.  I told them we have to have tough conversations sometimes to get our point across.”

“I just want to know who ratted me out,” Dickhauser grumbled with anguish.  “Did she give any hint as to who it is?”

“She said there was an anonymous call and then two who revealed their identities to her.”

“God $%#! it, I am too old for this $%#!.  I just want to ride out my three years and get the %$!@# out of this place.”

“And I just wanted you to know that I got the call.”

“Thanks for letting me know.  Obviously we have to have each other’s backs.”

Vincent nodded as he rose and left the room. Those final words did not resonate any guilt within Vincent, primarily for one reason. 

Four months prior, Vincent had been under a firing squad all his own, spurred by an “anonymous call.”

The call reported Vincent for a meeting where he said “if you choose to ignore this report, you’re a fool.”  Vincent’s tight-knit team would not bury him, of course.  In fact, of 20 people in that room only 6 admitted to even hearing that uttered and only 4 said anything that would amount to constructive criticism of Vincent’s occasionally overenthusiastic style. 

When Vincent faced Agnes Landry and Lydia Rawlings, who were clearly out for blood with the way they posed their questions and the hateful way they read off his purported crimes, Dickhauser had every opportunity to defend him.  Quite the contrary; Keith allowed Vincent to be under fire and lied to cover up his own faults to make it seem like any bad behavior in the department was not his despite what the report said. They said that while Vincent was innocent, Keith himself was the one who was berating and belittling and blasting reps and managers on a daily basis. 

Vincent’s disgust lingered and now he had silently enacted his revenge.  He had given proof of Dickhauser’s wanton ways by sending a voice mail where he had referred to the managers as idiots and said, “F— them.” 

He had provided e-mail proof of abuse where he had systematically targeted certain individuals because of race or gender – where he picked apart every sale they made but did not do this to others, evidence of Dickhauser ordering illegal falsification of documentation specifically in order to terminate people he did not like, how Dickhauser changed rules whenever and however he wanted despite company policies, and plenty of first-hand account of his horrendous dictatorship, harassment and systematic targeting and racism and sexism. 

Vincent had merely told them the truth.  And may the truth set them free.

The last day of a month for Vincent was actually the easiest – like Election Day.  He had done everything possible, busted his tail during the campaign, drummed up as much support as he could and now it was time to sit back and watch the results roll in. 

He loved numbers.  He analyzed every lead source, every dialing statistic and anything he could try to tweak or manipulate to squeeze more money out of this engine.  He found himself now pretty much finished tweaking. 

This was the optimized beast. 

He was scrambling to find another challenge to keep him interested.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 8: The Stand-Up

The moment Vincent Scott stepped onto the sales floor that morning, he felt it. A charge in the air. Like static before a storm. The final day of November. For most, just a Monday. For Vincent, this day was war, celebration, legacy… all rolled into one.

The manager meeting had just ended in the cramped conference room adjacent to the sales floor. Vincent emerged first, cool and confident, followed by Mark Rogers—his managerial counterpart. Mark looked pale and stiff as always, but determined, clipboard in hand. The two of them walked side-by-side into the center of the buzzing sales floor, Block 1.

The department had grown so large since its inception in Block 3 that it had spilled over, expanding like wildfire. Vincent had moved his office here partly for the space… mostly for distance. He needed separation from Keith Dickhauser, whose office—formerly neighboring Vincent’s—had become the epicenter of micromanagement, rage, and paranoia. The farther away Vincent was, the better he could breathe.

Employees formed a massive semi-circle around the center of the floor. Cubicle walls leaned inward as heads popped up like prairie dogs waiting for the daily dose of fire and thunder.

Mark took the lead, stepping into the circle like a substitute teacher praying for order.

“Good morning, everyone,” he offered without inflection. A few murmurs of acknowledgment floated back. “Let’s begin by recognizing a few top performers from the day before Thanksgiving.”

He motioned forward four reps—men and women with tired eyes and coffee-stained lanyards—who took turns describing their wins. The crowd clapped politely.

Vincent stood further back, just past the circle, leaning against the outer cubicle wall, arms folded, observing. His mind wasn’t on the stories being told. He watched reactions. He read energy. And the energy was flat.

Mark attempted to ignite some kind of enthusiasm. “So, do I have everyone’s commitment to do their part today?” he asked, voice forced and robotic.

“Yes,” came the dull response.

Mark glanced at Vincent. “I’m going to turn it over to Vincent from here. Vincent, do you have a few words?”

Vincent gave a long, drawn-out pause, feigning disinterest. “No, I’m good.” he said simply.

A ripple of confusion spread across the group. Mark froze. “Okay…”

“I’m joking, everybody,” Vincent grinned. Laughter exploded like a match to gasoline. “I’ll never pass up the chance to talk to this group of winners.”

The crowd cheered as Vincent strutted toward the center like a showman stepping onto a stage he was born to command. He fed off the noise. This—this—was his theater.

“Good morning, everybody!”

“GOOD MORNING!” came the full-throated response.

“I woke up this morning like a kid on Christmas! Couldn’t sleep. Ran to the shower like there were presents under the tree. And why? Because in our world, Christmas doesn’t come once a year. No… Christmas comes twelve times. And today is one of them. Last day of the month, people. Are you READY?”

“YES!”

“Good,” Vincent nodded, pace quickening. “Because we have $16,000 left to post to hit our number for November. I don’t know why we always cut it so close—probably for the drama—but we’re here now. So let’s finish what we started.”

Cheering. Applause. Even a “Let’s go!” from the back.

He held up the infamous sales report—color-coded, ominous, and worshipped or cursed depending on your placement.

“But wherever your name is on this sheet,” Vincent growled, “don’t let it define you. This—” he said, holding the report aloft, “—doesn’t know your hustle. Doesn’t know your fight. Doesn’t know the effort you put in when no one was looking.”

And then, in a move that made Mark visibly wince, Vincent threw the report into the air. It fluttered and landed like snow across the floor.

The room erupted.

“Don’t look backwards!” Vincent roared. “You define yourself today. One call. One pitch. That’s all it takes.”

He pivoted to the crowd like a preacher on fire. “Show of hands—who here is satisfied with where they are on the sales report?”

A few hands trembled upward. One shot confidently into the air.

“Andy Gamble. Of course.” Vincent grinned. “It’s okay, brother. I’m happy with where I’m at too.” Laughter shook the floor. “But the rest of you? You know you’re not happy with where you are, yet you keep doing the same thing. Why?”

Murmurs. Shuffling. Eye contact exchanged in shared guilt.

“I’ll tell you why. It’s desperation. I’ve been there. One day with no sale leads to two… then five… then a week of self-doubt. And you wake up asking, ‘Do I have to go into that hellhole today?’”

People laughed in acknowledgment.

“You start grasping. You throw out weak programs, low-ball pitches, anything just to say you sold something. But that’s not winning. That’s failing yourself, your customer, and this company. The holy trinity of sales!”

Vincent paced like a tiger now. “You’re not here to pitch. You’re here to persuade. To influence! We don’t do book reports—we find the customer’s pain and press until they can’t breathe without us. If they hang up on you, it means you hit something real.”

More laughter. More nods.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or opportunity to build relationships here—if you want that, go across the hall to the existing customers’ team. If we can’t close in one call, we’re toast.”

A thunderous roar as he fired the shot at the account management team. Even some managers laughed—except Keith, watching from a distance with arms crossed, jaw clenched.

Vincent pointed skyward. “Write this down, commit it to memory. On every single call, you say this:

‘Mr./Mrs. Customer, I understand you say you need to think about this, but you and I both know that if you believed it would work and you’d get ROI, we’d be signing you up right now. So with hundreds of thousands of directories and thousands of monthly searches, how will you NOT get the five customers you need for ROI?’

Then you shut up. Let that silence do the heavy lifting.”

Silence. The floor was locked in. He had them.

“That’s the game, team. The only objection that matters is lack of belief. And your job—your only job—is to get them to believe. Everything else is noise. Callbacks are graveyards. Desperation is death. But belief?”

He tapped his chest. “Belief is life. Belief is commission. Belief is winning.”

The crowd was electric.

“You ready to win today?”

“YES!”

“Then GET OUT THERE AND DO IT!”

And with that final war cry, he turned and motioned to Jimmy at the cube wall. Jimmy slammed the big red button and Queen’s “We Are the Champions” exploded through the speakers.

Vincent raised his hand like a general, waved to the crowd, and began his triumphant walk back through the floor. High-fives. Handshakes. Chest bumps.

Mark stood off to the side, watching silently. Keith glared from the doorway of his office, expression unreadable. The other managers split between admiration and discomfort.

But Vincent? Vincent just walked tall, unbothered and unbeatable.

As the chorus rang out—“No time for losers… ’cause we are the champions… of the world”—he reached his office and looked back one last time.

He wasn’t sure how many more of these moments he’d get. But today…

Today was Christmas. And Vincent Scott had delivered.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 8: The Morning Meeting

8 AM marks the beginning of the sales day for the management team of ABM Online’s advertising division.  After a few minutes they are assembled and notebooks ready in front of them.

To Vincent’s left at the table sits Mark Rogers, his lone counterpart in the unit.  To call him an equal would not be comparing apples to apples as Vincent’s weaknesses (administrative stuff, details, patience) are Mark’s strong points and Mark’s shortcomings (selling, coaching, leading) mostly through lack of experience and never being coached are Vincent’s bread and butter.

Vincent has no ill will towards him.  In fact, as time went by Vincent actually started to respect him for the good ideas he had regarding paperwork processes. He meant well and seemed to advocate for the sellers.

Mark had been a rep under their dictator GM Keith Dickhauser’s tutelage years ago and when Keith started rounding up people to become managers in his new center he tapped his boys’ club whether qualified or not.  When Dickhauser saw the opportunity to move Mark to commandeer a new layup inbound venture under their umbrella with ridiculously low objectives, he did so, and those numbers masked Mark’s inability to achieve results.

Mark also played the political game well, which is why Vincent suspected he would be the type of guy the company wanted.  It was nothing like Dick Knoll, who he had to actually try to whip on the sales report.  Mark did not try to sabotage Vincent behind his back and his results were no danger to those of Vincent’s.

Continuing around the horn to his left, sat Scott Kinsey, overseer of all clerical and commission functions.  A very pious and condescending fellow he was.  Kinsey was a sanctimonious jerk who was nothing more than an overpaid accountant, making a salary more than twice that of pretty much all of the sales managers.  The man was a computer wizard but his people skills and ability to work as part of a team were pathetic.  Vincent sardonically regarded Kinsey the greatest salesman in the business, however, as he somehow sold Dickhauser that there were no problems with clerical and commission items while reps and managers screamed bloody murder about them.

Kinsey had recently gone through a divorce and it made him all the more biting with his commentary.  Kinsey and the managers battle regularly but Dickhauser refuses to keep him in check because he’s one of the boys.

Next to Kinsey was Danny Boyd.  Another of “The Boys” from way back, he had been exiled from Dickhauser’s old team after having an affair with a married direct subordinate.  He came on board the fledgling division and took over a stacked team that regularly ranked second after Vincent’s.  When Vincent got the job running the salesforce that Danny had also interviewed for, his spite for Vincent grew and the two of them clashed frequently.

Betty Cross was next at the table.  She had spent years developing ad campaigns and joined the team when her job was downsized.  She served as liaison with the Labor department and handled special projects.

The motherly Helen Johnson was next to Betty.  Nary could a disparaging word be said about the woman, she was nice as could be.  In her early 50’s, she had been with the business for quite a time, mostly in service capacities.  She was good at saying uplifting or inspirational things, but did not have the apathy and killer instinct to perform adequately here.  She could not have the tough conversations and keep her troops in line.  Be that as it may, she was the den mother and everyone loved her.

Maria Fernandez was next – a case of a book you do not judge by its cover.  If you saw her on the street you would think her timid; the irony being she was anything but.  Maria was the top rep in the history of the team and a bulldog on the phones.  Vincent previously had the pleasure of working with her on his own team and once he took over the floor she was one of the first he promoted.  Her results had not taken off in management as quickly as she would have liked but Vincent helped her stay the course and she learned quite a bit from the woman sitting to her left, Gina Baker.

