Life | Love | Freedom

A day in the life of a tire salesman

I was visiting a dealer yesterday in an effort to address his concern of not being able to reach me by phone quickly (most folks who call me have to leave a voice mail because of my call volume). I wanted to install AOL's instant messaging service on his computer so he could reach me "in an instant" and I could respond while still on the phone with someone else. My dealer wasn't too receptive but he continued to reiterate his not being able to reach me. I was a little disappointed that he wasn't receptive to my solution.

As we were talking a young lady came in complaining about her car not running right. My dealer listened to her problem and offered a solution. Leave the car with me and I'll fix it. The young lady said she couldn't leave it today and didn't know when she could. Then she continued complaining the car didn't run right. In the ensuing conversation, I bet my dealer offered the afore mentioned solution 10-15 times and each time the young girl just kept complaining. Finally the dealer said, "I can fix your car. When you want it fixed leave it with me." and walked towards me non-verbally signaling to the young lady that he was finished with the conversation. The ball was in her court.

At that moment the thought struck me that he was treating my solution just as the young lady was treating his solution, so I said; "I feel like I've got that young girl standing in front of me (meaning him), I'm offering a solution to her problem and she won't accept it". He looked at me and, in that instant, I thought I might get thrown out...but he said, "Go ahead and install it" and walked over to address another customer.

After I had installed it and walked him through how it works, he saw the benefit. As I was leaving he turned to me, shook my hand and said "Thanks for installing that. I think it will help".

I was thinking this morning that we're like that with God. He's given us the solution to life but all we want to talk about are our problems. Man, we need to learn to receive.

posted by Rick @ 6:24 PM