When I wuz a young whippersnapper growing up back in the mid-1900s, I earned spending money any way I could. Some of the main ways I remember wuz hauling and stacking small square bales or small round bales of hay for from 1-cent to 3-cents per bale. I packed silage inside upright silos. Several times I shocked corn. In my teens, I regularly sold milk from my one milk cow. I helped a local farmer with deliveries of his homegrown farm foodstuffs to military families at a military base.
When I headed off to college at Bea Wilder U, I wuz poor as a church mouse. So, as quickly as I could find the time for campus and off campus jobs, I snapped to the task.
I washed petri dishes for the plant pathology department. I also helped that department with plot harvesting in the spring — counting and measuring such things as smut, ergot, mosaic, rust, stripe, mildew, and bunt diseases on small grain crops.
For the horticulture department, I crawled around on my hands and knees as a human “honey bee” pollinating watermelon plants with a rubbery fishing lure hooked to the end of dowel rod. It wuz a plant breeding effort to develop the Crimson Sweet watermelon with small refrigerator size.
I taught — at great personal danger, I might add — a group of foreign ag students how to drive a Ford Jubilee tractor. They were totally inept. We were all lucky to survive to lessons. For a while, I also did all the evening janitor work in the four-floor campus chemistry building.
Off-campus jobs included working the back pens at two local weekly livestock auction barns and loading out both cattle and market weight hogs. For a time, I worked planting ornamental trees and shrubs for a local Green Thumb Garden Center. (I’ll mention that I got fired from that job becuz I wouldn’t work weekends becuz I wuz courting a “hot” young Nevah at the time.) One spring, I even helped loading and unloading furniture for Mayflower trucking.
However, regardless of all my jobs, I still needed more spending money. I learned in some of my college classes that the big money, the quick money, the easy money wuz in sales. All I person needed to succeed in sales wuz: find a good product that everyone needed; find a potentially lucrative sales territory for the product; develop effective sales tools; work out a creative sales pitch; be willing to work hard and be persistent.
With that rudimentary sales knowledge bouncing around in my noggin, a sales job advertised in the campus newspaper caught both my attention and my fancy. It wuz a job selling toothbrushes.
My college campus seemed a perfect marketplace. With all the “he-ing” and “she-ing” going on everywhere, everyone needed a bright smile and good breath. In those days even the college staff and faculty always maintained a good image.
So, I applied for the job. And, I got it. After a few hours of training, my sales manager set a daily quota of 20 toothbrushes I wuz expected to sell for $1 each. You’ve got to remember that these were 1960s prices. I wuz sure I could meet the daily quota with no problem. My future looked bright.
The first day I set up my sales booth along a busy campus sidewalk. The students scurrying to class ignored my sales plea. The day wuz a complete flop. I sold a total of five toothbrushes. At the end of the day, my sales manager sternly warned me that I had to pick up the pace on closing sales.
The second day, I set up my sales booth in the local campus shopping district. There wuz plenty of traffic, but, sadly, few buyers. Most folks walking by simply ignored my sales pitch about all the advantages of my line of toothbrushes. I, again, sold a total of five toothbrushes that day.
When I reported to my sales manager, he bluntly told me that he didn’t see a future for me in sales. He told me to turn in my sales kit and not come back. That’s when I pleaded with him to give me one more day, one more chance. He very reluctantly agreed to grant me a third day.
That night I put my creative aggie mind to work. I came up with a new approach to toothbrush sales. I spent the night finding the ingredients for a special chip dip. And I bought a goodly supply of dipping chips.
The next day, I set up “Milo’s Chip & Dip” stand just outside the arena entrance to a major campus sporting event. Thousands of potential customers had to pass right by me to enter or leave the arena. On my table wuz a never-ending supply of dipping chips and a huge bowl of my “Genuine, Organic, Guaranteed Farm Fresh Dip.”
As folks passed my stand, I offered them a free taste of chip and dip. Every single one of them accepted the sample, took a bite, wrinkled up his or her nose, and spat “Good gosh, man! This dip tastes like cow manure!”
That’s when I brightly said, “It IS farm fresh cow manure. Wanna to buy a toothbrush?”
I sold 2,000 toothbrushes that day and my sales manager said I broke the company daily sales record.
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Rural bank sign: “We serve farmers who have everything — but haven’t paid for it.”
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It’s time for this week’s words of wisdom: “Kids in your family who never come when they are called probably will grow up to be doctors. And, kids who show up without being called probably will grow up to be lawyers.”
Have a good ‘un.
