COLUMN ONE : Road Gets Tough for Salesmen : Crowded freeways, fewer customers and the time and high cost of making a pitch are putting the squeeze on sales reps. But persistence still pays off.

In the past seven months, the soft-spoken woman with the traffic report droning on the car radio has sold 20,000 Panasonic nose-hair clippers, 1.5 million tubes of Krazy Glue and 997,500 rolls of Alcan aluminum foil.

She has driven 25,000 miles, spent more than three weeks--about 600 hours--behind the wheel of her dusty white Buick and has been stuck in traffic for at least a third of that. She counts her cellular phone among her closest friends. She can kill a car in three years.

Willie Loman, say hello to Patricia Hankins, the 1990s version of the mythic American traveling salesman. But make it quick. She may not be around for very much longer.

“Five years from now, I’m not going to be doing this,” Hankins vows as she navigates the Artesia Freeway, her sixth of the day. “In five years, this is going to become a very different job unless they get some sort of mass transit system for other people to get them off the road.”

Hankins is getting fed up with the difficulties of doing business in Southern California. Sure, the Southland is the best territory in America for the nation’s 100,000 “independent manufacturers representatives” and its countless other factory salesmen and saleswomen.

These are the women and men who ply the freeways like long lines of ants, making sure that raw materials proceed from manufacturer to industry, that consumer goods get from warehouse to store shelf, that the business of business continues smoothly. With more manufacturers and more consumers than any other region in the country, Southern California is a drummer’s dream come true.

But for these “knights of the road,” the Southland is no Camelot. Not only are the freeways they crisscross clogged, but their car-related expenses are sky high: Such automotive necessities as maintenance, registration and insurance are upwards of 60% more here than elsewhere in the country.

What does all this mean? That the job of selling home blood-pressure monitors or copper tubing or $40 bottles of wine in a moribund economy gets even harder the minute a salesperson lugs that sample case south of the Tehachapi Mountains.

And it was never an easy job to begin with.

With the exception of inflatable hats and pouches of designer dirt, the Panasonic nose-hair clipper (a.k.a. “personal groomer”) was the toughest product Hankins has represented in 15 years of hawking wares in Southern California.

It wasn’t that consumers didn’t want it; they eventually snapped it up when they got the chance. But buyers for chains such as Van Nuys-based Adray’s discount store were more than a little squeamish. For months, they wouldn’t touch the battery-powered device.

“One said, ‘That’s disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want it in my store,’ ” Hankins said.

“Three months later, he called back. ‘That unmentionable thing, I’ll take 1,500 and I don’t want to hear one word about it,’ ” she said. “I couldn’t even say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

Part of what changed the buyer’s mind was the Sharper Image Corp., which was scooping up the clippers and selling them fast. The rest was Hankins, queen of soft sell, call-back, follow-through.

“Pat is the highest enchilada of sales that we have,” said Tom Paalman, partner at Pacific Sales Group Inc., a Los Alamitos-based manufacturers’ representative firm where the best of the sales force earns in the low six figures.

Still, Hankins, 52, said she never dreamed she’d make a living by trolling the uglier parts of Los Angeles talking to strangers. Hankins got her first job when she was a 36-year-old grandmother whose nest had emptied after her parents died and some of her children moved away.

“My main reason for going to work was that I became a fanatic at cleaning my house,” she said. “Everyone said, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ . . . . If you asked me if I thought I could be a salesperson, I would have said absolutely not. It was my last choice. I was intimidated by them. If a salesperson called at home, I couldn’t say no. I can now.”

She not only learned to say no, but she learned the secret of making others say yes. Like the buyer at Adray’s who purchased $1 million worth of telephone answering machines in one day. Or Dave Gold, chief buyer for the 99-Cents Only Stores--a tough sell if there ever was one.

Gold was her first pitch of the day, one recent morning before Christmas. Hankins had arrived at work at 6:30 a.m. and called manufacturers for several hours trying to ensure delivery of goods she had already sold.

She walked into Gold’s Vernon office at 10 a.m. and took her place alongside purveyors of close-out pineapples and cat food, potpourri-scented air freshener, lighter fluid and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle macaroni and cheese.

Not everyone was as cheerful as Hankins, who was planning on pitching Hefty sandwich bags and was confident of a sale.

A salesman who arrived from San Francisco the night before groused that it took him two hours to get to Gold’s office from the airport hotel. And he didn’t get much cheerier. Gold did buy a truckload of sample-sized boxes of cat food from the grumbling commuter, but balked at miniature jars of English apricot preserves.

“These’d be a good four- or five-for-99-cents stocking stuffer,” Gold mused as he held court. He paused. The salesman’s hopes rose. And then fell. “But I’m not gonna buy it. We got something similar from Germany already.”

Hankins was next. After 35 minutes in the car and another 30 of waiting for an audience, she reached into her briefcase and began: “Remember I talked to you a few weeks ago about sandwich bags?”

He remembered. He wanted them. The transaction took two minutes, but it would be the only speedy part of the day.

