Chapter 22

I went down to the warehouse at eight the following morning. I went in early, because I had forgotten to ask Jim Davis what time he wanted me to be there. I found him just opening the back roll up door to the warehouse, and helped him to load four cases of sausages into three coolers. He told me to put the two smaller coolers in my trunk, and to take two cases each of the jerky and pepperoni sticks for my back seat. He told me that there were two people that were supposed to be coming in for training that morning, and told me that he'd let me have first pick about who I wanted to train.

"I don't think I'm ready to train anyone Jim. I still have too much that I'm not sure about."

"Barry, I don't have the time to sit here holding your hand. This is a sink or swim kind of business. Yesterday, I found out that you can give out samples and sell product. Today, I'm going to find out if you can train someone else to do what you learned yesterday. This is just the way we do it. If you can train people, then I'll give you the rest of the things you'll need and then hop on a plane to Denver. I have to be in Denver by Friday morning because I've got a big, expensive, ad running for samplers in the paper there. If you can't do the job, I'll just have to leave things alone here until I can get back, in two or three weeks."

"Why not let me sell sausages until you can come back and finish training me?"

"I am finished with training you. You already have everything you need to make a lot of money in this business. The one thing I don't know yet is whether you can train others. That's what we're going to be finding out today. I need you to be able to train people for me, on your own, so that when I come back here, there is already a profitable operation going. It costs me a lot of money to set these offices up. I don't start getting my investment back until each office starts buying a lot of product every week. More product than you could sell all by yourself."

"I'll try to train someone, but I don't know how it's going to work out."

"It will work out fine. If you have a problem, come back in the afternoon and I'll go out with the two of you and see what the problem is. Then, we'll fix it. But, you won't have a problem. You're already good at sampling. Show the new person how to sample just like you do. Let the sausage sell itself. It's too good not to sell."

At nine o'clock, a heavy set, and very unattractive girl pulled up in her car, parked, and came over to the open door and asked for Mr. Davis.

"I'm Jim Davis. Have you had a lot of selling experience, door to door?"

"No, is that what the job is?"

"Yes."

"Well, thanks any way, but I don't think I'd like selling." She turned around, got into her car and drove away.

"She didn't have the personality to be a sampler. No sense wasting her time or ours." Five more minutes passed before another car pulled up, and a woman of about thirty stepped out. She was fairly short, maybe five one or so, but she had a nice body, and she carried herself well. She asked to see Mr. Davis too.

"I'm Jim Davis. Do you like beef jerky?"

"Yes, especially the teriaki flavor."

"How about pepperoni sticks?"

"Not really that much."

"How about smoked beef sausage?"

"Like Hickory Farms you mean?"

"Do you like their sausage?"

"Yes, but it's expensive. I've tried it at the malls at Christmas time." Jim reached into his big cooler and pulled one of his out and sliced it into two equal halves. He cut off a sample and offered it to her. "Try this and let me know what you think." She took a small bite, tasted it, and then took a larger bite.

"This is really very good. Better than Hickory Farms."

"It's cured with brown sugar, and then smoked over maple wood chips for a long time. It costs $14.95 for three pounds. Would you like to buy one?"

"No, I'm afraid that's more than I can afford. It was very good though."

"What's your name?"

"Ellen Cantrell."

"Are you from around here Ellen?"

"Yes, my husband and I have lived here for three years. He is a machinist, but he hurt himself, in a car accident, and has been on disability for the past four months. I came here looking for a job." She seemed upset, thinking that she'd been tricked maybe, that Jim had only brought her there to try and sell her a sausage.

"Do you have any children?"

"Just one, Ricky. He's six years old."

"Ellen, this is Barry, our local office manager. He'll take you out and show you what you will be doing for us."

"Can you tell me a little bit about the job first?"

"I could Ellen, but it would be better to go with Barry and find out for yourself what it entails. I'm already satisfied that it is something that you will do well at, but you have to pass muster with Barry, or I can't hire you." She looked confused, and a little nervous too.

"Hi Ellen. I know how you're feeling. It wasn't that long ago that I was in your position. It's really worked out well for me so far, and I bet it will for you too. Let's go out for an hour so I can show you what we do. If you don't like it, or don't think it's for you, I'll bring you right back here, and there will be no harm done. If you do like it, you'll probably be making a hundred dollars a day from now on."

"Is it a sales job?"

"Ellen, do you remember how Jim had you taste the sausage? Well, that's what we do. People taste it, and those that like it, and can afford it, we sell it to them."

"I've never sold anything in my life."

"There has to be a first time for everything. Come and watch me do it. You don't even have to try it yourself, if you don't want to. There aren't that many jobs around here that pay a hundred dollars a day. It would be silly for you to find one, and then not even look at it to see if it fit you."

"Just for an hour?"

"At the end of an hour, you'll at least know whether or not you're interested. If you aren't, I'll bring you back to your car."

After she finally agreed, I got her into my car and we drove over to an office complex that I knew about. These were small businesses, usually with no more than five or six employees. Dental clinics, parts houses and wholesale distributors. I showed Ellen how to wear her bag and put three jars of jerky and three pepperoni cans in it. I threw ten sausages in my bag and we walked down to the end of the buildings to begin. It took me five or ten minutes to get warmed up and to make my first sale. I talked to Ellen after each call, letting her know that giving out the samples was more important than actually selling anything.

