An old friend of mine from St. Mary Parish gave me a call the other day from mid-east Florida. He had moved there a couple of years ago and got a job at one of those "Everything under one roof," shopping malls. He told me that when he applied he was asked if he was a good salesman and he of course told the manager, yes. I know he's pretty good so I know also that he fit right in. But, I didn't know how good until he told me about his first day at the mall. It seems that one of the managers at the mall trained old Jim on a register and then told him to go ahead and work the day and when the day was about over the manager would be back to check Jim's sales. Five o'clock came around and sure enough, the manager showed up just as he promised he would. He apparently asked Jim how many sales he had made and he told him, "1." Well, the manager was a little bothered by it because he told Jim that even his worse salesperson did at leat 20 sales a day! The manager asked old Jim what it was he sold and Jim told him matter of factly, "a fish hook." The manager about lost it when he heard that Jim only sold a fish hook and checked the register for the cash read out. It read: $104,627.48. The red-in-the-faced overseer immediately started chewing out Jim for the large over ring and that's when my friend interrupted his boss and explained the price. Jim told him that he sold a man a fish hook, and then asked him if he had fishing line and a good rod and reel to go with it. The guy said no, so I sold him a rod and reel, fishing line and a full tackle box to go with the fish hook. Then I asked him if he was going fishing in the ocean. The guy said he didn't have a boat for ocean fishing so I took him over to the boat area and sold him an ocean going 27' Chris Craft. Then I asked him if he had a trailer to haul it with and the guy said "no" so then I sold him a trailer. I then inquired about what size truck he had to tow everything with and he said he only had a Honda Civic so I showed him a Toyota Tundra and he took that too. All total with the tax and the curtain rod came to $104,627. 48. The manager then asked Jim where the curtain rod fit in and my friend told him that the guy initially only stopped by to get directions for the curtain rods. Then the guy further explained that his mother-in-law was coming to visit for a couple of months and his wife was putting new curtains on the bed room windows. That's when I told him that it looked like he was totally screwed for a couple of months so he might just as well go fishing.
I like them, too. Sometime you can train a man to be good at sales, but the one everyone wants to get hold of is one of those self-made salesmen like old Jim.