Gina was something else.  She had been with the company 9 years, mostly in service functions and had come on board to Dickhauser’s team the same day Vincent did.  The two of them clashed at times as managers as Gina was another strong-willed individual who would do whatever it took to win.  She did not have the kind of success she was looking for early on and often relied on intimidation with her reps to get the job done.  When Vincent took the helm he saw in Gina a very moldable employee who had a lot of the tools in place.  Gina had no qualms about speaking her mind and telling her subordinates what she thought of them, yet at that point her criticisms were mostly bad.  Vincent tried to help Gina harness that and find a balance.  And now she was the top manager in the department for the second straight year.

Haley Jones sat next to Gina.  Vincent remembered when he first met her, as she came on board in early 2007, another of those Dickhauser recruited from his outside sales days.  Her father was Dickhauser’s first boss, mentor and friend.  Over time, they had an interesting dynamic as they often had different views on but their combined efforts made for a healthy sales endeavor.  She helmed an offshoot team that contacted recently acquired customers and helped them tour their new programs. Vincent had annexed that team for himself in early 2009 after they went several months without scratching the surface of their expectations.  They had not missed expectation a single month since Vincent took over. He knew she was another that talked poorly about him behind his back.  But again, he was not above using the fact that these people needed him to his advantage.

Haley’s best friends in the business were to her left, Adam Sandberg and George Flaker.  Sandberg had been an outside rep with her and they came on board the online division the same day.  Sandberg had been a force to be reckoned with as a manager, competing with Vincent at times, and he made the move to the lucrative inbound team.  He was sidelined by stress issues, caused by working for Dickhauser, and was now returned to the fold.  After a month to get his bearings, he was back near the top.

Flaker was a former member of the military and had come from a family with money and respectability.  He was the first person Vincent promoted, as he had shown significant promise as a rep and his cockiness and way he carried himself were very much in line with what Vincent was looking for.  His downfall was his occasional laziness and use of excuses but when the pressure was on he was someone you wanted on your team.  Bar none he was probably one of the top five salespeople in the building.  He just had yet to reach his potential.

Continuing we come to Randall Darwin.  Randall was entering his 29th year in the company and had been an outside rep and manager.  When his job was downsized, Dickhauser brought him on board as a favor to Darwin’s former boss, Derek Walters.  Keith was frustrated when he was not able to quickly adapt to the call center atmosphere, despite the fact no one had trained him how.  He had reported to Mark for months with no traction.  He was moved to Vincent and started showing immediate promise. Randall could get a good cheer going but at first had no idea of how to fine tune his skills for the call center setting.  At the onset, he did not like Vincent’s arrogance and was put off by his speeches.  After working together for months, seeing his results spike and seeing Vincent serve as the buffer between Dickhauser and the management team, he respected him.  While Vincent put on that front of over-inflated ego, often just to elicit a laugh from his followers, he would do whatever it took to guide his people.  Randall was a prime example.  His job had been on the line and now, after Vincent rolled up his sleeves and did everything he could to help, he was fighting back and felt he had an ally.  He was a guy with a long career that he did not want to see end.  Vincent knew that and respected it.

Next up around the table was Jimmy Sander.  Jimmy had been with ABM for 10 years, formerly working in an IT capacity and, when his job was eliminated he interviewed with Vincent for a rep position.  Jimmy was one of the nice guys, often to his detriment.  But when Vincent met him he saw the attitude and determination of somebody that wanted to win and would put forth effort to do it.

They chatted over burgers at lunch and beers after hours and Jimmy was one of the few people Vincent trusted.  He had been the only person Autumn trusted with the relationship she was having with Vincent after hours and the two had swapped female woe stories for years now.  Vincent and Jimmy stayed tight and had family Halloween’s together and their kids were at each other’s birthday parties.  Some days they just sat in Jimmy’s basement playing video games and drinking beers to wash away those dark times.  Jimmy was a true friend.

Clyde Barton sat next to Jimmy – yet another who had faced job elimination and Vincent recruited him from the telecommunications side.  Clyde brought that assertive, open-minded and revenue-oriented coaching style, which Vincent liked.  Clyde was a bit of a scoundrel, however, in probably every sense of the word.  Fidelity was a punchline to the man and Vincent was not sure if he could trust him but, Clyde ran a top-flight sales team and seemed to say the right things.

Clyde had been the spearhead of the operation to unseat Dickhauser.  It was during that uprising that Clyde gained favor in Vincent’s Cabinet.  He was now a regular in the Breakfast Club meetings every morning down the street at McDonald’s.  He seemed to be a good person to have as an ally, despite his shady demeanor.  He and Vincent often had different opinions but they learned from each other.  They worked well enough together to warrant keeping the relationship alive.  Despite their differences, one would identify the other as a friend.

The spark that began the uprising targeted on ousting Dickhauser was an attempt Keith made to suspend Clyde for speaking out against him and Scott Kinsey.  The issue originated when one of Clyde’s reps lost a huge sale due to it never being keyed by the clerical team, which was commonplace around the office.  Vincent went to bat for the sale and lost.

He wanted to at least get Clyde and his rep credit and payment on the deal, but it was a no go. Kinsey and Keith said the deal didn’t go live and the company realized no revenue so they could not pay it.  Vincent and Clyde argued that it was a morale thing and they could justify a payment on that alone.

Clyde continued to push the envelope and Dickhauser did not take kindly to it. Keith, flexing his political muscle, tried to twist Clyde’s words and hammered him with the accusation that Clyde was trying to get Keith to violate the company’s ethics code by paying a rep for unrealized revenue.  All Vincent and Clyde wanted Keith to do was lobby to get some kind of incentive payment for the rep, which was well within his ability, however Keith adamantly refused.

Keith went so far as to usurp Vincent from the process by conducting the threatening meeting with Clyde using Kinsey as a witness and Betty Cross as a note-taker. This was one of the many mysteries surrounding Keith, Kinsey and Danny Boyd; it was unclear why they refused to fix the problems that were so clearly damaging the department.  It was unclear why they would not lobby to pay someone for work they did.  It was ambiguous why they were nothing but a barrier for Vincent and the managers, who just wanted to get things done correctly.  It was almost as if they profited from the improper payment of sales personnel.

Clyde had friends in Human Resources, and hated the way Dickhauser made it sound like he “saved” Clyde when his previous project management job was surplused.  Clyde actually interviewed for a few jobs and his first choice was this one, but Dickhauser held it over his head that he had saved him by bringing him on board.  That was typical Keith; because he had scratched the backs of “The Boys” over the years, they were indebted to him and he never let them forget it.  They would do anything for him, mostly because he pressured them to feel like they had to.

From that event, Clyde organized what he referred to as “The Brotherhood,” which was several managers banding together against the Dickhauser regime of oppression with the intent of plotting his forced removal.  His intent was to drum up enough support to initiate an investigation that would result in Dickhauser’s downfall.  It was quite a plan; one that nearly everyone wanted to see come to fruition but most were terrified to kickstart.

One of Clyde’s former top reps, Frankie Rivera, sat to his left. He had gone through two stints as a rep for the department and a few months into his second he was tapped to be a manager.  Dickhauser had always liked Frankie and he was one of the few people Keith would actually listen to.

If there was a member of the team who was most embattled and beaten it was Steve Zimmerman, the next around the circle.  He was a hard worker but could not motivate a roomful of kindergartners to go to recess.  Steve was hired because of his prominent last name; his father sat on the board of directors of ABM.  He was still with the business because he had the good fortune of some high-quality reps over the years.  But his luck was about to run out.

Cathy Schumer was next; she was formerly a bartender and was very much into the music scene as she headlined a band of her own; someone who was good at putting up with the public and did a grand job as a rep getting customers on board with ABM advertising.  She was the most recently promoted and had taken over the former last place team when Vincent had to cut its manager loose.  And she had lifted them well over expectation in a short period of time, proving her mettle.

Next up around the circle was the life of the party: Johnny Slade and Cal Riley.  Johnny had been another of the most impressive reps the team had ever seen, to the benefit of Zimmerman, who often tried to claim he had created him (Johnny got a big kick out of that).  Johnny was one of the hardest closers in the game.  He was smart, diligent and ruthless.  Vincent had taken a liking to the guy upon first sight in the interview.  A product of some boiler rooms scattered across the country and several sales jobs, this guy was in line with what Vincent wanted in the business – a guy who would not back down.  He set all kinds of records in the division but was very outspoken about his problems with the department’s inadequacies in the commission and clerical realms which caused him to butt heads with lots of people.  Again, this made him right up Vincent’s alley. Though he disagreed with a lot that Vincent had to say his first year as a manager, Johnny rode the wave of some strong reps and did things his way.  His first year he was one of the top managers on the team and was lucky not to have to manage a lot of processes because his reps wanted to win badly enough that they took care of him.  Unfortunately, in year two he had a much different clan and they required a lot of babysitting.  As Johnny had not heeded Vincent’s advice in year one, he collapsed early in year two but was becoming better learning what it took to build himself back up.  Vincent had more respect for him now that he was learning through experience how to manage the processes that led to success.

Cal was Mr. Charismatic.  He brought the party.  He managed to accomplish more with a lesser skilled team than anyone in the business because he was crazy with energy, full of life and as flamboyant as it gets.  Cal had grown up in a small town in a broken family and had done most of the work in caring for his mother and sisters.  He was the first person in his family to make it.  Cal came into the company at 21 and was rough around the edges – not the most scholarly but he was more than willing to compensate with hard work.  He was introverted at first until he learned the ropes but once he started closing business and closing the ladies of the office he turned into a maniac on and off the phones.  Cal was the guy other guys envied and the ladies wanted.  He would walk into a bar or party and the females would flock to him.  He did not pay a lot of attention to reports and details but when it came to rallying the troops with sheer unbridled enthusiasm, he fit the bill better than most.

Finally, rounding out the round table was Dean Yamnitz, likely the most intelligent and well-spoken member of the team.  He had an MBA, was well traveled and Vincent wondered what on earth prompted him to apply for the rep job to begin with.  In fact, even at this point as a manager he was overqualified, but if climbing this corporate ladder made him happy, so be it.  Yamnitz was the polar opposite of Cal yet their teams were stationed next to one another’s (on purpose) to play off each other.  He was the straight-laced disciplinarian and student of statistics, well organized and analytical.  He had what Cal did not in the way of discipline and analytics while Cal had what he did not: the animation and the goofiness.  Dean had worked to become more of a driver in that capacity and it aided him on his climb to the upper echelon of the sales pack.

The top manager in the unit was Gina, but also near the top were Yamnitz and Clyde.  Cal was in the fourth slot followed by Sandberg and Haley.  Maria was coming on strong this year as well and she, along with Cathy were the brightest spots of the relative newcomers.

Vincent put the multiple reports at the end of the order and they began being passed around to all. “Good morning, team.”  Vincent led off.

“Good morning,” came the collective reply.  Some days he had to elicit another because the first was weak but lately, with the commotion in the air and this being the final sales day of a month, the response was upbeat.

“Scott, do you want to lead us off?” Vincent often deflected to Kinsey early so he could deliver whatever (often downbeat) message he had and he or Mark could bring the meeting home with a sales message at the conclusion.

“Sure.  Managers, as you saw on Friday we released the latest outstanding contracts report.  I know today is the last day of the month but we really need to get this cleaned up by Wednesday when the preliminary look at the next list is released.  I have the report split into two tabs.  One shows stuff from last week and the other shows stuff from before last week.  I will have bins set up outside my office for each set.  Danny, do you have anything?”

Boyd nodded.  “Yes, we have noticed that many of you are turning in multiple copies of contracts.  This is not going to help anything get keyed into the system more quickly.  Please refrain from this activity.”

A few managers looked away to control snickering or showing a reaction.  First, the “outstanding contracts” report was a catastrophe.  The managers received twice weekly looks at lists of contracts that were alleged to be missing.  Many of them had already been turned into the clerks at least once but still appeared on the report for reasons that no one had been able to pinpoint.  A lot of them had not been checked off, been misplaced and twice a missing contract was found in the bathroom after being turned in to the receiving clerk.

