Lifts - How You Take Your Scooter or Powerchair With You - Intro

A question that comes up all the time and is easy to answer. Of course it depends on what you drive, whether it's a small car or big one, a van or pickup, maybe even a motorhome or converted bus.
Believe it or not I have worked with the VA to get scooters to Vets who were driving those, two motorhomes, and one bus that the vet had done himself. He said he had about $300k in it, and I'd have to say if not a palace on wheels, it was close. As good or better than that of any rock/country stars or Amway upline no matter how many Diamonds they have...you people in Amway will understand. For those not in Amway, uplines, Direct Distributors and above, put another way the ones making money, love those huge converted buses to travel around in, to conventions and visiting their downlines...just like Country and Rock music stars.  Looking at the other side, when still selling in home, I had an appointment with a guy in Rome, I think. He had three young kids, bought a scooter a Rascal 245 three wheeler as I remember. What was his car? A Ford Festiva. It's the smallest car I ever got a scooter in. Is there a smaller car out there, if there is not by much. But I did get it in. The front, and rear sections in the trunk, the seat, batteries, handlebar and front basket in the back seat. He and the wife had to decide if they were taking the scooter or their kids.  Too small for a Rack and Roll lift, the trunk already full, so lifts were out of the picture. So, what did he do?  He went to Cole Muffler and got a class I hitch installed, then bought a small trailer with a lid, like you'd use with a lawn tractor or snowmobile, and would just drive the scooter in, drop the lid, keeping it clean, and take everybody and the scooter. In addition it worked great if he was staying home because the wife could leave the trailer and there was nothing hanging off the car.
Anyway, lets get to lifts. There are several different types. Inside lifts are the Trunk Lift, the Equalizer 2 & 3, and Tailgater Lifts, and the Tracker Lift. Outside lifts are the Outside Trunk Lift, and the Rack and Roll Lift class II and III. I'm going to do each lift as a post to keep this from going on forever.

Lee Murray

Continuation of Hitting the Deer

As it turned out after I hit the deer back in March that the insurance company totalled the van, because of the high milage v the damage mostly.  After thinking it over I took their offer and bought it back, it was cheaper than just taking the money and getting a different one. Mine had new tires, the brakes had just been done, etc. and while I hate it I also know it. Plus pretty much everything I looked at that I could afford was 10 or more years old and not cheap.  So now it's in the body shop at McCready's Chevrolet in Sherburne. I was there today and the fender was off along with the grill and lights. All I can say is WOW. You'd never even know it had been hit. The body man is doing beautiful work. It's amazing the damage a deer can do. He showed me a Toyota they have in there that the whole front was smashed, 5-6,000 dollars in damage. Made me feel better. Anyway should have back probably early next week.

Lee Murray

Winners and Losers

Watching TV just saw a commercial for a program about an olympic swimmer, Victor Davis, who "had the hopes of an ENTIRE NATION riding on his shoulders, as stated by a woman in the story." Can you imagine the pressure? You must win at any cost, winners are hero's, and losers are...well losers, and who even remembers them, let alone their names? It started me thinking...
This is a mindset that exists, unfortunately, not just in "sports," but even more so in life. Being in sales, I've seen dozens, hundreds of guys, and gals, that subscribed to the same philosophy, winning at any cost, make the sale any way you have to, lie cheat, anything to make the sale. It's usually not by choice, although I know there are those out there who think this way naturally. That aside it's usually an aquired mindset, endorsed, taught, and pushed by over-aggresive, greedy, (or sometimes afraid for their jobs or don't know any better), sales managers who put dollars into their own pockets, everytime a salesperson makes a sale, however they made it, and learned by basically honest people who believe what they're told, that it's the only way that they can earn a living. After all, buyer's are liars, ask any sales manager. Personally that one never made any sense to me, how can a buyer be a liar? Looky loo's are liars, that I get.
When I was selling solar water heating in the mid 80's I worked with a guy named Jeff, or it may have been Geoff, who was literally the top salesman in the office, and also VP of sales. He looked like Michael Douglas from some angles and George Hamilton from others with a great tan. He had a condo in I think Balboa, and a house in Newport Beach for his ex. She also had the Rolls and Jag. Poor guy, he was stuck with the Porsche Turbo. From what he said about half his income went up his nose, and still he lived like a king, making half to three quaters of a million per year. How, you ask? I know I did. I saw literally the best salesman I've ever met, but he didn't believe it. I saw him work, as I said, and with all his skill and talent, if it took telling the prospect that the sky was purple, or that they'd recoup their investment in six months or kicking back x dollars, he'd do it to make the sale. He had entire housing developments where if a house was sold, someone would visit the new owner and suggest that they talk to Jeff, I was a ridealong on a couple of these, they were true laydowns. He told me that he kicked back $4-500. per referral. He was convinced that winning however he did it was key to survival, he didn't care what he had to do, he would win, and the prospects would lose. Losing, not making the sale, to him was completely unacceptable. There were about 15 of us in that office, and most of us would bring in 12-13 sales a month, Jeff normally brought in 40 to 50 every month. He had a 50% fallout ratio and still outsold everybody else. The reason was that while yes he was probably technically  no better than the best of us, getting the sale, bringing home the gold, winning, was vital, more important, to him than to us.
The sales manager that demands honesty is rare indeed, they are out there, but few and far between. The same thing applies to salespeople, those with honesty and integrity are there, and are more common that most customers would ever believe. I am one of those and so are most if not all of the salespeople I work with at Rascal. Yes, there have been those that I describe above, but for some reason they don't last in the VA div., perhaps it's selling to the VA that's the reason.

