Chapter 6

Back home from his cruise, Jerry went through his held mail and paid some bills. He was pleased that his salespeople had added nine retail locations while he was gone. Jerry emailed Bud Palmer and thanked him for this cruise. He said he had an enjoyable time and mentioned that he had met several European people unfamiliar with Bifty shoes. The raised heel design seemed to interest women, and Europe could be an area the company would want to expand and advertise Bifty shoes.

Jerry also mentioned that there should be consideration given to approaching cruise lines to see if they would be interested in their onboard shops selling Bifty shoes. He said a modified scaled-down shoe display to include one of each shoe model with a color chart would take up little space in the ship shops. A passenger who wanted to purchase shoes could fill out a form for the model, size, and color they would give to the clerk. When the shops are closed, which is frequent, the clerk could submit the order online along with the funds to pay for the shoes, keeping their commission. We could ship as we do for online purchases. Shipping from the States to other countries could be a problem, and there would need to be some thought of how to do it.

After he sent that email, he thought about what to do in the coming months and what he could do to meet women. He was somewhat spoiled because of the encounters with women he met cruising. While he planned to do more cruising in the future, he needed a Plan B to meet women who lived where he was living.

The hope he had of developing a sexual relationship with Emily, the nurse who lived down the hall from him, crashed and burned. That was because Jerry saw a man about his age leaving her unit one morning. It was that observation and seeing the ring on her finger when he met her one morning when she was coming home from work and Jerry was leaving the building.

In his office, Jerry looked at the large map of Indiana on the wall showing the retail locations he and his salespeople had established. That caused him to wonder if he was working as smart as he could. Instead of doing this sales selling, he thought that if he hired more people, they could do the work. By having more people, Jerry could be just like his boss Bud Palmer, sitting on his ass making money, while people are doing the sales work.

Since it would take some time before this type of selling would generate a livable wage, he thought he should be looking for people wanting to supplement their income. People who were teachers and were off for the summer and retired military came to mind.

Jerry placed a few employment ads and hired Rich Dawson and Stan Winger. They had retired from the military and were looking for part-time work. The compensation they would receive from shoe sales at the retail locations was one thing, but the hook was the reduced commission from the online sales made in those zip codes. Jerry spent some of his time training these new hires. With these two hires on the books and productive, he could stop his efforts of establishing sales locations.

Jerry thought he had transformed from being a salesperson into being a sales manager. His work now would be to supervise or hire more salespeople. Of course, he still had to do the required paperwork and the month-end salary administration.

Hearing his cell phone ring, he picked it up and saw that the caller ID indicated it was his boss, Bud Palmer calling.

Answering the call, he said, “What’s up boss?”

“I thought you would like to know that I forwarded your comments about us selling shoes on a cruise ship to Myles Owens, the owner of our company. He liked the idea and assigned that project to one of his assistants. The result is that two major cruise lines are putting your suggestion of a modified display of our shoes in their ship shops. Myles is a fair-minded person. He said you will get a reduced commission for every shoe sold.”

“That is great news and completely unexpected. Thanks for doing that, and thank Myles for me. But changing the subject, let me ask about selling shoes in Florida. How much of that State are you operating in?”

“Primarily the west coast, from Tampa down to Naples, but why are you asking?”

“How about the panhandle and going over to Jacksonville?”

“Neither I nor the other sales manager to my knowledge, have any salespeople there. That is virgin territory, but why are you asking?”

“I was thinking of going down there and seeing if it is a place I would like to vacation at or maybe live there sometime in the future. Any problems if I do some selling or add salespeople to work for me while I am in Florida?”

“Not in the least. Just forward your orders as you do now, and good luck.”

Late Saturday morning, Jerry stopped by the cleaners to pick up some items he had there. In leaving the cleaners, he noticed the nice backside of a woman who had bent to get something from the trunk of her car. On a scale of one to ten, her ass was a ten because of how the tight pants she was wearing fit her butt. When the lady stood and turned, he recognized her. She was Abby Shelton, the teacher who had helped when he did the dance instructing at the high school.

Abby, in recognizing Jerry said, “Fancy meeting you here. How are you doing?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Pretty much the same.”

“If you have time, can I buy you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s, on the corner?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

He watched her walking to the cleaners, which just confirmed his initial impression that Abby had a nice ass.

At McDonald’s, after getting the coffee and sitting at a table, Jerry asked Abby if the dance lessons had continued.

“We checked with the students because of the large turnout when you were instructing, asking why that was. It became clear that the girls came because they wanted to dance. The boys were there because that is where the girls were. If any student now asks for dance lessons, we tell them to watch YouTube, which has several how-to-fast-dance videos.”