In short, the process and this report were disasters. The state of the clerical team was varying.  There were some who cared and were diligent.  There were others who shopped online during work hours, had the work ethic of a stuffed animal and were more interested in spreading the latest gossip than doing their jobs.  Others had vendettas against managers who had tried to turn them into Kinsey for their crimes of incompetence.  Kinsey did nothing to manage them nor did he want to implement any kind of measurement of work for them that would hold them accountable to do their jobs properly.  Why create more work for himself, right?

Unfortunately, Kinsey was where the buck stopped because he would not allow any management input on ways to fix the process, would not hold his employees accountable to do the work properly, and anything that was reported to him fell on deaf ears.  With Dickhauser wrapped around his finger, getting anything accomplished in the clerical world was a crapshoot; therefore, getting reps and managers paid properly was not something that happened often enough.  The troubling thing was that no one could quite figure out why this cluster at the top did not want to pay people properly and promptly. No matter what offers Vincent, Mark or the managers made to chip in, help out and help improve the process, they were rebuked like they had no idea what they were talking about.

All the while, Kinsey sold Dickhauser on the fact that all was right with the clerical world and that commission issues were a figment of everyone’s imagination.  He would give Keith some lengthy explanation using big words that went over his head and somehow convince him the managers or reps were mostly to blame for any gaffes in this area.

To Kinsey’s point, a chunk of commissions were paid properly and a majority of clerical functions were done properly.  The problem is, in a large sales environment, “a majority” does not cut it.  Large discrepancies make for unhappy people and when neither Kinsey nor Keith cared enough to fix the problems, the fallout fell on Vincent and the managers.  Not only that, but since no clerks suffered but the reps always did, it did not make for a healthy work environment.  Keith and Kinsey may have been able to slink into their closed offices or out the door early every day, but some unhappy managers had to deal with the regular fallout and it was not an enjoyable experience.

Scott Kinsey’s disdain for salespeople and his apathy towards people getting paid properly while he pocketed his $130,000+ per year were not well hidden.  His unwillingness to listen or care about what they had to say was the main thing people in the division took exception to.  That and the fact he was quick to put down and talk to people like they had no business even sharing the same Earth as he did.

Most people would not challenge him, but a few of the stronger managers and Vincent surely did. The reason contracts were turned in multiple times was, as Cal told Vincent just days before, “Dude, I’m going to keep turning that same contract in over and over until it comes off the report.  I’ve turned some of them in four times.”  It made Vincent chuckle but he certainly could not argue with the logic.  The process itself was anything but logical so Cal’s attempt to be a smartass may just be exactly what was needed.  Keith was going to scream at all of them and curse them out for the reports regardless, so they might as well attempt to finally get some of the contracts removed from this fictional report.

The managers’ philosophy was that with a company this size, why does it have such a hard time processing paperwork and why was it so difficult to pay people their hard-earned commissions?  In addition, when a rep made a mistake that cost them a sale, they suffered.  When a clerk made a mistake that cost the rep a sale, the rep suffered.  They were given no compensation for the sale in either their results or their wallets.  And that caused a big rift between management and commission folks.

In fact, Danny Boyd’s mere presence out there at this point was a testament to recent progress made from a war on clerical waged by Vincent just months before.  Danny was typically stationed downtown but after the war began, Dickhauser had to move Danny to Greenfield to try to fix the broken process. The vast majority of the reps in their division were part of an outbound operation in Greenfield, so Boyd was needed on premises address the catastrophe. Vincent’s antics had a way of getting things done for the multitudes of people and dollars he represented but this also attracted the deep resentment of those he waged war against.

Vincent had heard the pleas of the people for so long.  It had been the punchline to a long-stale joke: “Why should I sell anything when I’m not going to get paid for it anyway?” Vincent’s stance on management, just like being a rep, is to eliminate the excuses, eradicate objections and get rid of all obstacles.  When no excuse remains, there is no justification by the other party to not sell.  Of course, that is unless they were just lying to cover up their laziness, but this was a way to purge that behavior as well.  And if salespeople and managers claim they will not sell or cannot get motivated because they are not getting paid properly, Vincent can only hem and haw for so long about how if they sell above chargebacks they will never notice them.

When every single manager, even those at the top and those who never make excuses, comes to him with an issue, he must lend credence to it.  And he did.  And he made a huge dent in the problem because no one who should have would. After listening to one of his top reps go on a tirade in his office and confirming these issues with a couple of his trusted managers, Vincent decided to do the one thing no one had ever had the audacity to do – throw himself into the melee and show up Scott Kinsey’s refusal to fix their problems.

Vincent Scott decided to rid the division of all clerical and commission problems.  He sent an e-mail to the division soliciting perceived issues regarding clerical or commission questions.  He did not design it as an attack.  And it was not – it was coming to the aid of the reps and managers.  That, after all, was his job.  They were the ones making his money and he owed it to them to rid their world of this problem if he had the power to do so.

Vincent knew he was the only one who could or would. The problem with a lot of people in Corporate America is they are so consumed with fear of a poor reputation or not being liked by superiors that they just sit back and let themselves be flattened.  Vincent sees injustice and fights back, despite the damage it does to his reputation and career.  That is why some people greatly admire him even though they have too much trepidation to follow suit.  It is also why those on the receiving ends of his attacks are not fans of his work.

In this case, Vincent was flooded with problems from the team.  All they wanted was someone to care – it was such an astronomical problem that they did not expect it to be solved overnight. That said, Vincent going outside of his own job responsibilities to rally on their behalf and draw the ire of the clerical clowns was huge.

It would have been different if Kinsey would have shown some sympathy or willingness to help.  He did understand a lot of flaws in the process, but when someone was not getting paid properly a typical response was, “I understand your rep isn’t getting their full $11,000 commission check, but they are at least getting $6,000 so what is the problem? They should be happy.”

He consciously processed incorrect commission reports on a weekly basis and most of them did not have the time to do the research to prove him wrong.  Had he merely stood in front of the salesforce to say, “This is the problem and the people that need to know about it do know about it and I am going to stay on them until they fix it,” that sentence would have worked wonders.  But since he was not willing to say it, Vincent did.

Doing so earned him even more admiration.  It also earned him more haters. Danny Boyd had never enjoyed being a sales manager because of the actual work involved but he was relatively effective when it came to supervising organizational functions and putting processes in place that could theoretically work better than what was there.  After the shot across the bow from Vincent, Dickhauser started to take notice and brought Boyd in to help clean up some of the problem.

There were cartloads of hundreds of contracts sitting around that no one knew anything about until they slowly tried to make dents in them.  Clerks were losing contracts, making keying errors and no one was doing anything about it.  The process was deeply fractured.  Even if Vincent could not singlehandedly fix the process, he was the catalyst who could at least get the attention drawn to it necessary to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

“Betty?” Mark prodded, continuing the meeting.

“Yes,” Betty began, sifting through papers.  “The call grades that were due last Thursday are still missing from a couple of you.  Also, if you could have your observations finished and in the system for November by end of business tomorrow, you will be in compliance for the month.  That’s all I’ve got.”

There was no call grading and no call scoring until Vincent had suggested this concept based on his prior call center days in Rockford. A big part of being an evolving seller or sales manager is bringing forward concepts that worked in prior roles to yield success in the current one.

“Thanks, Betty,” Vincent stated.  He looked around the room and thought, Here goes.  “Team, here we are.  I don’t want you to look at it like the last sales day of a month.  I want you to realize there are 19 sales days left in this year.  Overall, it has been a solid year.  I want to thank Gina and Dean for leading us so far– both have already exceeded their annual objective.  Let’s hear it for them.” There was applause.

“This month has been a shortened one and I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday.  I hope it reminded you why you are here.  It did for me.  I bust my tail here to support my daughter and for the amazing payday we are going to get come March.  We go through a lot of nonsense and put up with a lot of craziness to make this place tick.  I appreciate wholeheartedly what you guys do.  I understand how difficult your job can be but it is about focus on a high level about what is important.”

Vincent scanned the crowd.  All eyes were attentive.

“We have focused this year on working smarter and not necessarily harder to accomplish our goals.  Being as efficient and productive and optimized as possible. Scaling to manage our team. Managing processes instead of people.  Holding people accountable and making them justify what they do.  Holding them accountable to do basic call flow items that are non-negotiable.  And we have gotten better at it.  Believe me when I say, ladies and gentlemen, this is the most talented team I have ever worked with.  I know I can ask for a lot of you some days but it is only because I love you and I want you to be the best you can be.  That is what you should want yourself.  Someday, if not today, you’ll look back and realize I had your best interests at heart.”

Vincent grabbed one of the pieces of paper in front of him. “Here is this month’s sales report.  As you can plainly see, we have some huge disparities between top and bottom.  Those of you at the top of the heap – Clyde, Dean, Cathy, Cal, Maria and Gina – are doing it in every category.  I’ve heard that these meetings seem redundant at times and you know what?  You are completely right.  I am pointing out a lot of the same things over and over again.  I am at a loss as to why we are not doing a more consistent job across the board of managing this process of conversion rates of our products.  I cannot understand why some of you have an uncanny ability to keep your people on the phones for the vast majority of the day and others of you have literally no control over your reps.  I myself cannot figure out why I have to repeat myself on a seemingly daily basis.  But rather than harp at you today, I’m going to open up the floor to the best in each category and let them talk about why they are where they are.  You hear enough from me.”

Vincent was elated to see some people looking up from their note scribbling or “coy” text messaging they would claim was note-taking and paying more attention than usual.  He was right.  Sales management is often about saying the same thing over and over until it finally sticks.  As long as you can look in the mirror knowing you did all you could for the person and they made the decision not to meet you halfway, you will be able to sleep that night.

“Maria, your team leads the pack on our search marketing programs.  How do you drive that behavior better than anyone else?” Vincent inquired.

“It’s about accountability,” she responded without hesitation.  “When they sell something without it, I make them call the customer back with me on the line.  I inspect their pitch-screen in the middle of a presentation to make sure their bundle includes it.  They know if they don’t sell it they have me to answer to. They’ll sell it just to avoid having to answer for not doing it.”

Vincent smiled.  “Great, thank you, Maria.  Clyde, your search results are booming all of a sudden.  Care to tell us why?” Vincent asked with a wry smile.

“Well,” Clyde began, returning the sardonic smile with one of his own, “after being passed over for monthly MVP honors multiple times, I realized I was going to have to if I ever wanted to win.”  The group laughed.  “Seriously, it was just another step in the process.  I have the reps report to me every pitch they make.  When search wasn’t included, I stayed on them about it.  They knew I was going to hammer them if they didn’t include it and it finally started to stick.  I guess they just got tired of hearing me talk about it.”

“Good answer,” Vincent chimed in.  “See, team, Clyde and Maria have been very clear with what they expect and have followed up to ensure their coaching is working.  Holding the team accountable for this basic component is all it takes.  They are working smarter and not harder by doing something minor that impacts every call their reps make.  When you sit with a rep, you impact one rep one call at a time.  When you do exercises like this, you impact every single call everyone makes going forward.”

Vincent glanced again at the reports in his hands. “Cal, your team is consistently at the top of our bundle conversion.  Why are they pushing this better than the rest?” Vincent asked.

“Well, you know we’re always going to do what we do,” Cal answered with authority in his voice.  “It gives us the capability to sell double the amount, these guys know it, and they get paid quicker.  So it’s good for them and they know I’m going to hound them when they don’t do it, so it’s just fun for the whole family.”

“Eloquently put, as always, Cal,” Vincent smiled.  “Bottom line, team, it just makes sense.  And when you see sales announcements that say the customer refused one or the other as part of the bundle – wrong answer!  We’ve got to get used to saying, ‘Mr./Mrs. Customer I hear what you’re saying, but all of the components I described are automatically included in our bundles for new customers.  Typically the price would be $X per month but because you are a brand new business I can discount it to $Y per month which, we’ve already established, is just 5 customers before the pure profit kicks in.  Now, let’s sign the papers.’  And yes, it’s that easy.”

Vincent looked again at the reports in his hands.  “Dean, your conversion of upgrading to programs including a website and selling into larger geography is off the charts.  What gives?” Vincent asked.