Lee Murray

A Great Day Delivering Scooters That Ended Horribly

I started the day yesterday normally enough. I left about 10am and headed to Fort Edward to deliver a veteran's 300 scooter and Tracker lift to Mario at Adaptive Equipment. I haven't talked about lifts much yet, but will. The tracker is the best choice for a van.  Mario owns one of the best service centers that works with the Albany VA, covering from Plattsburg down to Albany, possibly more. Well, I got there about 2:30p, it's a lllllllooooong drive. That's when he says that the VA told him that I should take the 300 to the vet instead of leaving it with him per their instructions on the PO.  My next stop was to deliver a 300 to a vet in Saranac, actually in Danamora, just around the corner from the prison. The 300 that Mario was now not taking went to a vet in North Bangor (NY),  which was figuratively just a hop skip and a jump west of the first one, seriously 60-70 miles west, in the Adirondaks.  So I left Mario about 2:45 and jumped on 81 north, going to Saranac, got to this guys house about 5:30 or so, and delivered his scooter.  I may never have explained that like most sales jobs, a sale isn't complete until the equipment is delivered, and signed paperwork sent to the home office. Also, part of what we do that proves so valuable to the VA's is a fairly comprehensive training that helps the vets use their "chairs" better. We also fill out a checklist they sign that shows they received that training. Anyway after awhile I'm back on the road, and get to the last guy's house in North Bangor around 7p. We get him trained and the paperwork signed. Then I helped him get it into a very cluttered garage and finally headed home. Down Rte 11 to Malone, then down Rte 30 to Rte 28, to Rte 12 into Utica. This sounds easy but takes up about four good sized pages of the map  book, and amounts to something like 200-250 miles. Finally I get to Utica, it's around 11p, I think. Starving, I stopped at Wendy's, and picked up a triple bacon cheeseburger, not the Baconater (?) which is excellent, but I think called the Bacon Special, similar but less bacon and lettuce  etc., more normal. Soon back on the road, I'm headed south on Rte 12, go through Waterville, and now only 12-13 miles from home, where I plan to have a much anticipated Pepsi and enjoy my Wendy's cheeseburger.  I'm going along about 55-60, and go through a wide spot on the road called North Brookfield.  Just driving when suddenly, BANG...WHAM!!!! The van is making this horrendous noise and jumping and veering all over the road, both lanes shoulder to shoulder. I literally thought it was going to flip over. I was surprised, puzzled, scared, outraged, unknowing all at once. I'd seen NOTHING, but something had happened, what it was I didn't have a clue.  I slipped it in neutral to try to bring the van under control and finally coasted to the shoulder after a wild ride of about a half mile. Smoke was pouring out of the passenger side wheel well, like a house afire. To give you an idea of the ride, the Equalizer lift I still had in back had flopped onto it's side, and they aren't light. Still not knowing what had happened, knowing that I must have hit something, but I hadn't seen anything, nothing, nothing at all, I couldn't understand what. Then I got a flashlight and got out of the van. The front drivers side corner was bashed in, the bumper was pushed down and against the tire, explaining the smoke.   I checked the steering wheel would't turn at all now, how I'd steered it bringing it under control, God only knows. Suddenly I saw it, on the bumper, and on the inner fender that was know resting on top of the tire. Deer hair, long winter deer hair. I must have hit a deer. I took the flaslight and walked a half mile or so back down 12 to North Brookfield, oh forgot to mention that I'd called AAA and arranged for a tow after looking at the van, anyway I'm walking along looking for a dead deer. I wanted to kick the dead corpse a few times for trying to kill me. But...nothing. No deer corpse, no skid marks, nothing. Apparently he'd (or she'd) bounced off and run away into the woods that line that part of Rte 12. A lady stopped and insisted on giving me a ride back to my van. She was very nice. She did tell me about a semi, that in that same general area was swarmed by 10 or 12 deer, and he veered off the road into a field and flipped over. She said they helped him but I don't remember if she said he was hurt or not.  So anyway, I sat in my van and waited, about half a dozen cars and trucks (semi's mostly), zoomed past. The deer had done his (or her) work that night already. Finally the tow truck, from Von Bank's  in Earlville, showed up right when AAA had said, about 1am.  He got out and looked at my van, said, "hit a deer huh?"  Literally, first words out of his mouth. I commented that it's hard to believe a deer could push the bumper back like that. He said it was far from the worst he's seen, far from the worst. Then we decided that he'd have to pull the bumper away from the tire to move the van. He put the hook that they use to winch the car onto the flatbed on the bumper and I held it until it was tight and wouldn't slip and he pulled the bumper out. When he stopped it was pretty much right where it had started from. He unscrewed the one screw still holding the deer hair covered inner fender, and I tossed it onto the passenger side in the van, he checked the steering and said it looked like I could probably drive it home if I wanted to. So I took off and he followed until I turned onto Larkin Rd. When I turned the wheels I could hear grinding but figured it was a piece of plastic that had been sticking out. Finally, got home, parked, said screw it, went in and had my long awaited Pepsi and a COLD bacon cheeseburger. There's nothing quite as bad as a cold burger as I discovered. So went a great day that ended horribly.  I woke up around 11am today, had a shower and called the insurance company who were very nice and got right on it....

Lee Murray