My first year of college was interesting.  Let’s just say I had to take a detour and learn some better study habits.  But I found myself and then found out that SIU was not the school for me.  In probably what was one of the best career decisions I’ve made, I decided to stay at home, take all the classes I could at the local college and then transfer to NIU to complete my degree.  The big catch was that I wanted to work with computers while I earned my degree so I could graduate with experience.  Everyone was gunning for a “computer” career but when I finished I wanted experience to get job.  It worked out great.

I did some temp work for Household bank processing data into massive spreadsheets.  And then I was called in to interview with CompUSA.  This was back when it was a real computer store and it had computer sales people.  People that had to know computers and had a real job selling them.  It was a great job for a number of years while I completed my degree.  But once I started back at NIU, I worked part time coming home to work the computer job and then going back to school.

I had to make sales and CompUSA was one of the first Apple Authorized mass retailers.  The problem was that no one took the time to learn the Macs because most people were coming in for PCs.  This was everyone chasing the same nickel.  Average PC sales were between $1200 and $1500 while average Mac sales were $1500 – $2500.  Since no one were selling these, I spent more time learning and selling.  So as I part time salesperson I had some really good numbers.

The first Mac I bought was a floor model of a Mac Classic.  It was not selling and I made our GM a deal.  If I were to sell (5) systems that day, that I could buy it for $100.  I was the last salesperson that day and closed the day out with my 5th system and got my my Mac!