If you’ve been following along for any portion of my career journey, you may have gained a sense of my passion and love for the Shell brand of lubricants that I carried. Having worked for all three of the Shell distributors in Chicagoland for my almost ten-year career, I couldn’t have imagined representing another set of colors. Of course, at the distributor level, you have private label options in your toolkit to pull from, but as far as major brand products, I waved my Shell flag high.
At the beginning of 2022, after almost three years logged growing the newly acquired Chicago territory for Rilco, I felt myself ready for the next step, and started putting feelers out with my Shell friends for any open positions. Unfortunately, the thing about majors is that most of them have a large corporate office, typically somewhere in Texas, and if a remote position isn’t available where you currently live, there is a high change you’ll be required to move to corporate town. I wouldn’t have minded a change of scenery, but I want sure I was up for a move that far from my Midwest home. I had to rely on something being available in or near my home base.
There was an Area Market Manager position available based out of Chicago, which is a type of territory rep for the automotive market, and a few JiffyLube related positions (since JiffyLube is one of the Shell group of brands). None of these were anything I could imagine myself passionate about doing, but a way into the company is a way in, and from my understanding, after a few years of hard work logged, Shell is very supportive of transitioning to new roles as they become available. I applied to all of them and heard nothing back.
Feeling a little let down, I started applying and interviewing for a position much more aligned with my talents at another major brand that happened to be open in my area. It was a move up and a great opportunity for me to build some new skills, however it still took a major inner adjustment on my part to become ok with the idea of bearing the new logo. I thought of it as a chance to glean new insight on how another lubricant brand goes to market.
A few weeks into the process, and with almost complete acceptance of my potential departure of the pectin cheer team, an old acquaintance from Shell reached out with a golden opportunity. It was as if the universe was waiting for my inner character adjustment to take place before sending the option that was truly meant for me. The acquaintance had actually offered me this same position one week after I had started with Rilco back in 2019, and I had to turn them down. I felt it was important to live up to the commitments I made to the Rilco team at the time. Here was the opportunity presenting itself again, it must be “bashert” as my best friend would say!
I jumped at the chance and began onboarding by the end of April. It may sound all sunshine and rainbows, but this is where my first true career challenge began. The position I accepted was for what Shell calls an FBAM (Field Based Account Manager) and for some reason, I had it in my head that it was going to be almost identical to my roles as a field rep for the distributors, but with a few large accounts and much less travel. Boy was that the farthest from the truth.
Not only was the role much more demanding than I anticipated, with a larger territory, but I was entering it during one of the most difficult times for our industry. Product shortages plagued almost every order and most time was devoted to finding alternates for customers. Lots and lots of chasing with little time for selling. My huge territory of 375 ship-to locations, consisting of ten different OEM dealer groups, multiple miscellaneous fleets, all of the locations for two installer brands (truck repair shops), and eventually multiple paper mills, and tons of construction related accounts, had been underserved for a number of years. Customers were already unhappy and now forced to deal with the shortages on products.
I pushed through the gritty and awkward interactions with frustrated customers as I introduced myself to be their new focal; praying for their patience as I drank from the firehose in my training. I’ll be quite honest here, the transition was so tough, that I still haven’t had the chance to meet all of my accounts as we come upon the 10 month mark since I started. There was one area however, that I felt I was able to get a firm grasp on, and that was our OEM relationship with Case Industrial CNHi. The program was well thought out, well organized, and leadership from the team was incredibly helpful. I was thankful for this one area I felt I could excel and it kept my spirits up. Its also nice that I am connected to Case through Crew as they are one of our main partners!
Of course, just as I was starting to find my feet, Shell announced a company reorganization set to take place before Christmas. I had watched my Shell friends go through these stressful re-orgs every few years. Most people assure you that its nothing to get too stressed over, but when you are told that your position is dissolving and you’ll have to formally apply to stay employed in a new role, its difficult to stay calm! We were given the ability to apply to five newly created roles, in order of our preference, but there was no guarantee we’d be placed in any of them, or stay employed. Terrifying.
Learn how it all pans out in Part 2!