She got a little bit excited when we went into a real estate office, and three of the women who worked there bought sausages. One of the men, I think the broker, bought three jars of jerky. He said that he was a hunter and that he had lots of friends who hunted and loved beef jerky. He opened a jar while we were there, and helped me by giving pieces to all of the women there. I sold two more jars of jerky because of him. In that one office, I sold eight units. An hour went by, and Ellen didn't say anything about wanting to quit. We worked until one o'clock and then I took her to lunch and we shared a pizza together. I let her pick the toppings. We both drank Cokes. For the morning, I had sold sixteen and a half units.

"What do you think Ellen? Could you give out samples like I did?"

"I don't know Barry, it looks easy when you do it. Doesn't it bother you when people say no, or when the boss comes out and tells you to leave?"

"Not at all. I know that people like my product. All I do is give out as many samples as I can. Remember that one office where the boss told us to leave? That women ran after us and bought a sausage? If it wasn't good, she wouldn't have gone to all of that trouble. Think about all the places that didn't ask us to leave, and all the people that enjoyed getting a free sample." We ate the pizza and I explained to Ellen about pretending that you were someone else, so that you didn't take the rejection to heart. While we were sitting there, I looked Ellen over. I had found out that she was only twenty eight, although she looked older because of how she dressed, and the way that she styled her hair. "You will do a lot better sampling guys Ellen. After lunch, we'll go over to an industrial park I know, and you can sample. I'll hold on to the bag with the pepperoni and jerky for you."

"I don't know if I could do it Barry. I'm already nervous just thinking about it."

"Could you use some extra money coming in Ellen? I've already made over seventy dollars today just from this morning. That's pretty good for three hours of work. I know that you can do as well if you just relax and give out some samples. You have to kid around a little bit and joke with the people, like I do. Don't take things too serious. When you were in high school Ellen, did you like to flirt with guys? That is something like what this job is, flirting."

"I'm married Barry, I don't flirt anymore."

"Before you were married, did you like to flirt?"

"Innocent flirting you mean, right?"

"Sure, innocent flirting, just enough to get a guy's interest, or to keep it. That was fun for you I bet."

"I flirted a little when I was in high school. All the girls did."

"When you flirted, did the guys like it? Did they pay attention to you?"

"Mostly."

"Well, that's what we'll do this afternoon then. You pretend that you aren't married, that you're back in high school, and that you're just out seeing how many guys you can get to taste your sausage. Don't even try to sell, just sample, and we'll see what happens, okay?"

"I don't think Tim, my husband, would want me flirting Barry."

"Maybe not Ellen. But, he's at home, collecting disability, and you're out here trying to make some money so that your family has the things that it needs and wants. We're not talking teasing here, just a little innocent flirting. I bet you've done a little flirting even since you've been married." She blushed a little bit, but didn't say anything. "You know that a little innocent flirting is fun, and nobody gets hurt by it, right?"

"I'll have to see. I'm not exactly dressed to be out flirting with guys."

"You look fine, Ellen. Just be your natural self, pretend that you're single for the afternoon." She looked over at me, and I saw her considering what I'd said. "Tim's at home, it's just you and I, and I'm interested in seeing how well you can do passing out samples today. That's all I'm going to be noticing, how well you manage to sample our product."

"Tim gets jealous if I even say hello to one of our neighbors. If he thought I was out flirting with a bunch of guys, he'd never let me do this job."

"Well, I promise I won't tell him. A girl needs to have a little fun when she's out working. Tim is going to like the money that you'll be bringing home. He probably won't ask too many questions, at least until you get your money things all caught up. He probably is more worried about that then he is about whether you talk to some guys."

"Well, I guess we can try it and see how it goes." We left the restaurant, after I paid, and I drove her over to this industrial park. When we got there it was about two fifteen. "Normally, we don't start until two thirty, but you'll probably take a few minutes to get comfortable with the newness of everything. I don't want you carrying more than five sausages and your sample. I don't want you getting tired on me. Now, remember, you aren't twenty eight year old Ellen, married, with a six year old son. This afternoon, you're Trixie, fresh out of high school, and trying to have some fun and still make a little money."

"You're bad Barry, don't encourage me to get wild."

"Don't get wild Ellen, just a little flirty and relaxed. Pass out those samples and let the guys try to flirt with you. You don't have to be too encouraging, just don't be too stodgy with them."

"What's stodgy mean?"

"Stiff, uptight, old."

"Do you think I'm old?"

"No Ellen, I think you're hot. Let that come through and you'll be running out of product before we're done here." She smiled, obviously pleased that I complimented her that way.

For the next three hours, I watched Ellen change right in front of my eyes. She started out slow and nervous, until she had her first success at a shop that did auto electrical repairs. There were two young guys who worked there, and the owner, who must have been about forty. He was sucking in his beer gut and being a big shot in front of Ellen and his two employees, even going so far as to buy a jar of jerky for himself, and one for each of his two employees. He told Ellen that he'd buy all of the sausages in her bag if she'd go out with him. She told him that I was her boss, but that maybe another time she'd come back when I wasn't training her, and they could discuss it. He bought three sausages right after that, and gave Ellen his business card so that she wouldn't forget where his business was located.