“For starters, Vincent, my authorization is required for any small geography sales before the contract can even be signed.  That shows I mean business on this category – they have to stop what they are doing and justify it to me before they can even sell it, so they like to bypass that step whenever possible so they don’t lose the customer.  Even though 60% still get sold in the small areas, it makes it a little painful and it makes them sell me on why they are advertising the less effective programs that are not truly indicative of where their customers do business.  The fact they are always thinking about it and pitching the bigger programs is in their heads has gone a big way in changing the behavior,” Yamnitz responded.  “As for websites, we all know it is paramount for any business to have one so we talk about this in each of our three daily stand-ups.  I think it is the repetition that drives the point home. Even if they have their own website currently, we can utilize this tool for tracking or for any kind of different vertical we want to market or even an e-commerce site. We just have to get creative.”

“I love it, Dean.  Team, you have carte blanche to run your team as you see fit.  Unless, of course, you aren’t hitting expectations and then you’d better believe Mark and I are going to put in two cents.  Or more, in my case.” The team chuckled.  “Dean has three daily stand-ups to keep a firm grasp on what’s going on, and he has taken it upon himself to mandate approval forms for something he wants to drive a behavior in.  Fantastic,” Vincent marveled.

Vincent turned to another page and held it up. “Okay, team, lastly it’s on to efficiency or, in some cases, lack thereof.  Gina, you are always best in show here,” Vincent observed.  “What words of wisdom can you impart on your peers to guide them in this area?”

“I’ve been doing this for 3 years now and I know the game.  These people may not like me but they know what happens if they can’t answer for their time.  I’m not in this business to make friends but I will help those who help me,” Gina said assertively.  “Let’s face it – some of you have to get past the popularity contest.  Some of you have to remember that this is your money and you are letting these reps ruin it for you.  Where are they going to be when you can’t make a house payment or buy your kid a Christmas present?  They don’t care.  So you have to keep them honest, keep them following the rules but at the end of the day squeeze every penny out of them you can. This report shows us plain and simple who’s on the phone and who’s not. If they’re not on the phone and they are not producing anything, why are we letting them get away with it? I’m not paid to babysit, but I sure as heck will make sure they are doing their job!”

Vincent could not help but grin.  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said.

“Seriously,” Gina said.  “Let’s all keep it real here.  Some of you are letting your people get away with murder.  Idle threats don’t get you anywhere.”

“You’ve got that right,” Vincent echoed.  “Gina, thank you for your candor.” They both laughed.  Gina had become the person Vincent used as an example on a lot of categories.  Her methods were rough sometimes, but she drove results.  During the year they were managers together they frequented each other’s cubicles to vent.  Even now as the area manager, Vincent made daily stops by Gina’s cube to vent and just discuss matters at hand.

“Before I turn it over to Mark I have one last thing to say.  As we close out a month and soon a year, let’s realize what our real challenge is.  We have to constantly reinvent ourselves in this game, constantly look for new challenges.  Some of you have mastered the job or gotten close.  Others of you have mastered one or two aspects and have several more to go.  Whatever the case may be, whatever you want your future to be, keep your eye on the prize and remind yourself every day that we are lucky to have what we have.  We are lucky to have this job, to have each other and to have at least a handful of people who want to make us some money.  Let’s get out there and get ours!”

The table cheered and Vincent signaled for Mark to take over.

“Good morning, team!” Mark boomed.

“Good morning!” came back the reply. “As usual, Vincent covered pretty much everything.  I’m just going to add a few points,” Mark stated.  “I want to thank a couple teams that posted over $1,500 in monthly revenue last Wednesday.” Vincent grimaced when Mark did this: thanking teams, reps or managers that did not hit what he had put out there as a much higher daily target.  These were rookie mistakes and he sometimes wished he was the only one running these meetings.

However, Mark occasionally did point out relevant information or something Vincent wished he had thought of.  But it was not often enough.

The table finished clapping for the top daily managers, the feel-good moment over. “We have a lot to accomplish today and I wanted to talk about the different lead sources we have going,” Mark continued.

Vincent blinked, cringing again.  They knew how to call the leads.  They knew what to say.  He had covered it a billion times before, written and sent scripts for each campaign and talked it in stand-up.  No matter what was said in these meetings, nothing struck home except the recognition and tough concepts.  Lead them off and leave them with bright spots but other than that you had to hit them with cold hard facts between the eyes. They were smart and they cared – showing them what to care about made a huge difference. Talking yet again about how to dial lead sources was not the way to go.

Mark was articulate and knowledgeable; he just was not adept at managing managers.  The managers liked him personally, they just looked to Vincent for most everything.  Vincent was able and willing to go to bat for the team against Dickhauser.  Mark would not.  Vincent jumped into action any time their sales or methods came under fire from other offices whose accounts they were borrowing and selling.  Mark would not.  The two of them were complete opposites and that was just the way it was.

Mark ended with a, “Let’s get out there and do it, team!”

“See you guys in Block 1 for an 8:30 stand-up,” Vincent announced. “Make it a great day, team!”

“Yeah!” Cal boisterously proclaimed, clapping his hands as everyone got up from the table and filed out.

Vincent had been here hundreds of time before, about to start a sales day by leading his troops into battle.

Being able to do this had been what he had wanted for so long.

He knew he probably had fewer days ahead in this office than behind, but he knew when he left, just as when he left the residential division that things would never be the same and he would be remembered fondly for the contributions he made.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 7: Judgement Day

Tuesday, November 30, 2009

The alarm from the cellular phone on the nearby table sounds the James Bond theme, signaling daybreak. Vincent ends the riff with the press of a button, blinks a few times and basks in the silence for a moment. He focuses his eyes, looks toward and takes a framed picture of his 2-year-old daughter Elizabeth from the table. Vincent smiles before kissing it and tossing aside the blanket.

Aside from several pictures of Elizabeth, movie posters adorn the walls. The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rocky IV, Top Gun, The Dark Knight, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and his favorite film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Vincent flips on the bathroom light and looks at his reflection in the mirror. The short blond hair is just slightly out of place; his face covered in the stubble of a few days’ growth. He sees the emotionless stare he has grown accustomed to seeing staring back.

The silenced cell phone already starts vibrating with incoming calls as soon as he nears the shower. These early morning calls are his managers running late, “sick,” hungover, pulled over, “in traffic” (behind a train – that was his favorite). It’s all just another metaphor for “I’m not at work when I’m supposed to be.”

The water pressure in the shower has never been enough, and the temperature fluctuates every time the faucet or toilet in the apartment above is touched. He hasn’t lodged a complaint.

The drive to work can be tedious through traffic and annoyingly long, but it is where some of the best ideas are born. Any time Vincent is left alone with his thoughts, his mind is aflutter with activity. The combination of music and ignoring most of the calls that keep his phone buzzing all morning are the only other constants.

Today is a critical day. Christmas comes once a year for the rest of the world, but the last day of any month is Vincent’s holiday. Not only that, but his department is caught up in a whirlwind of political chaos that only he can carry them through: the culmination of a huge ethics investigation of his current supervisor, Keith Dickhauser.

The drive to the Greenfield office was not all that bad in the wee hours of the day. Vincent made it a habit to get to work around 6:30 or 7 each morning, double-fisting a 24-ounce black coffee and 44-ounce Diet Coke. He was not a morning person but that combination could instill energy into a corpse. And the early hour meant little-to-no traffic as Vincent had little patience for it.

At 8 every morning, Vincent kicked off the day with a manager meeting. He used them to tout the prior day’s successes and follies and capitalize on the strategies for the day to come.

Any time prior to the meeting was spent getting work done in peace. When he is on the sales floor he is chased like a member of the Beatles; managers, reps, clerks alike ask him questions, seek his guidance on a number of items or just attempt small talk or flirtation with him. Before 8, none of these rampant distractions exist, hence his early arrival for the proverbial worm.

Vincent pulls into the dimly lit lot and heads to his parking spot. At this hour, the lot is barren. The next to arrive will be Scott Kinsey, the man responsible for the clerical and commission processes. He is another early riser, often compiling 60 work hours a given week. He has a penchant for guarding his job functions like a fortress and attempting to condescend to others like they are not remotely on his intellectual level. In Vincent’s case, that approach has led to some terse conversations between the two.

Vincent swipes his identification badge at the door, opens it and walks into the kingdom. He makes his way down the long corridor to the section of the building where his office resides.

Occasionally he will just stand quietly and still, gazing in wide wonder at what this represents: an office under primarily his jurisdiction that employed hundreds.

A department built on his considerable contributions, from hiring and training to coaching and developing and making decisions, writing processes and creating the structure that grew this division 450% in just a few short years.

No single person has more impact and influence on how the operations run than Vincent, for better or worse. His blood, sweat and tears have helped mold this into a top-flight arena for revenue.

That and the management team he has compiled. It feels like the Avengers or Justice League: the finest team of sales superheroes ever assembled. With the haphazard rule of the Keith Dickhauser administration, the team has seemingly held the ship together with rubber bands and duct tape. Time will soon tell if that ship will sink or sail in the aftermath of whatever outcome befalls their department.

Vincent sets his beverages on his secretary’s desk and retrieves his keys to unlock his door. Once open, he flips the switch and the light reveals an office showcasing little other than clutter and Elizabeth Scott. Between the walls and the desk, the office is adorned with 41 pictures of her in all.

Some say clutter is the sign of an ingenious mind. At least he knows where everything is. For everything he adds to the energy and sales arena, he lacks in patience or the ability to sit still. He has the hardest time forcing himself to sit down to put documents in a binder or organize a cabinet or do just about anything that takes time away from his passion of driving results.

Keith, quite the opposite, obsessed with tidiness, had finally given up on trying to get Vincent to conform to that organizational standard. Keith had abandoned getting Vincent to conform to a lot of things by this point. The confrontations those two had gone through over the 2 ½ years Vincent had worked directly for him had made one thing clear: Vincent had put himself in a position where he was so necessary to the operation that he could get away with things most people never could under Dickhauser’s rule.

While that was good for Vincent and allowed him wiggle room in fighting his many battles on his team’s behalf, it is not to say he can get away with anything. It was a delicate balance.

His first duties in the morning: creating the calling campaign schedule their auto-dialer will perform that day, compiling updated manager and rep sales reports with meticulous notes and recommendations and logging into the dialer to prepare the campaigns.

If either Vincent or Eric Aames, the IT guru who served as Vincent’s right-hand man were to depart, Greenfield’s advertising bureau as everyone knows it would be finished.

Vincent loved this part of his job. He enjoyed numbers and statistics and watching the “untouched” lead counts change and the close rates and answer rates.

He enjoyed making conclusions from the madness and utilizing the information to formulate a plan of attack – when to call which campaigns during a given day or month. He had created his own position through ingenuity and the fact Keith had no idea what it took to run the center only made the path to his rise more clear. Keith had no idea of everything Vincent did in a given day.

Vincent, now seated and mid dialer recycle to prep the leads for the day’s calling, clicked the button on his phone to begin play of his voicemails. The voice of Agnes Landry, the employee ethics investigator assigned the Dickhauser case, came on the speakerphone.

“Vincent, this is Agnes again. Lydia and I received the files you sent. We are getting ready to close out the case and have just a couple people left to call. You mentioned appraisals you were forced to change and documentation that Keith falsified in order to terminate an employee. Please send any supporting documents on that and anything else you may have pertinent to the case. And remember to keep this in strictest confidence. Thank you again for your help.”

Vincent sat in silence for a moment, thinking again about what he was caught up in. He opened his e-mail and located his personal folders, locating the files Agnes had requested on Dickhauser. With clinical detachment, he forwarded them.

Then, like clockwork, the cell phone rang—7:15 a.m. sharp. He stared at the caller ID and sighed. Of course.

“Hello?”

“What’s up?” came the familiar gravel of Keith Dickhauser, gruff and careless, emotionless until provoked.

“Prepping the dialer and running the reports,” Vincent said. “Today’s going to be big.”

“Good. I got #@$% up last night. Too much vodka. Did you go out?”