Hankins had left the office at 9:30 a.m. She returned at 4:30 p.m. She had made only two sales calls. And she had driven only 118 miles after more than four hours in the car. Top speed: about 60. Average speed: about 28 m.p.h.

As she navigated the freeways from the San Fernando Valley back to her Los Alamitos office--past tailgaters, a rear-end collision and miles of graffiti--Hankins’ foot was never far from the brake pedal.

“At this time of day, there’s nothing you can do,” she said. “You just bite the bullet and go with it. If you get frustrated, you should get off the freeway and go shopping.”

By the time the 20th Century rolled around, traveling salesmen were firmly ensconced in American mythology--universally known, if not universally respected.

“The traveling salesman is truly a piece of American folklore and has to do with American values, capitalism,” said Alan Dundes, professor of anthropology and folklore at UC Berkeley. “He’s also the rugged individual. . . . He’s alone with his car.”

Alone in the car, but not on the highways. Although few statistics are kept on this peripatetic sales force, Marilyn Stephens, executive director of the Manufacturers’ Representatives Educational Research Foundation, estimates that 100,000 manufacturers representatives roam the road, selling about $225 billion worth of goods each year. Those figures do not include factory-direct sales agents.

For all their productivity, however, “a career as a manufacturer’s agent is probably the least acceptable profession a young person could consider,” Stephens wrote. One reason is probably the sheer grind associated with the job: Volumes of paper work, hours stuck in the crush of traffic and 12-hour days are the norm.

Most representatives’ associations figure that a mediocre traveling salesperson can clear about $30,000 a year, while those at the top of the profession can earn in the low six figures.

Top independent sales agents “are very energetic and highly motivated,” said Laurence Alexander, editor of the New York-based newsletter Sales Rep’s Adviser. “They live and die on their own ability, because they don’t get any salary or any vacation money or anything unless they sell.”

While that has always been the case, the recessionary 1990s are particularly tough times to sell anything at all.

For starters, the simple cost of making a sales call--the salesperson’s salary, commissions, bonuses, travel and entertainment expenses--has soared from $137.02 in 1977 to about $350 in 1990, according to McGraw-Hill Research and the industry newsletter Better Repping.

“And if you don’t make sales calls, you don’t make money,” says Paalman, of Pacific Sales. “You can’t do it by phone and fax.”

And for retail representatives--particularly in Southern California--the increased costs are only the beginning.

Salespeople also face the roadblock of retail consolidation. A decade ago, the Southern California rep counted such giants as Zody’s, Gemco, Ole’s, Fedmart and Treasury among the major clients. Today, all of those outlets--and many more--are gone. And replacements like Target stores do their buying out of national offices located outside of the region.

“There are fewer customers,” said Tom Hawkins, president of Max Quimby & Associates, a Glendale sales agency. “If I had the 25 to 30 major customers I had earlier instead of the five to six I have now, I’d be spending more time on the road.”

Then there’s the road itself. Southern California is home to nine of the 10 busiest highway junctions in the nation, freeway intersections whose volume has increased dramatically, doubling or more in the last two decades.

Bill Noel, managing partner at Specification Sales in the City of Commerce, has been selling industrial plumbing supplies in Southern California for the past 20 years.

“Getting around town is just too hard,” said Noel, who spends at least four hours in his car each day.

The greatest loss, Noel said, is selling time. He’s had a cellular phone since they were approved for use in the Southland, but that doesn’t make up for fewer face-to-face calls, the ones where the selling really happens.

“Currently, we’re fortunate to make seven to 10 calls each day,” he said. “Going back five to eight years, we used to make a minimum of 15 calls per day. It’s been cut in half in eight years.”

When salesmen and women find themselves driving more and more slowly each year, they are forced to change the way they work--or get out of the business.

Car phones and laptop computers help. So do fax machines. But few innovations have helped as much as the simplest one, which is used by salespeople at Cambridge-Lee Industries in Anaheim.

“One of our answers is to get more products to sell,” said Jack Eversoll, consultant to the Anaheim company. “It’s important for us to have a strong product line, to have more products, so when we make the fewer calls, we can sell more business.”

Jack Brennan, a sales rep at Cambridge-Lee, says he is not fazed by all the traffic. OK, so it’s rough on the way home, but there’s nothing you can do about it then. Besides, by 6 p.m. your work is done and you’re on your own time anyway.

This purveyor of pipe and tubing doesn’t see much congestion when he makes his rounds to plumbing supply wholesalers. And he doesn’t have any trouble when he leaves his Anaheim home--even when he’s going as far away as Riverside County. No, he doesn’t get around by helicopter. And he’s not hallucinating.

Instead, he’s a commuting contortionist, a man from whom we can all learn a lesson on how to survive in the urban wilderness. Up by 4:45 a.m. On the road by 5:30 a.m. At a favorite coffee shop by 7, with time to spare for black coffee, Marlboro Lights and the Wall Street Journal.

