Building a Skydiving
Business
Today
is my son Brian Wallace’s b.d. He first started building his skydive business
after he graduated from Fresno state University. After graduation he drove his
pickup truck with all of his belonging to settle in Ogden Utah. He got a job as a
salesman working for HeatCom in their satellite office in North Salt Lake. For
about a year he was the only employee. During
his year he became top salesman in the whole company.
Because
of the good sales brought in, he was happy with his $40K salary and the company
was happy with the cash flow he generated. So some time during the second year,
the company bought a warehouse in North Salt Lake and hired 3 or 4 more people.
Five years after he first hired in the
company fired him because he was only working 2 days a week from the time he
was first hired. The other 5 days a week he was skydiving. He has an addiction to
skydiving.
There came a little poetic justice, after 3
years the company closed the office because of insufficient sales. I asked
Brian why they would fire their top salesman and he said, "it was because of no
matter how they divided my territory I always had just 1 or 2 big customers I
took good care of these customers they couldn’t get me to make 3 cold sales 5 days a week,
no matter how hard the owners in Seattle tried. The other 5 days of the week Brian was gradually
building his skydiving business located 30 miles down the road.
For example:
In
the suburb West of Ogden, Elementary School Principal Steve Hammer promised his
students he would go skydiving if they read for a combined million minutes.
Sure enough, about 950 students mobbed the Principal Hammer after he jumped in
tandem with the experience parachutist Wallace.
“Was
it worth it?” Hammer asked the students who clamored for his autograph
following the jump.
“Yes,”
the group shouted.
Hammer
said he decide if the students read 3 million minutes, or about 53 hours of
reading per student, before the last week of school, he would take the flying
leap from 11,000 feet.
Students,
like fifth-grader Kami Price and fourth grader Josh Barlow spent at least two
hours a day reading everything from fantasy to mystery to autobiographies to
log in minutes to the “Road to Success.” Kami said she read 40,771 minutes this
year reading 2,971 minutes in just one week. "My parents encourage me to read."
Once
the students had already read 1 million minutes Hammer told them he would jump
from a plane if they got to the 3 million-minute mark. Hammer’s promise to parachute
motivated many of the students. Many of the student logged hours of reading
during their spring break to make the 3 million-minute mark. One student was
overheard to say “I love Mr. Hammer so much I didn’t read very much because I
didn’t want him to get hurt.”
Mr.
Hammer’s wife, Kim was at the school to watch him jump. She said he parachuted
three years ago with their oldest daughter on her birthday. He wanted to do
something special for the kids. His 84 year old mother Dawn Hammer said her son
has always done fun things but when it comes to his students he loves them very
much.”
The
weather which was cloudy for much of the day held out for Steve Hammer. When
the students spotted the plane overhead they all cheered. And the cheers became
deafening when they saw the parachutes open in the air. “I don’t know how we
will top this next year. Hammer said
One teacher Marlene Jones brought in to the playground in South Ogden
made a similar promise and had to sleep all night on the roof of her school for
three nights.
It’s the principal of the thing.
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more go to: w.w.w.karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