Vincent barely blinked. “No.” He’d grown numb to these openings—Keith’s conversational left hooks out of nowhere.

“Have you heard any more about the investigation?”

“No, nothing,” Vincent lied smoothly. “They probably don’t want to talk to me.”

He deflected with ease. Not just because he had to—being part of an active investigation came with strict silence—but because he had already committed to the course of action. There was no going back. The cards were in motion.

“Well, let me know if you hear anything,” Keith said, paranoia slipping through the cracks. “I can’t figure out which one of these #@$%! managers is trying to tear me down. There are enemies among us. We can’t trust anyone.”

“I understand. I’ll keep you posted.”

“I’ll be there a little before 8. Are you having a stand-up?”

“Yes.”

“You meeting with these idiot managers at 8?”

“Yeah. Going over the conversion rates and efficiency for November, and goals for December. Since it’s a short month, I’m opening the floodgates on the best leads tomorrow instead of waiting two weeks. I’m sure they’ll be pleased.”

“Good. Remember—our only problems are management problems. Don’t be too easy on them.”

And then—click. No goodbye. Never a goodbye.

Vincent sat for a second in silence. His phone still pressed to his ear even after the line went dead. The call, like Keith himself, always left a stain.

Dickhauser wasn’t all monster. He could be thoughtful in flashes—sending flowers for a funeral, footing the bill for team dinners, remembering obscure personal facts. But his time had come and gone. A dinosaur, wandering into a tech-fueled jungle with no map and no clue. He still believed in the sacred power of the print ad. Still believed sales happened over scotch at lunch. Still believed he could bark his way to loyalty.

But this division—this team—wasn’t following him. They were following Vincent.

It had started as a joke in 2005 to the old guard, this “cleanup crew” calling on dead accounts and rejected clients. There were zero expectations. But Vincent, through pure grit and methodical brilliance, had turned it into the company’s gold standard. He was a general who had built his own army and taught them to win.

He finished compiling his reports—color-coded, hyper-analyzed, drilled to surgical precision. To him, metrics weren’t just numbers. They were messages. They were maps. They were mirrors. His team didn’t just see where they stood—they saw what they were capable of.

That was the thrill. Not control, but clarity. Not orders, but insight. He didn’t scream or threaten. He sold. He sold the team on who they could be.

And it worked.

He prepared the leads for the day like a chef prepping a Michelin-star kitchen before dinner service. Each list was a curated masterpiece—optimized, cleansed, ready. It was science, art, instinct. The dialing machine purred like a dragon he had tamed. This was his domain.

As he loaded up the reports for his 8:00 a.m. meeting, he grabbed his old leather binder—the same one from his first day at ABM—and felt a rare flicker of nostalgia. The building had changed, the people had rotated out like cast members in a long-running soap opera, but the war was the same. Selling. Leading. Surviving.

He stepped into the conference room like a knight entering the court. At the round table sat lieutenants, rookies, skeptics, survivors. He took his seat at the head of it all—binder open, coffee steaming, gaze sharp.

This was his arena. His battlefield. His kingdom.

And it was game time.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 6: Breaking Points and Battle Lines

Heading into 2009, Vincent Scott promised himself one thing: he would be cool, calm, and collected. No more emotional roller coasters. No more wasted effort on people who didn’t reciprocate. He had finally made peace with the truth: whatever lingering illusions he’d harbored about love, loyalty, and lasting connections were just that—illusions. His heart still bore the scars of the past, especially the long and winding saga with Autumn Westwood and the revolving door of others who made big promises but were only out for themselves.

While his personal life frayed at the seams, Vincent found renewed purpose in the grind of work.

So when January rolled around, Vincent was already armed with a plan. He unveiled a new dialing strategy to Keith and Mark: tackle the coldest leads first.

“Let’s put ourselves behind the 8-ball on purpose and then let them loose on the best leads when they are hungriest. They’ll tear them apart,” Vincent told them.

Keith was skeptical. Vincent insisted. They made a deal: if he hit objective, the schedule would stand—and Keith would owe him a monthly phone call declaring him a genius.

Vincent didn’t just hit objective. He crushed it. Months at 130% became the new standard. Keith, ever reluctant, made the calls—some late, some reluctant—but they were made. Vincent relished them all.

Then came the customer research team, a group that had floundered under Haley Jones and struggled to meet even 70% of their objective. Facing dissolution, Vincent stepped in, offered to take them under his wing. Haley protested, claiming Vincent was nothing but a gunslinger. But the moment he took over, they exceeded 114% in month one, 140% in month two.

He didn’t come in swinging changes. He listened. Sat at their desks. Asked for their feedback. Incorporated their input. That was leadership.

On January 14, with the team wallowing at 47% of goal, Vincent gathered everyone for a stand-up.

“Today is the first day of the rest of our month,” he proclaimed. Then, with a flourish, he let a stack of papers fly into the air. “Let’s not dwell on what didn’t happen. Let’s focus on what’s still possible.”

And with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” blasting through the office as he pranced around with a boombox to the delight of the floor, the sales team roared back to life. They posted 312% to daily objective that day even on subpar quality leads. That was Vincent’s magic.

But the victories came with a price. The politics. The gaslighting. The hypocrisy. Vincent’s results were undeniable, but so was the animosity he faced from those in power. His name was whispered in rumors—often outlandish, always untrue. He was denied credit, denied accolades, and watched in disbelief as MVP awards went to others with lesser impact.

With the news out in the open that he had fathered a child with a former employee, even though they were not in the same hierarchy, and he had occasionally dated other co-workers against his better judgement, people took potshots to slander his name when they could. Vincent was not disciplined enough yet to just let it slide.

Behind closed doors, Keith would throw him scraps of praise. “You’re the smartest guy I’ve met in 27 years.” But in public? Silence. Worse than silence: deflection.

The months wore on. The strain bled into his bones. At night, with vodka in hand, Vincent questioned if he belonged in Corporate America at all. He couldn’t turn a blind eye to incompetence. He couldn’t stomach watching his reps suffer from clerical errors and mismanagement while leadership turned a deaf ear. He couldn’t fake indifference. He wasn’t built that way.

And then came the gut punches: the snubs, the lies, the power plays. Autumn, revealing she was serious with her new flame. The endless battles with Keith. The anonymous attacks and HR complaints manufactured by bitter rivals like Scott Kinsey when Vincent would stand up to their defunct clerical process that cost his reps sales commissions.

But still, Vincent stood.

In one defining moment, he wrote a department-wide email addressing the rampant commission errors. He demanded accountability, vowing to investigate every complaint personally. The sales floor erupted in applause. He was summoned to Keith’s office for insubordination.

“What the #@$! did you just do?” Keith snarled.

Vincent didn’t flinch. He laid out his reasoning with cool, calm logic. He wrapped the reprimand around his finger like a seasoned pitcher curving a strike. The goal wasn’t to make enemies. It was to force change.

The floor cheered. The managers rallied. Vincent had drawn a line in the sand.

As summer turned to fall, he endured even more slings and arrows. He was betrayed again and again by those who saw him not as an asset but a threat. They tried to erase him, undermine him, silence him.

But Vincent wouldn’t be silenced.

He hit goal. Every. Single. Month. And not by a little bit.

When June’s morale dipped, he hit 120%. When July came, he broke the department record again. Even as Keith plotted against him. Even as he was made to fire his friend Chad under false pretenses. Even as clerks continued to fumble contracts and clerical manager Scott Kinsey scoffed at accountability. Even as HR, in a kangaroo court, tried to rebuke him for calling out underperformance with the word “damn.”

Even then, Vincent held the line.

He faced every meeting with steely eyes. Every slight with a steel spine. And when he walked out of that HR call, told he would not be punished and that the managers had overwhelmingly backed him, he knew: they could talk about him. They could try to break him. But they couldn’t replace him.

And then, the resistance.

It began as whispers in corners. Nervous glances exchanged over coffee machines and cryptic side conversations between exhausted managers who had grown too weary of smiling through clenched teeth. But to Vincent Scott, the silence before the storm was deafening. The reckoning was coming. And finally, a day he had quietly longed for had arrived.

The managers that reported to Vincent informed him they were finally plotting to overthrow Keith Dickhauser.

The first domino had been Clyde Barton. Long a target of Keith’s misplaced scrutiny and passive-aggressive assaults, Clyde had taken more abuse than most.

His numbers were always strong—his team generated 20 to 30 more sales than anyone else’s month after month. But that was never enough. Keith fixated on Clyde’s contract issues, accusing him of negligence, weaponizing out-of-context chargeback data, and even attempting to suspend him. And when Clyde stood up for his team, for himself, Keith retaliated.

Clyde was done playing defense. And he wasn’t alone.

Fueled by rage and a deep-seated loyalty to his team, Clyde began building a quiet rebellion. He started talking to those who had reason to hate the tyrant in charge. Gina Baker, George Flaker, even the usually guarded Randall Darwin and Helen Johnson. Each had their own scars. Racially motivated reprimands, gender discrimination, dismissals of valid ideas, and a general atmosphere of intimidation. The fire spread quickly.

Vincent, of course, could not be seen anywhere near the charge. His history with Keith—and with HR—made that too dangerous. But everyone knew: Vincent was the key. He had the receipts. Documents. Emails. Voicemails. Firsthand accounts of document falsification and manipulation of legal paperwork. If what Clyde had dubbed the Brotherhood was going to succeed, Vincent’s information would be the sword they wielded.

The plan grew in whispers and sideways glances. Meetings over breakfast, beers at the bar, side huddles in Vincent’s office behind a closed door. The network of resisters expanded, excluding only those deemed unsafe or loyal to Keith—like ultra-corporate Dean Yamnitz, newcomer Cathy Schumer, Steve Zimmerman, or Mark Rogers’ best friend, Adam Sandberg. The old guard—Danny Boyd, Betty Cross, Scott Kinsey—remained in Keith’s pocket and would not be trusted.

September ended with bitter frustration. Vincent’s team, despite everything, still hit 110% of their target, but it was the worst performance of the year. Keith’s meddling and incompetence had cost them: forcing them to dial and redial paltry leads because of his internal political affiliations and what overwhelmingly appeared as an attempt to tank the business a bit and pay out less commissions.

Vincent had dutifully submitted over fifty commission and clerical complaints directly to Keith, Kinsey, and Danny Boyd—all ignored. In silent defiance, Vincent began forwarding them to Terry Fontana, the Chief Union Steward. If management wouldn’t act, maybe the union would.

October brought fury and fatigue. Vincent doubled his usual coaching workload, conducting four monitoring sessions daily. He cracked down on reps gaming the system, called out laziness in open forums, and delivered raw, honest feedback with a passion that bordered on desperation.

And yet, Keith continued his sabotage.

He launched irrelevant direct mail campaigns, scheduled unnecessary product retraining that pulled sales reps off the phones for considerable amounts of time with zero ROI, and threw managers into non-revenue-generating corporate projects. At every turn, he seemed determined to tank their results. Why? Was there a benefit to paying far less commissions and making more gravy on the margins he was after?

Vincent fought to stay composed, forced to “sell” his managers on the importance of the distractions even as he knew it was all madness. And they knew he knew.

The tipping point came when Keith scheduled mandatory training for the second quartile reps during the week Vincent planned to roll out the warmest leads—the most profitable of the year. Despite all of Vincent’s warnings, Keith forged ahead. Then came the voicemail.

Vincent had called Keith to plead his case. Keith didn’t answer. Hours later, a voicemail landed:

“Vincent, this training is not an option. I don’t give a #!@$ if the managers think they need it or not. $@!# them. They don’t know what the %$#! they’re doing anyway. I don’t care what leads we’re calling. Have a schedule ready to roll out tomorrow.”

Vincent played the voicemail for the Brotherhood. That was it. The final straw. The managers, if they still harbored any hesitation, were now all in. Keith Dickhauser had to go.

October closed at 124% of goal. Vincent’s team had survived, but not unscathed. The scars were mounting.

Meanwhile, a strange twist emerged. Autum Westwood—now in the job market for something more lucrative—was being offered a job back in the department by none other than Keith, who acted like he was doing Vincent a favor. Vincent was skeptical, rightfully so. But Keith, perhaps to curry favor or to destabilize Vincent’s focus, hired her anyway as part of the clerical staff.

