Sales are being intensified - I am looking for resellers

Lukas Jenni sells our vehicles a lot better than I do. I'm no longer needed in sales. What do I do with the time I've freed up? I looked for resellers and service partners. Lukas still had the new Mercedes Vito at his disposal. At the same time, I packed our old Mercedes 310, which could fit up to three vehicles. I was looking for resellers in the same way Lukas sold the vehicles to end customers. I already had some contacts all over Europe. I visited them, showed them the vehicles, and asked them which other colleagues they would like to work with. So I drove all over Europe many times. Once to Holland, to Belgium, several times throughout Germany, I also visited a possible dealer and a competitor in Denmark, and my journey took me as far as Norway. In the meantime, Stefan Rittler had worked diligently on our vehicles and perfected them further. The top speed could be increased step by step to 20 km/h, later on to 30 km/h. The range was increased to 60 km and all the technical details were polished. From that point of view, we had some advantages over the competitors, which I was able to advertise well. The higher speed, the range, the handling, and the optional roof were the most sought after features.
There were no navigation devices back then. With the Atlas on my knees, I drove from meeting to meeting. Every evening in the hotel I made my notes on the usually two appointments and with Tina, Stefan, and Lukas the news was briefly checked. At the end of each trip, all the notes had to be transferred into a trip log before all the work could be assigned to the staff.
Lukas also had his hands full. He suggested hiring more salespeople. I dreaded the long application process, but Lukas had the bright idea: after all, they were salespeople we were looking for. They had to be able to sell themselves. We placed a few advertisements and gave a time window for applicants to introduce themselves and hand in their documents. We received everyone in one room and everyone was given three tasks:

• He had to introduce himself
• He had to state why he wanted to work for us and what he was particularly good at.
• He had to try to sell a vehicle to a possible colleague.

It took exactly one afternoon, and we had our salesmen together. We recruited Peter Suter, the former head of the Swiss National Lottery, Franz Josef Steiner, a trained mechanical engineer and salesman of industrial goods, and Roger Bochtler, a young sportsman and very committed salesman.
Together we exchanged ideas, attended sales courses, learned from each other, and intensified sales. A wonderful time was had building the team.

I learned along the way:

• With the right idea, a task can be solved easily, quickly and playfully.
• It's fun to work together in sales and motivate each other.