So what if his first call’s not until 8 a.m. That just means there’s more time to read, to make calls, to smoke, to plan the day. After all, if you don’t like getting up early, maybe you’re in the wrong line.

“I have to be in the area where I’m going to work to put in an honest day,” Brennan says. “So I leave the house every day at 5:30. . . . My habit of early rising is directly related to the traffic problems.”

Any other sort of behavior, he asserts with characteristic bluntness, “would be criminally unfair to my employer.”

One recent workday took Brennan east of Los Angeles, to the City of Industry, Rosemead and El Monte. Leaving a full hour later than usual to accommodate a tag-along visitor, he was on the Santa Ana Freeway by 6:25 a.m. And at a dead stop 16 minutes and nine miles later. So much for planning.

First destination: Denny’s, City of Industry. Brennan checks the commodity reports and plans to make copies for faxing to clients. One reason is to keep them apprised of copper prices, because he wants to be their copper tubing supplier. But his main objective is to demonstrate he cares--a big gun in the salesman’s arsenal.

“It’s a personal service,” Brennan says, “my way of keeping them in touch with the marketplace. They don’t want to buy $60,000 of copper tubing and have the price go down tomorrow morning. . . . I go the extra mile, break my butt to keep the purchasing agent informed.”

Six cigarettes and three cups of coffee later, he’s off on the first of 10 calls to potential buyers. It’s a hectic existence, fraught with repetition and more than a little bit of contradiction.

The best part of selling, Brennan says, is “being a one-man band.” The salesman--self-reliant, his own boss--is out there with his car and his customers. On the other hand, Brennan is always at someone’s beck and call. He wears a beeper. And has a car phone. And a voice-mail system. And he returns every phone call he gets. Immediately.

What do you call a salesman who doesn’t return phone calls?

Unemployed.

Brennan saunters into the office of Allied Refrigeration at 8:05 a.m. on the dot, tasseled loafers shined, tan wool slacks creased, St. John’s University class ring glinting in the winter sunlight.

Neil’s not in? Brennan figures he’ll wait a bit. In Neil’s office, as a matter of fact, cadging the copy machine and the fax. After some general recession chat with the boys in the back, he’s informed that Neil’s not coming in at all. Something about a court date.

Brennan is undaunted. “Is your copper tubing OK? How ‘bout your cylinders? You need cylinders?” “No, but we could use some insulation.” He lopes out to his little black Mercedes and comes back with an order sheet.

“I hope you find the prices are pretty damn good. . . . I really appreciate it. . . . I’ll follow up on it. . . . You sure you’re OK on the cylinders?. . . . When do you think you got them last?”

He’s back to the car by 8:40 and immediately on the phone with the absent Neil’s superiors.

“When the hell’s the last time you bought cylinders? Really? You still don’t need any? You know, I’m still trying to get rid of that insulation. If there’s any chance of your taking some of the stuff, I’d really appreciate it. Maybe I can work billing for you or something. I’d really appreciate it.”

And on and on, until 12 hours, 80 miles on the freeway and more than 34 cigarettes later, he’s home again. He’s shaken dozens of hands, pounded countless backs, passed out a case of pocket calendars embossed with his company name.

“I’d really appreciate it” is his mantra, and he has intoned it at stops throughout the day, along with sincere holiday greetings and a string of self-deprecating remarks. “How am I? Wonderful. You believe that, and I got six more to tell you.”

But despite the public show of humility, Brennan is a self-proclaimed “Irish egoist,” the kind of man who believes that relationship is everything in sales, who will not lie but will negotiate, who relies on the soft sell until it’s time to bully the customer. Just a little.

“They have to want to do business with Jack Brennan,” he says. It’s a task he accomplishes “just by being who I am. What you see is what you get.”

He pauses. “I’m not always successful, which is still a shock to me.”

THE COST OF A CALL

The cost of making a single face-to-face call to a business customer has risen for salesmen and women throughout the country. The following shows the general trend; industry experts figure that it’s even more expensive to do business in Southern California.

* Estimate provided by Jack Berman, publisher of Better Repping newsletter.

COMPARATIVE CAR COSTS FOR SELECTED CITIES

Annual Annual Total Fixed Operating Annual Location Costs Costs Costs Los Angeles $5,787 $1,613 $7,400 Boston 4,538 1,658 6,196 New York 4,434 1,695 6,129 Chicago 4,032 1,748 5,780 San Diego 4,038 1,665 5,703 Seattle 3,933 1,613 5,546 San Antonio 3,878 1,493 5,371 Washington 3,673 1,665 5,338 Portland, Ore. 3,492 1,583 5,075 Ontario 3,473 1,523 4,998

Note: The above table is based upon a 1991 Ford Taurus/4-door, 3.0 liter, 6-cylinder sedan, equipped with automatic transmission, power steering, power disc brakes, tinted glass, AM-FM stereo, cruise control and air conditioning. Factors are based on a 4-year/60,000 mile retention cycle.

Source: Runzheimer International