Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive: On The Road Again….Illinois & The Fabric Cobbler

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a fabulous weekend.  It’s been a little while since the last time I got my butt out of my chair and hit the road to visit customers on sales calls.  Shame on me! I guess I have just gotten so bogged down with paper work or maybe I have just been lazy and avoiding the dread of travelling these days. The truth is that the office stuff is boring. There is nothing I love more than being out on the road selling, meeting customers and seeing all the different quilt shops out there. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this trip and whatever it might bring.  Stay tuned.

With that, I wanted to tell you what I have going on this week. Wednesday night I will be flying to Chicago.  Thursday and Friday I will be travelling with my local sales reps to about 3-4 shops.  I truly look forward to meeting some of her customers as I have not traveled to shops in Illinois in a long time.  And you know as well as I do that the shop owners can’t wait to meet this famous schmata salesman and blogger extraordinaire.  I mean, come on.  I think I am up to like 25 avid blog readers and I am ranked in the top one million blogs on Bloglovin.  Fame is all relative.  I digress.

Now the really exciting part.  Without going in to too much detail (feel free to read this story with more background about Scarlett “S”), several quilt markets ago I met this truly amazing quilt shop owner who also happens to be a vet. A vet who defended our United States Of America. Her name is Scarlett Wells and she owns the Fabric Cobbler in Forsythe, Illinois.  Since that day at market when we met, we have formed a lovely friendship and work relationship. So when Scarlett invited me to speak at a customer dinner that she was hosting, I of course had to oblige.  You know me, Scott the “yes man.”

The truth is that I am excited to speak at this event as it has been a little while since my last speaking engagement in North Carolina last year. When I partake in speaking engagements, I usually don’t like to give a long boring speech where everyone will fall asleep.  I prefer to give a little intro and then let the conversation develop based on audience member questions and participation.  So for all of you Fabric Cobbler fans attending the dinner, please make sure to bring your questions related to fabric, family businesses, selling, buying, marketing, social media, 4th generation and so on and so forth. Please don’t be shy because the better the questions, the better and more informative the night will be for each of you.  In other words, we are all in this together.

I can’t wait for Friday night and I sure hope that my glossophobia (fear of public speaking) doesn’t kick in.  Finally, for anyone else who might be interested in inviting me to speak at a fabric related event, make sure to send me an invite because there is a good chance that I will surprise you and actually say “yes.”  The good thing is that I usually come bearing gifts.

Public Speaking Scott