Johnny Sales And His Quest For Wonder

My grandfather was John Gallant and he was a salesman.  

Johnny sold anything. Vacuum tubes for TVs and electronics, tonic water and soda, organs (electric pianos—not body parts). He even sold ice! 

This was back in the day, before cell phones, email and air conditioning. He didn’t have a navigation system that told him where to get gas or to reroute him when he got lost. He was a true million-miler, gone for weeks at a time, connecting with his wife and his seven kids via payphone, driving 100k miles per year in a car. He had a motor like none I have ever seen, putting in the hustle needed to support the large family that he loved so very much. He did it all with zero complaints and a smile.

I am thinking about him now, sitting in the Delta Sky Club at Tampa International after another 800+ mile road trip this week as part of our Quest for Wonder summer driving series. It is my fourth road trip in five weeks, crisscrossing the country to meet with clients, prospects and industry leaders, learning about the wonder they find in the places they live and promote. It has been intriguing to learn of recovery, of “revenge travel,” of capacity limits being reached, of travelers paying twice what they paid before for hotels and for airline tickets. 

On each stop on the Quest for Wonder, we shot a short video interview with a DMO leader, and turned it into one-minute vignettes suitable for social media channels. We will be rolling these out all summer. Fun fact—before these road trips, I had never taken a picture with a DSLR camera and now I can set up everything for a video shoot in under five minutes. Steve Cook, our Marketing Zartican, is an amazing teacher!

This week we traveled nearly the entire Atlantic coast of Florida, and we found wonder in biker bar billiards tournaments, supercars made of space-age materials costing more than I will ever make in my life, grouper sandwiches coated with fried cornflake crust, and DMO icons that blow kisses to planes, thanking them for flying to their airports and bringing in more customers. Wonder is everywhere.

So far, my fellow Zarticans and I have cruised through California, the upper Midwest, Virginia and the Carolinas, and Florida—and have much more to still explore in our search for wonder. Friendships have grown tremendously through the experiences we have shared along this quest. The people we have met and the deep discussions and repeated jokes told over the week-long drives provide lifelong memories.

This “roll up your sleeves and get out there” mantra is at the core of Zartico’s DNA. You can’t sell tourism products to tourism people from behind a desk or exclusively over Zoom. The culture and people that together created this expectation of hustle is the reason I am a proud Zartican.  

My grandfather entered the final stage in his Quest for Wonder in March 2019 at the age of 99. I think of him most when I am tired at the end of a trip and as I relax in the air-conditioned lounge at TPA checking emails on my cell, I can hear him telling me that hard work, a genuine personality, love for family and faith, and a strong motor are the true measure of someone’s worth.

John Edward Gallant was a salesman—he was truly a wonder—and he was worth every mile.