Day 123

I look outside my window and I see snow. I always look for significance in things. Is there a meaning to this snow fall on the eve of what will be one of the most important conversations impacting my future? Tomorrow, I leave for Michigan on a two day business trip with my boss. On the drive up, I will be discussing my intentions to move back to Cleveland this summer. For those of you who didn't know this already, Leah and I are planning on moving, probably in June. It has been a long time coming and there are various reasons why. While I will miss this amazing city and all of the friends we have here, the quality of life in Cleveland is calling us. We will sell our condo for roughly what we will buy a 3200 square foot house for. The money we make can take us much farther. Its a great place to raise a family. Finally, the opportunity to be near family is very important to me. Before you start thinking that this is me driving this bus, it isn't. Leah is for this as much, if not more, than I am. She is officially at the end of her rope at work since they changed her role. The commute never gets any better, and the hope is soon that when we move, she may eventually stop working all together.

This is where my job comes in. I love working at Prairie. They take very good care of me, its a job where I definitely have growth, and is a family owned company that is a giant is the disposables industry. The territories for the sales reps (only about 20 or so) is done geographically, except for my level - the regional account managers. While in name it may sound that way, I oversee all non-Sysco distribution in the midwest and the Edward Don account on a national level. We just picked up a substantial amount of new business at GFS, which was all given to me. Their distribution centers are in Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. While Edward Don is my first priority, GFS is now going to rival it. That is a big help in my sales pitch. I know how I am to handle this. Another thing working in my favor is that there are two other national guys on my level in similar situations. The Southwest regional lives in Kansas City and goes back and forth to Texas a few times a month where the majority of his business is. The director of sales lives in San Diego and travels all over the country. Don is headquartered in Chicago. The only time I really need to be there is on vendor Friday's, which is usually every two or three weeks. Everything we do is via email or telephone for the most part. If there are meetings to attend or customers to see, I can still do that on my trips into Chicago. Southwest tickets to Chicago are $100. With the amount of money we spend on entertaining clients, two trips to Chicago a month is nothing.

Another thing that works in my favor are my numbers. Last month, my boss and I met with the Edward Don people and he had me bring our numbers over the last 4 months. Compared to the the same time period the previous year, we were up 18% in cases and 20% in dollars. My Chicago distribution center led the way at an even higher clip on both. My boss had said to me that we were pretty stable across the board in our Sysco business and that these numbers were very impressive to him. So to sum up; my numbers are good, I am traveling nationally already, all of our reps work from home already and of most of our work is done via email or phone, my new piece of business is in Michigan and Ohio which I will be closer to, and I will be closer to my family. I can't imagine that he is going to say no, but please, keep your fingers crossed. I will report back tomorrow night with his answer. WISH ME LUCK!

Song of the Day: "I Wish" by R. Kelly