0 The Sales Journey Begins

Bill Jennings’ “Sales Journal,” which he began with an email to me in early December started out as his backstory, his way of telling how he became a self-proclaimed car guy. He wondered in his email whether or not I wanted to do anything with it. “Just tell me if it's not really a good idea. And even if it was OK, maybe you'd not want to
do anything with it until we see something that follows,” he wrote.

For me, though, his thinking is perfect. If nothing else, I feel, it will remind every car person why they are the way they are. Here’s Bill’s account of how he got to this point in his life.

“It seems that selling a hobby car does not come easily to me. Perhaps that's the
nature of the beast;, that these cars can mean so much more to us than what we use
for normal transportation. We can find ourselves determined to 'make money' on the
transaction, doubt the ability to find another, find ourselves wondering just why we
sold the car months/years later. And it's because of these thoughts that I let creep into
this sales effort that, for me, just make it more difficult.

“I was born when my teen years found me seeing the '60's cars in full throttle. It was a great time to see long option lists and just about every imaginable engine available. And I somehow got 'hooked' on Fords (Sorry, what can I say?). More specifically, my interest became 'Mustangs', especially the 1969 model year. Over the years (since 1969), I have only owned 4 1969 Mustangs, all of them 'Sportsroof' or fastback models. But, except for 1, they have all been long-termers.

“My 1st 1969 Mustang was a 'meadowlark yellow' model that ended up to be my daily transportation for 25 years. Another was a blue 1969 GT350 I had for 18 years which was our introduction into a local Mustang and Shelby club.  There was also a red Q code model that stayed for 10 days, made the Mustang car count at three and sort of forced me to choose between the three cars or staying married.

“The current Mustang, the one I am beginning sales efforts with, is a blue Cobra Jet Mach 1 model. Basically, the color and option combination that I thought I always wanted. So since 1969, except for a 3 year period of sanity, there has always been a 1969 Mustang in the garage. And now I believe that I am at a point where I can sell this car and not find myself in a search for a replacement; a time to move on with the 'appreciation of such cars' still there, just not the necessity to have to actually own one.

“And now I find myself at the point of selling this car........................”