Vincent’s focus, however, was razor-sharp.

He pushed forward with November, eliminating low-end products from their offer strategy, granting sales reps closed time to resolve issues, and launching a comparative report showing inbound versus outbound team results. The delta was staggering. Vincent lobbied to finally gain access to the downtown inbound team as it was clear that they were nowhere near their potential.

When he did gain some access to that team, it became immediately clear what the issue was: zero accountability, zero coaching. They acted like they were elite when they were lazy. Vincent implemented changes within days. He installed call recorders, re-trained managers, and introduced real-time coaching. In his presence, the team performed. In his absence, they faltered.

The Brotherhood saw this as their window.

With Keith and Mark downtown one day, Clyde and Jimmy Sander, two of Vincent’s managers, made anonymous ethics calls from Vincent’s office. Their testimonies were damning, detailing years of harassment, falsified documents, racism, sexism, and retaliatory behavior.

The dominoes began to fall fast. One by one, investigators reached out to managers. Vincent knew his call was coming and he had to make the decision to play safe and side with Dickhauser, or risk it all for what was right.

And when the call came—from Agnes Landry who headed HR—he unleashed four years of pent-up anguish. Emails, voicemails, incidents, manipulation, abuse. It all came pouring out.

Agnes asked him what he thought the result should be.

“This department is worth saving,” Vincent said. “But not with Keith. I won’t tell you to fire him. Maybe he has value elsewhere. But if he stays here, we are doomed. He has to be removed. And while I’m not saying this to be self-serving, I believe the team would tell you I’m the only logical replacement. Regardless, I’ll serve however I’m needed.”

Those loyal to Keith told him the calls were going around, which put Vincent in a pickle.

Still, Vincent maintained his poker face. He hadn’t received the call yet, he told Keith. Just a routine check-in, he said.

And as Autumn started working around Vincent again, they began seeing each other more frequently and spending time with their daughter as a family.

November 2009 stormed forward. Sales boomed. Confidence swelled. And the rumors, thanks to Agnes’s best friend Helen, whispered of Keith’s imminent reassignment. A staff job. A harmless post. Powerless. The Brotherhood had won.

The Department of Sales would not fall. Not on Vincent’s watch.

And the name Keith Dickhauser would soon be nothing more than a cautionary tale whispered in hallways. The Brotherhood had risen. And they were told they had prevailed.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 5: The Ascent & the Avalanche

By the spring of 2006, Vincent Scott stood like a conductor at the center of a rising symphony, orchestrating what felt like his magnum opus: the rapid rise of the ABM Online Division. The hiring boom gave him power, control, and a chance to build something from the ground up.

Though Derek Walters still sat at the top of the food chain, it was Vincent who decided who stayed and who went. He also had the pick of the litter of his top reps from his old office, who left that sinking ship to flock to Vincent as quickly as they could.

One particular new hire stood out: On April 11, Vincent met and hired Autumn Westwood for the class starting April 24. He noticed her immediately—young, striking, full of life and potential. She was dangerously charismatic, and Vincent felt a strong flutter of attraction. He had not been in a serious relationship since Julie in 2002, and though Autumn would not report in Vincent’s hierarchy, their subsequent mostly under-the-radar dating would still have been frowned upon by powers that be.

On Mother’s Day, he’d made a quick trip to Mankato to surprise his parents Kay and Vince Jr., bringing his mother gifts and taking her to lunch. But on the way back, his phone rang. It was his mother.

“Vincent? It’s your Dad. He had a heart attack.”

Vincent turned around and headed straight to the Mankato hospital. A stent was being put in. The timing had saved him. It could have ended differently. Too easily.

Vincent held his father’s hand. “I love you, Pops.”

The hospital became his world for three days. Hundreds poured in to see the legendary Vince Jr.—former water softener manager, golf board member, community pillar. Vincent sat by his mother, watched his father grow thinner, quieter, more fragile. Then came the triple bypass.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis called him back.

Vincent returned to a team that thrived because of him. Nicknames from superheroes, airhorns, email blasts with sales announcements. His floor was electric. Loud. Fearless. Vincent made work feel like an arcade: a place of battle, fun, and glory. The team produced numbers that astounded.

When Derek was summoned by the field office, the opportunity came knocking. Most managers ducked. Vincent leapt. He owned sales tracking, direct mail campaigns, labor meetings, mentoring programs, everything. He made himself indispensable. Keith Dickhauser started bringing him to lunch, talking about the company’s future—and Vincent’s.

He assumed the position and jumped in to do whatever he could to support leadership.

As others noticed, they clung to him like groupies. Training classmates like Chad, Jimmy, Sahim—and Autumn—followed him to lunch, to happy hours, to bars like Finley’s. Booze flowed, bravado swelled, egos flared. It was intoxicating.

By October, his team was nearly 300% to goal.

Times were high for a change after the health scare of his father subsided. Vincent was on top of his game in all areas—the sales arena was his, he was dating a beautiful girl and his star was on the rise. He knew he had to lap up all the success because it is always only a matter of time before the bottom falls out.

Saturday morning, December 30, he was playing video games on a week where the office was closed for the holidays. His cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Vincent?” Autumn said with an odd tone in her voice.

“Yes?”

“I have something I need to tell you.”

“Okay…” There was a pause.

“I’m pregnant.”

Vincent’s professional life and his bachelor ways flashed before his eyes.

The end of 2006 was unforgettable.

Vincent Scott closed the year as a bewildered father-to-be and at 233% to objective—a performance so dominant it shocked even his harshest critics into silence.

But celebration was short-lived. With the arrival of 2007 came a grueling 60% hike in targets and the gut-punching news that Vincent was losing his top five reps to a newly formed inbound team.

The sting wasn’t just the loss. It was who got them. Mark Rogers—who had finished at 87% to goal the year prior, a full 146 points behind Vincent—was handed the high-potential squad along with Danny Boyd. Dickhauser claimed it was due to their systems expertise. But everyone knew the truth: Mark was Keith’s golden boy. Favoritism wasn’t just alive—it was institutional.

Vincent felt the injustice in his bones. But he didn’t retreat. That wasn’t his style. He had never used excuses. While other managers folded and rationalized failure with vacations, turnover, and lack of new blood, Vincent remained unshakable. Even when knocked down, he clawed his way back to the top the only way he knew how. Back to basics, relentless fundamentals, hard work and flat-out execution.

Yet under the surface, emotions spiraled. Was Autumn the one? Was he ready? Could this derail his career? Keith Dickhauser had been really clear he did not want Vincent fraternizing with the salesforce and he had now committed the cardinal sin.

As February arrived, expansion plans for the organization accelerated. The team was outgrowing the 11th floor in the downtown ABM citadel, and Derek was tapped to lead a sister center. Keith would interview for his replacement.

This was his shot.

He prepared obsessively: charts, schedules, management tactics, ideas to uplift the entire division. He printed documents. Created presentations. Delivered confident strategy. Betterment committees, new reports, leadership methods—all part of his pitch. He nailed it.

Vincent and Autumn decided she would quietly leave the company to pursue her medical degree so she would not end up in an eventual Vincent Scott employee hierarchy, and her sacrifice helped him tremendously on the path to stardom.

After years of clawing, bleeding, and battling against the tides, Vincent Scott had his empire.

One year to the day since his arrival, Vincent had ascended.

As the year progressed, he took on more and more. There were unexpected challenges with the Vincent-Autumn relationship regarding finances and insurance and they hit troubled times.

Then came the anxiety for Vincent. Panic attacks while driving.

Keith piled on. Screamed about rep cubicles and paperwork. Blamed Vincent for manager and sales rep missteps. Accused him of ruining the department’s foundation. Yet Vincent was doubling revenue. Launching new processes. Coaching reps. Innovating daily. He was holding the weight of the business on his back. The business was dramatically climbing but Keith was an obsessive micromanager who belonged in the 1980’s.

Vincent Scott—a man who had willed himself to victory time and time again—was nearing his breaking point.

He had climbed. He had conquered. Now, he was beginning to drown.

On Monday, August 27, Vincent began a long-awaited week of vacation. Autumn was due to deliver that Wednesday. But, as fate would have it, she had plans of her own.

That morning, Vincent and Autumn were awakened by a gentle nudge and a sentence that would forever change their lives.

“I think it’s baby time,” Autumn whispered, eyes wide with equal parts excitement and uncertainty.

Vincent, still half-asleep, blinked. “For real?”

“I think so,” Autumn said. “The contractions feel like what they described. They’re about ten minutes apart.”

Vincent nodded and sprang into action. “Then let’s go. If it’s not the baby, they’ll tell us. But we’re not risking anything.”

They grabbed the hospital bag and climbed into Vincent’s Accord, speeding toward the hospital. Initial tests around 7:30 AM showed that Autumn wasn’t yet dilated enough, so they were instructed to walk the parking lot. After a lap or two and an uptick in contractions, she was admitted by 9:00 AM.

At 7:51 PM, Elizabeth Marie Scott entered the world—7 pounds, 20 inches long, with soft blondish-red hair that mirrored Vincent’s baby photos. His parents, Vince Jr. and Kay, teared up upon seeing her. She was breathtaking.

Seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, holding her in his arms—that was oxygen for Vincent. That was life.

While becoming a Dad was the best thing that had ever happened to Vincent, it was only a matter of months before Vincent and Autumn called it quits. Unfortunately, the split was not amicable, and they lawyered up.

Vincent dealt with the catastrophe in unhealthy ways. When he had Elizabeth 50% of the time, he was Super-Dad and 100% devoted to her. But when he didn’t, he was at the casino, partying and doing everything he could to drown out his sorrows.

He fell in with partying with his managers and reps as well because he was a workaholic, and this did nothing to help his reputation with senior leadership. Furthermore, most of the people who became magnets to Vincent only wanted him to promote and favor them.

He would face the heat from upper management about the fratboy image of the leadership team and he would own it while giving uplifting, accountable speeches to his team. But behind the curtain, Vincent was breaking down. That afternoon, he closed his office blinds, sat breathless, and cried for the first time in years. He had reached his physical and emotional limit.

Keith Dickhauser’s tyranny continued. When Hurricane Ike ravaged Houston and Vincent diverted reps from harassing business owners, Keith exploded. Vincent stood up to him, was screamed at and cursed out by this pathetic excuse for a leader.

Vincent didn’t back down. He rallied the floor, sent the email explaining they were calling into disaster zones per leadership orders, and braced for the fallout.

From late 2008 into 2009, he was still the backbone of the department. But Keith, true to form, became more insidious. He conspired with legacy district managers, sending Vincent’s team useless leads as a favor to people who owed him, costing the company revenue but securing political capital. The department was proven to be short-changing the sales reps’ commissions and not doing anything to fix the broken processes. And on the horizon was a huge showdown and seismic event that would forever shape Vincent Scott.

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 4: The Great Escape

There are few things more maddening than knowing you need to leave a place but feeling trapped in it. Vincent Scott had reached that point. He was like a thoroughbred forced to run laps in a kiddie corral—too big for the space, too bold for the pace. It wasn’t just the toxic air of favoritism or the maddening politics anymore. It was knowing in his bones that he had outgrown this chapter and if he didn’t turn the page soon, it might close on him for good.

The rise of Dick Knoll, hand-picked and handed the reins because of his close ties to leadership and unwavering obedience, felt like a slap in the face. Shelly Cheekwood’s ironclad rule, driven more by smoke breaks and petty gossip than metrics, further distorted the picture. And of course, there was Dana “The Saw” Warsaw—a corporate terminator whose numbers-first approach left a trail of bodies far longer than resumes.

Vincent’s personal life offered an escape valve: late nights filled with laughter, pool sticks cracking balls, jokes flying between Jeff, Cliff, Jay, Danny, and Ted. But even that camaraderie only masked the tension, didn’t erase it. He was dying on the inside, waiting for the right escape route. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

He had applied to eighty-five roles. Sales manager. Account executive. District director. Online strategist. You name it. He applied like it was a second job. Most roles never called back. A few gave him generic rejection emails. The rest? Ghosts.

