How’s your dad?

Inherited a sales territory from a guy who’d been there 34 years. I was 25. He gave me a binder and said everything I needed to know was in there.

Every customer had a page. Birthdays, golf, kids’ names. Told me anybody could quote a price, but remembering the personal stuff was how you kept an account.

First 2 calls went well. One guy seemed impressed I knew his daughter had gone to Ohio State. Started thinking the binder was going to make this pretty easy. Third call, we went through the order, sorted out a delivery date. Before we hung up I glanced at the notes and asked how his dad was doing.

“He died 6 years ago.”

I apologized and we got off the phone pretty quickly after that.

Called the old rep and told him what happened. He knew the dad was dead. They’d talked about it every time he visited because the guy was still running the place exactly how his dad had.

Asked why he hadn’t updated the notes.

Said he didn’t need notes to remember that.