Productive Week in TN and KY

It has been a productive week in Tennessee and Kentucky.  The Mid South Stocker Conference was excellent and we had several producers commit to doing business with us.  The setting for the Conference was beautiful (Montgomery Bell State Park).

Last night we headed for Bowling Green, Kentucky, and spent the morning visiting with customers and recording testimonials and then met with a prospective customer who is now a customer.  We finished the evening back in Nashville with dinner at J. Alexander's in Brentwood, Tennessee, with a good customer and his wife.  WOW!  The food was out-of-this-world good!  I highly recommend it.  It is actually located near the Cold Springs Galleria just north of Franklin.  Check out the link.

Yep, life is good.

Tennessee Traveler

Nashville, Tennessee, for the night.  I barely made it out of Amarillo before the snow moved in.  They had to de-ice the plane before we could depart.

I read about 150 pages in the book "Same Kind of Different as Me" on the way out here.  It is written by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  It is a MUST read for anyone and everyone.  The best way that I know to give you a clue as to what the book is about is to quote from the back cover:

"A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking

cotton in virtual slavery.

An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world

of Armani and Chanel.

A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream.

A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it."

It is the story of a friendship between a wealthy, white art dealer and a black man who grew up in rural Louisiana as the orphaned son of a sharecropper.  It is an amazing story.

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together

Tomorrow, the Mid-South Stocker Conference near Burns, Tennessee.

Life is good.

Photo Opportunities

Sometimes as I travel along I realize that I MUST get out my camera and preserve what I see for posterity.


Someone apparently was attempting to move this log cabin on a goosneck flat-bed trailer.

The mishap must have made them change their mind. The FOR SALE sign speaks volumes.

I suddenly realized that this Tennessee "mobile home" just barely made it across the line into Kentucky before falling apart. There's gotta be a story here. Comments and captions are welcome.

Sales Calls and Customer Acquisition

I flew into Nashville on Tuesday evening in the midst of pouring rain. It did not bode well for the appointments that I had on Wednesday (yesterday). I hate driving in the dark in the rain on unfamiliar roads with high-speed bumper-to-bumper traffic but that is what I did. Thankfully, I reached my motel in one piece and checked in. After a bite to eat, I retired to my room , happy to be out of the rain.

Wednesday dawned with cloud cover, but no rain. The snow which had been forecast failed to materialize and the day turned out to be great. My big worry became a minor scheduling conflict between my appointments. I called the first one early hoping to move it up and low-and-behold, that was the way it happened. It was a 40 mile drive to meet him at his operation south of Nashville. I headed south on I-65 thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't in the inbound traffic that was backed up almost 15 miles south of Franklin in parking lot mode.

The appointment went even better than I had anticipated and I met not only with him but also one of his neighbors that he had invited over. Both of them are now new customers. I then headed north to my next appointment in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I arrived about 20 minutes early which was great because it gave me some extra time to prepare a couple of items that I felt needed to be added to my arsenal.

The meeting went extremely well and we parted with the agreement to take the next steps. I then called a contact in the area that I didn't have on my schedule and he invited me out to his place northeast of Bowling Green. It was well after dark-thirty when I left after a great visit.

As I hit the north edge of Nashville my cell phone rang. It was the veterinarian who does the work for my afternoon appointment. He had lots of questions and said that I had made a favorable impression. We talked for almost 30 minutes as I drove back to my motel. (I know, I shouldn't be talking on the cell phone while driving but the traffic was light at that time of evening.)

This morning I received a call from our home office to let me know that the veterinarian I had spoken with last night was ready to go ahead and utilize our services for his client. He had called before 8:00 a.m. We will be shipping him the items he needs to get started today.

Yep, it has been a good week so far. Three new customers picked up yesterday in an area where we are looking to expand. Now I'd better get off of here so I can catch my flight to New Orleans.

Run Fred -- I Think...

The more that I read about him the more I like him. The following is an interesting article about him -- you'll need to follow the link --



WASHINGTON — He’s a presidential player cut from Hollywood cloth, but is Fred Thompson more than a stuffed shirt?
Past colleagues and Tennessee supporters think so, but some political analysts say the former senator has more to prove if he’s serious about running for president in 2008.
"I think his support right now might be a mile wide but an inch deep," said political science professor Sean Evans of .....


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It's going to be a long race.