Then came the call.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005. His desk phone rang. Local number. Rare.

“ABM, this is Vincent.”

“Yes, is this Vincent Scott?”

“Yes, it is. How can I help you?”

“This is Keith Dickhauser. Director of Sales for ABM’s Online Advertising Unit. I posted a requisition online that you recently applied for.”

Vincent played it cool. He had no idea which job this was, but danced through the conversation like a seasoned politician. As Keith invited him to lunch at an Italian place in Greenfield, Vincent would’ve said yes even if the location was in the Temple of Doom.

The next day at Francesco’s, the two men hit it off. Keith was direct, probing, and curious. He even asked taboo questions—age, religion—but Vincent didn’t flinch. He answered with honesty and conviction. Keith was impressed.

“Do you have any other questions?” Keith asked, sliding his credit card into the checkbook.

“Yeah,” Vincent replied, a sly grin forming. “When should I tell my current boss I’m reporting to you?”

Dickhauser burst out laughing, a belly laugh that would become a regular sound in the years ahead. But reality quickly tempered the moment. Keith explained the hiring process, the other candidate, and the possibility that Vincent might have to wait.

Wait he did.

A week later, Keith called back. No offer. Not yet. Maybe Q1 of 2006. Vincent was disappointed but not defeated. The flame had been lit. Now he had to endure the smoke.

Back at the Rockford call center, things remained upside-down. His team was crushing expectations. Phil and Lucy? Drowning. Vincent’s results were undeniable, yet he received no praise—only scrutiny. Upper leadership investigated his calls, convinced something shady had to explain his success. But he was clean. Always was.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma City and other markets built “Dream Teams”—hand-picked rosters of the best reps fed the best sales calls. These elite units were created to hit the unattainable 100% commission target. The catch? Unless a team hit 100%, they got zero. Only 3% of managers company-wide qualified. Most faltered.

But not Vincent.

He didn’t have a Dream Team. He had misfits. The ones Shelly deemed unworthy. And yet, in December 2005 and January 2006, Vincent’s team ranked in the top four out of 115 units. The only teams ahead of him were those fake Frankenstein super-squads. It was like watching a lone Spartan outfight entire armies. And they still refused to reward him.

When Vincent proposed a bold idea—to take 52 of the 78 reps in all of Rockford and let Lucy and Phil split the rest—he wasn’t just being strategic. He wanted to out-lead Dick, who managed 51 with help. Vincent wanted to take 52 solo. It was audacious. It was Vincent.

Dana and Shelly countered: he could only be considered if he terminated someone using their “call flow” system. Translation? Embrace their flawed leadership method. Vincent refused. His principles wouldn’t let him. He’d taken 37 castoffs to the top of the charts. He didn’t need shortcuts. He needed out.

That hope came with the Dallas trip. The entire division convened, and Vincent decided to exit with grace. He laughed, he bought drinks, he charmed those who had been trained to despise him. He even made peace with Dick Knoll. Smiled. Shook his hand. Spoke to Dana Warsaw with poise. It was all by design. He was going out on top.

And then, it happened.

Keith Dickhauser called. Effective March 1, 2006, Vincent Scott was being promoted to lead a team of advertising consultants in ABM’s new online division. The five-year sentence in the call center had ended. Vincent had finally broken out of the dungeon.

The last two weeks flew by. Vincent tied up reports, said goodbye to the few who mattered, and watched as Shelly made one final political move—promoting Peter Swansea over Jeff Mason, Vincent’s clear protégé and the best candidate by far.

It didn’t matter.

On his last day, Vincent Scott walked out of the building that had given him his first real taste of sales success. He left behind the heartaches, betrayals, and battles. But he also carried with him the wisdom of every call, the grit of every rejection, and the fire of every fight.

He had survived the system without selling out.

He had taken the high road and still reached the summit.

And now, he was headed into uncharted territory with only one certainty: he was just getting started.

Vincent Scott thought he had seen it all. He had clawed his way to the top of a corrupt residential sales division, dodged knives in his back while lifting others up, and exited in a blaze of quiet glory. But nothing could have prepared him for the overwhelming wave of imposter syndrome that hit him when he stepped into the towering citadel of ABM’s Minneapolis headquarters.

It was March 1, 2006. A date etched into his mind not as the start of a new job, but as the true beginning of his second act. The first time he entered the ABM skyscraper, he felt like an actor walking onto the set of a high-budget corporate thriller. The marble floors, the echoing footfalls of executives, the smell of Starbucks and status — this wasn’t Rockford. This was the major leagues.

Vincent wore his best suit, but he still felt underdressed. These people had spent their careers in marketing, knew the product inside and out, and spoke a different language. He, by contrast, was a master of residential bundle flips and statistical illusions, not digital advertising or CPMs.

But he walked into the fire willingly.

The assignment was on the eleventh floor. After navigating the parking garage and meeting Roy the security guard, Vincent took the elevator up and wandered until he arrived at a glass-paneled office. It was empty, save for the trickle of new faces wandering through. Eventually, Derek Walters arrived. A married father of two, recently returned from a stint at a competitor, and now poised to helm the newly birthed ABM Online.

Derek was stoic. No-nonsense. A man who didn’t smile unless it was calculated. His poker face rivaled a statue, and his praise, if ever given, was always directed at those he hired himself. Alongside Derek was Keith Dickhauser, the loud, theatrical architect of the division—a man who thrived on being the center of attention in every meeting but rarely said anything useful.

Derek had the vision. Keith had the volume. Together, they were building something new.

Vincent was their top draw, or so they claimed. And now he was tasked with helping them scale from 10 reps to 100 in a matter of weeks. He was to be the first face every candidate met—the gatekeeper.

“Don’t mess around with the help,” Keith barked suddenly.

Vincent blinked. “Come again?”

Keith smirked. “You heard me. Don’t get involved with the girls. I don’t need the distraction.”

Vincent gave a tight nod, still stunned. “Understood.”

He started interviewing candidates that very afternoon. Baptism by fire. Derek trusted his judgment, and within days, Vincent was vetting dozens of potential hires. He also had a lot of the top Rockford sales reps who followed him like the Pied Piper.

It was time for Vincent to build his empire.

🔥Exactly How I Took 19 Sales Teams to #1🔥 And Why I’d Do It All Again the Same Way

Exactly How I Took 19 Sales Teams to #1

An inside look at what it really takes to create a culture of belief, consistency, and unstoppable momentum.

If you ask someone how they took one sales team to #1, you’ll get a list of tactics. If you ask how they took nineteen sales teams to #1, the answer changes.

It becomes less about a formula and more about a philosophy. Less about management and more about movement. Because winning consistently across different teams, regions, cultures, and climates requires something deeper than just KPIs and leaderboards.

When I reflect on how I led 19 sales teams to the top at companies like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Microsoft, I don’t think about quotas or dashboards first. I think about people. I think about how I made them feel. I think about how I showed up for them every day. And I think about how we built something together that went far beyond sales performance.

Here’s how I did it—and how I’d do it again.

Start With Nothing But Listening

When I walked into a new leadership role, I didn’t bring a blueprint. I brought a notepad.

I didn’t make sweeping changes. I didn’t assert dominance. I didn’t try to prove my value. In fact, I made it a point not to touch a thing in the beginning. Because the worst mistake a new leader can make is assuming they’re the smartest person in the room. Truth is, if you’re leading well, you’re not supposed to be.

I spent my first few weeks listening more than I talked. I asked questions in one-on-ones. I surveyed the team anonymously. I read every past performance report I could get my hands on, not for judgment—but for context. I didn’t want to fix something that wasn’t broken, and I didn’t want to break something that was just beginning to bloom.

Most importantly, I wanted to understand why the team was performing the way it was. The numbers were a symptom, not the root cause.

Understand Their “Why”—Individually

Before I could lead anyone, I had to know what drove them. Everyone has a different “why,” and your leadership approach has to adapt to that.

Some were motivated by career advancement. Some needed stability. Some were coming back from career setbacks and had something to prove. Some were just trying to provide for their families.

So I asked: “What matters most to you in this role?” And then I shut up and listened. No judgment. No fixing. Just understanding.

That knowledge became my leadership compass. Because when I knew why they were here, I could better help them get where they wanted to go.

Make the Team a Launchpad, Not a Landing Spot

One of the most counterintuitive lessons I learned was that if I wanted a team to stay great, I had to help them leave.

I worked hard to get my people promoted. I actively sought out stretch assignments for them. I advocated for them in rooms they weren’t invited to yet. I made sure their names were spoken in the right circles.

And I told every new hire or transfer:

“My job is to make you so good that everyone wants you—but you’ll be so supported here, you’ll think twice about going.”

That’s how you make a team a destination. You help people grow so much that their success becomes inevitable—whether it’s with you or beyond you.

Co-Create the Vision, Don’t Dictate It

Every fiscal year, every new cycle, we did the same thing—we built the plan together.

We laid out our vision, our priorities, our desired outcomes. But it wasn’t just my vision. It was ours. We mapped their goals. Their growth. Their territories. Their opportunities.

This was a shared journey, not a solo flight. I wanted them to feel that this wasn’t a job they had to survive—it was a journey they got to shape.

When your people feel ownership, they bring a different level of energy to the mission. They stop doing the bare minimum and start innovating. They stop watching the scoreboard and start rewriting the playbook.

Foster Culture with Intentional Quirkiness

One of the most underrated leadership tools is levity. I brought humor, humanity, and—yes—a healthy dose of ridiculousness to work every day.

We gave ourselves superhero nicknames. We created off-the-wall contests, like who could drop the most Rolling Stones song titles into a prospect call or name the most Sylvester Stallone movies. One time, I gave a prize to the first rep who called a karate dojo and asked if fear existed in their dojo.

Why?

Because in the grind of sales, you need something to shake the snow globe. The job is hard enough. Culture should give you oxygen, not add to the pressure.

When you keep things fresh, weird, and playful—you keep morale high. And when morale is high, performance usually follows.

Get in the Trenches With Them

There was never a task beneath me. Never a moment where I wasn’t willing to jump into the fire first.

If a rep was struggling to land meetings, I’d prospect alongside them. If they were getting stonewalled, I’d reach out to executives on their behalf. I took punches from upper management so they wouldn’t have to. I ran interference on corporate chaos so they could focus on the field.

And most importantly, I never asked them to do something I hadn’t done—or wouldn’t do—myself.

That credibility matters. They knew I wasn’t above them. I was with them. And they fought harder because of it.

Help Them See the Bigger Picture

Salespeople are often stuck in the weeds—staring at dashboards, chasing deals, reacting to chaos. My job was to help them rise above it.

I talked a lot about “the balcony view.” From up there, you can see the whole game. You understand how your role fits into the bigger mission. You see what matters most. You realize which deals are distractions and which are defining.

I helped my team prioritize relentlessly. We focused on:

High-value opportunitiesStrategic relationshipsRepeatable plays

Because doing more doesn’t lead to #1. Doing the right things does.

Create a Safe Space, But Not a Soft One

My team knew they could talk to me about anything. Frustrations. Failures. Life.

I made time for those conversations—because silence is where resentment festers. I gave them space to vent without fear of judgment.

But they also knew the expectations were crystal clear.

There was no guessing. No confusion. I communicated our goals often—maybe too often. But I’d rather over-clarify than under-lead.

I stood up for them when needed, but I also held them accountable. Because safety and standards aren’t opposites. They’re partners.

You can make people feel safe and challenge them to be better. That’s the sweet spot of leadership.

Celebrate Everything That Matters

Recognition wasn’t reserved for closed deals. I celebrated:

GritCreativityCollaborationKindnessEffort

When someone found a new way to break into an account, they got a shoutout. When someone helped a teammate without being asked, they got praise. When someone turned a failure into a lesson, we talked about it as a win.

People work harder when they feel seen. So I made it my mission to make sure no contribution went unnoticed.

Let Them Own Their Process—Unless It Fails Them

I didn’t micromanage. If someone had a system that was working, I let them run with it.

But if their approach wasn’t getting results, I stepped in—not with judgment, but with curiosity. I asked: “What are you trying to accomplish here?” and “What do you think is getting in your way?”

