VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

Harold A. puts sales skills to work

BY HANNAH HERNER

Harold A. has been selling The Contributor for six years, and is most well known for his spot on West End and 30th Ave North, near BrickTop’s. With the help of area nonprofit Open Table Nashville, he got to move into the area he works nearly two years ago. The Contributor caught up with him to learn what’s brought him to this point.

Have you gotten to know people over the years selling here?

Yes ma'am, over the years, I've got to know just about all the regulars and it's been like a round table of customers.

Do you feel like they get to know you too?

They ask me what's going on with me, and I explain to them how I got homeless and how the paper helps us pay our medical bills, rent, food, hygiene, stuff like that.

And not long ago you got to move in nearby, is that right?

Yes ma’am I’m living in Parthenon Towers. It's been like about two years now. And it's only a walk away from work. It's just a blessing, you know? I don't have to pay any transportation costs to get back and forth to work.

Where are you originally from?

North Nashville and west Nashville. I went to school and graduated, East High. Tennessee State University, I went to Howard University in D.C. and I went to Ben Franklin [University].

Did you finish out a degree with any of them?

I was going part time for each one. I was kind of undecided of what I wanted to do. My mother was a school teacher. She was staying in Missouri, so when I dropped out of Howard I went to Missouri, and I started going to school there.

I started out in Biochemistry. I didn't have a very good background in chemistry or physics, analytical and quantitative and all of that, so I changed it over to Communication. And then I changed it again from Communication to, I think, Accounting. That's when I went to Seymour and tried to be a CPA.

What jobs did you do before you came to us at The Contributor?

I was working with a roofing company, construction. And that was my last job before I started working with The Contributor. I used to criticize [Contributor vendors]. I was like, ‘they need to get them a job,’ because I had a job. And sooner or later what I criticized about I ended up doing.

I've been in sales most all of my life. Each summer after college they had this company in Franklin and I will go out each summer with them. They will send us to some city, different state and we would have to go like door to door, like eight o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night. We had a specific territory and we didn't have a place to stay so they taught us how to go into the church and tell them that you know, we were college students and that we were looking for a place to stay and we just needed a place just to keep out of things and and lay our head and we would be gone. I had to go out and it was all commission so if you didn't sell, you didn't eat. So I had to sell some books.

Do you feel like that work prepared you for this work?

I know it did. It taught me how to take rejections. I found out in sales it's the law of averages. You might have to go through 20 people to get five, so I learned how to deal with rejections a whole lot and keep a smile on my face and a positive attitude. And just have faith, you know, keep my determination.

When you’re not working, what are some things you like to do for fun?

Probably exercise — running, sit ups, push ups. Just anything physical, just to keep my body active. That's how I got in the wheelchair.

I thought I was 17. On my birthday I said, ‘man I feel so good.’ So I was throwing my leg up over the meter and running in place, and just outdoing myself. When I got up the next morning I couldn't walk. It was like a slight case of arthritis in my hip. It's taken about almost three weeks for it to heal. I should have stretched before I start exercising, but I was feeling so good.

You said you share your story of how you became homeless with customers, do you want to share now?

After I got my divorce, me and my wife separated, I was in Kansas City, Missouri. I didn't have any family up there. So I just basically lost everything. I just came back here to stay with my mom. She passed away and she was like my backbone. But once she passed away I couldn't depend on nobody else but myself, so that's kind of how I got homeless. I never had had a home, a stable rental place. I didn't have any credit history or nothing like that because I was always in school so it was hard to find a place.

Do you have a goal for the future?

I just pray to God. Whatever he has planned out for me but I had to put him first in my life. Whichever way that he leads me is the way. Hopefully, everything will work out but so far everything has. Just when I thought I'm gonna fall on my face he's blessed me. I just keep striving to have faith.