Then we worked on it together. I gave them room to try, to fail, to learn. I didn’t fix everything for them. I just made sure they knew I was there.

That’s the kind of autonomy that creates ownership. And ownership drives performance.

It Was Never About Me

I didn’t care if my name was on a plaque. I cared if theirs was.

I didn’t need the spotlight. I needed them to shine.

I led by walking the walk. I led by sharing my scars, my stories, my own setbacks. I showed them I had been where they were—and believed they could go even farther.

In every meeting. In every call. In every hard conversation. I did one thing: Everything I could to ensure their success.

And that’s how we became #1. Not once. Not twice. But nineteen times.

If you want to build a legendary sales team, don’t just aim for performance. Aim for purpose. Aim for belief. Aim for legacy.

Because when your people feel empowered, equipped, and seen—there’s no limit to what they’ll accomplish.

#Leadership #SalesSuccess #ServantLeadership #SalesCulture #TeamBuilding #Empowerment #RecognitionMatters #LeadByExample #CarsonHeady

Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 3: Passed Over

The numbers dropped again. Somehow. The office, already on life support, found a way to dig deeper into the dirt.

But while everything else around him sank, Vincent Scott continued to rise. His team kept performing. His reps kept selling. His results remained untouchable. And still, he found himself buried beneath a ceiling of smoke and mirrors, watching leaders prop each other up while reality begged to be acknowledged.

The final stretch of 2004 brought no relief. No turning point. Just more of the same.

Days bled into nights. High performance was punished with indifference. Limbo became routine. And the endless summer of Dick Knoll’s interim rule felt like a permanent exile.

When he finally relinquished his “temporary” leadership title and returned to his old role after Shelly’s maternity leave, he didn’t really give up power. He had already manipulated the system to keep it.

Shelly—always eager to play puppet master—let Dick retain half of the administrative responsibilities Stacey couldn’t handle. That was no surprise. Stacey, after all, had only been promoted because she was Shelly’s friend. She didn’t have the track record, the backbone, or the respect of the floor. But none of that mattered in a world where proximity trumped performance. Shelly coddled her, protected her, and pretended the results told a different story.

And Dick? He came back different.

He wasn’t just another manager anymore—he came back with a chip on his shoulder and a vendetta in his pocket. Hungry for control. Desperate for validation. He returned to Rockford wielding power like a weapon, and his first move was to police the floor with an iron fist. Reps whispered about him even before they saw him. When someone got fired, you didn’t even have to ask who initiated it. Everyone knew. It was Dick. Always Dick. Cold. Calculated. Mechanical.

It didn’t take long for him to earn his new nickname: The Terminator.

The name fit too well. He wasn’t coaching. He wasn’t developing. He was eliminating. Firing became his first move—not the last resort. Reps on his team lived in fear. If they missed goal, even once, they looked over their shoulder waiting for the red laser dot of Dick’s discipline to find them. He did everything he could to try to get rid of reps early enough in the month where they wouldn’t count on his sales report and he could try to catch Vincent. He never could.

Vincent watched it all unfold from the sidelines. Disgusted. Disappointed. But not surprised.

While Dick strutted around the floor, weaponizing authority and dropping pink slips like party favors, Vincent was busy building. Leading. Coaching his team to consistent wins, pulling 80-100% performance even from the ones the system had written off. His people weren’t afraid of him—they respected him. They knew he had their back. And that made all the difference.

Every few months, a new training class would graduate, and the floor managers would gather in a back room to draft their picks. It was a ritual. Like fantasy football, but with headsets, quotas, and the fate of sales pipelines hanging in the balance. The highest-performing team from the previous quarter always got the last pick.

And that was always Vincent Scott.

Where others saw it as a disadvantage, Vincent saw opportunity.

Because while every other manager was chasing the loudest voices, the flashiest closers, the “naturals” with perfect posture and polished talk tracks, Vincent was looking for clay. He was looking for someone overlooked. Someone raw. Someone who hadn’t yet learned how to believe in themselves—but just might, if someone else believed first.

And even if he got the rep nobody else wanted, he knew what he could do with them.

That’s how Jessie Stone ended up on Vincent’s team.

Nobody wanted him. Not even the person who got him hired.

Dick Knoll had personally referred Jessie to the job. The two went to church together. Dick had even vouched for Jessie during the recruiting process. But when it came time to draft from the graduating training class, Dick skipped over Jessie in every single round. Quietly. Without pause.

That silence said everything.

The trainers had ranked Jessie dead last. His voice? Flat. Monotone. Lacked confidence. He struggled in mock calls. He couldn’t handle objections. They said he wasn’t assertive, wasn’t ready, and wouldn’t cut it.

But Vincent saw something they didn’t.

And with the final pick in the draft, he wound up with Jessie Stone.

What followed confirmed the assessment—at first. Jessie stumbled out of the gate. The systems overwhelmed him. He couldn’t find the flow on calls. When he did offer the product, it was late, rushed, and barely audible. Customers were already mentally off the call by the time he worked up the courage to speak.

But Vincent didn’t blink.

He never judged talent by what it looked like in Week 1. He judged it by the willingness to grow. The kid wanted to be successful.

While most managers doubled down on their top reps and quietly ignored the ones falling behind (or in Dick’s case, listened to just enough calls with which to fire them), Vincent leaned in. He pulled Jessie aside—not for a reprimand, but for a conversation.

He didn’t start with quotas or scripts. He started with why.

Why had Jessie taken this job? Why sales? Why now?

Jessie didn’t posture. He didn’t pretend. He simply said, “I want to prove I can do this.”

That was all Vincent needed to hear.

He asked Jessie how he liked to be coached. Jessie asked to sit side by side. He didn’t want a checklist—he wanted proximity. He wanted someone to sit next to him and show him where the gaps were. So that’s exactly what Vincent did.

But the breakthrough didn’t come from shadowing. It came from ownership.

Vincent challenged Jessie to write his own pitch. Not a borrowed one. Not something off the intranet. His pitch. In his voice. With his rhythm.

The only rules were simple:

The offer had to happen before the customer checked out.It had to tie back to their needs, not just be a list of features.It had to end with a clear, confident ask.

Jessie brought back a rough draft—shaky, timid, but his. Vincent sat with him and went through it line by line. He offered edits, trimmed fat, sharpened the language. But he left the tone untouched. Because Jessie had to believe what he was saying. Otherwise, nobody else would.

Then came the deal.

Vincent said, “Use this. Exactly as written. Every single call. No exceptions. No improvisation. Repetition creates rhythm. Rhythm creates confidence.”

Jessie agreed.

And he stuck to it—call after call, hour after hour, day after day.

Slowly, things started to shift. His call flow tightened. His energy lifted. His voice—still soft—carried just a little more weight. And customers started saying yes.

Week by week, his sales crept upward. Momentum. Confidence. Wins.

And by the end of his very first quarter?

Jessie Stone—last pick in the draft, overlooked by the very man who brought him in—won Top Gun, an award given only to the top 5% of sales reps across the entire company.

Vincent didn’t gloat. He didn’t spike the football. That wasn’t his style.

But everyone saw it.

Everyone knew.

The kid Dick Knoll ignored—the one everyone expected to flame out—had become a legend in a matter of months.

And Vincent Scott was the one who unlocked it.

Dick, who had earned the nickname The Terminator for firing anyone who didn’t hit quota, never understood how Vincent’s team consistently outperformed his. Dick ran his desk like a warzone—metrics, fear, and turnover. Vincent ran his like a workshop—trust, belief, and development.

Vincent didn’t fire people to fix his numbers. He fixed his people to elevate his numbers.

Because while Dick couldn’t understand how someone could lead without fear, Vincent had mastered the art of coaching through belief.

Dick couldn’t reconcile the numbers. He thought cutting heads was the path to results, but no matter how many people he terminated, his numbers still sat in Vincent’s shadow. Month after month, he seethed, quietly boiling in the knowledge that even with a scorched-earth approach, he couldn’t eclipse a leader who rarely fired anyone at all.

Because Vincent didn’t have to.

He coached.

He connected.

He believed in his people, and they believed back.

Vincent also studied the game and knew what metrics mattered most in the weighted attainment; he would write scripts for these products for his team and he would even reward them with time off the phones if they produced the ones they weren’t paid much for.

And when you’ve got that?

You don’t need to swing the axe to get results.

But Dick had Shelly in his pocket. He called her daily. Reported every move Vincent made. Slipped her flagged calls and fabricated concerns. Shelly ate it up. She was tired of Vincent’s independence, his mouth, his results that refused to come with obedience. Dick made her feel in control. He let her play mentor. And in a place like this? That was enough.

It all came to a head when the management team expanded again—new managers Phil and Patrice added to the rotation, Dick slinking back into full participation. Another shuffle. Another play for positioning. Vincent had seen enough.

So he pitched something wild.

Something bold.

He offered to take the newest training class—twelve fresh hires—plus two more from another group, seven former top performers who used to thrive under him, and even the office’s union steward, who was constantly off the phones and dead last in performance. Fourteen new or neglected reps. No guarantees. All risk. It was the kind of assignment that would scare most managers off.

But not Vincent.

He welcomed it.

Shelly agreed—partly because she hoped it would distract or even deflate him, partly because no one else wanted to touch it, and partly because, deep down, she knew he’d pull it off. He always did.

Dick was livid. Jealous. He claimed he was going to take the group himself, then backpedaled when it became clear Vincent had already closed the deal.

Vincent got his team.

Jeff and Ted stayed with him. A few loyal soldiers returned. And the new recruits? They were thrilled to be under his guidance. In their first week, Vincent hit the phones himself—made five calls and outsold most of the office. Just to remind them who he was.

And then, in November—their first full month—they were #1 in the company.

Again.

Another rebuild. Another miracle. Another masterpiece.

But as usual, the higher Vincent climbed, the more eager the system was to cut the ladder.

He felt it before it happened. The whispers. The avoidance. The way Shelly couldn’t meet his eye. The smirk on Dick’s face that said more than words ever could.

Then came the announcement: Dick Knoll—The Terminator—was being promoted to run the Oklahoma City office. Hand-picked by Napoleon Dirk Slabor himself.

Vincent sat still. Frozen. Not with shock, but with the grim confirmation of a truth he already knew.

He wasn’t passed over because he failed.

He was passed over because he succeeded without playing their game.

He shook Dick’s hand. Congratulated him. Walked away.

Shelly sent the boilerplate “Come talk to me if you need anything” message.

He ignored it.

Everyone who had seen behind the curtain knew the truth. Vincent had built the entire foundation of their success. But that wasn’t what got rewarded here. Not real leadership. Not trust. Not truth. Just obedience.

Vincent spiraled—for a moment. Two weeks of detachment. Numbness. He went through the motions. The fire flickered. He was tired. Tired of being the best and still being treated like the problem.

But as always, clarity came through the chaos.

He didn’t need their promotion.

He didn’t need their approval.

In the coming months, Dirk Slabor self-destructed and left the company. Dana Warsaw came in. Seemed like a fresh start, though she had zero sales experience. Called Vincent when he was #1. Took the team out to dinner. Acted like she wanted ideas.

Then she revealed her true style—every manager needed to have a termination on the books. No room for grace. Just blood. Vincent’s team called her The Saw, and the name stuck. She came to town and someone got chopped. That was her rhythm.

Still, Vincent gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Wrote a 9-page plan to fix the department. Feedback from reps, peers, best practices. Shelly tried to block it. Vincent sent it anyway.

Weeks later, Dana asked in a meeting, “What report?”

She never read it.

That was all he needed to know.

Vincent stayed because he saw no other way, but he was obsessed with finding new challenges. Furthermore, with Dick gone, Shelly had to have her star performer carry the office because he was the only one who could.

He soon negotiated a team of 34 people—unheard of. Shelly let it happen because she had no one else left. And Vincent? He led them to #1 again in Month 1.

He did it his way.

No threats. No fear. Just belief.

And when Dana visited, Vincent was top of the company.

Still, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. She wasn’t going to promote him unless he started playing the firing game.

They couldn’t recognize greatness that didn’t come in their image.

But his team knew. The floor knew. The people who mattered remembered.