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By Lloyd Albritton

Columnist

There are many jobs a man can do if only he is willing to think it through, to prepare himself at all the right schools to study and work and follow the rules.

But the man who’s not afraid to fail will always look for something to sell.

Are salesmen made or born that way?

What makes a salesman is hard to say.

Some are quiet and some are loud. A few are humble, but most are proud.

To a salesman true all other jobs pale, for there’s nothing so sweet as making a sale.

I was 17 years old when I finished high school in late spring of 1965.  It was time to get a job and get out on my own.  That’s what my father had always said was the first step from boyhood to manhood, i.e., getting a job.

My family had moved to Pensacola during my senior year at Ernest Ward High School in Walnut Hill, Fla., allowing me to live with friends that year so I could graduate with my longtime beloved classmates.  During my first week after graduating from high school, I perused the job ads in the Pensacola News Journal until I came across just the right job for me.  The job title was “Manager Trainee” with a major publishing company.  I promptly called and scheduled an interview for the very next day.  I decked myself out in my best and only Sunday suit, added a little extra dab of Bryl Cream to my hair, and topped it all off with a liberal splash of Old Spice cologne from my graduation gift collection.  Mama said I looked every bit the part of an executive trainee.

The Pensacola offices of the P. F. Collier Publishing Company were located in a second floor suite at 4 N. Palafox St., an old wood-frame multistory office building across the street from the locally famous San Carlos Hotel.  Oddly enough, the Marine Corps Recruiting Station, where I would enlist the following year, was located just a few doors down the hallway. 

I slipped through the door and into the waiting room where several other young fellows about my age sat along the walls in cheap straight-backed chairs waiting for their own interviews.  I stood for a few minutes until an empty chair opened up and I promptly took it.  The young men filed in and out of a smaller inner office until it was finally my turn.

A big stern-faced man with unruly hair ushered me into his cramped private sanctum and shook my hand in a perfunctory greeting. He motioned with the same hand for me to take a seat in a metal folding chair as he returned to his own battered executive chair across the desk from me.  His name was Ronald U. Douglas.  I would later learn that the “U” stood for Ulysses.  I would soon be addressing this big, formidable-looking man with the red hair and ruddy complexion as just plain Ron, but for now he was Mr. Douglas. 

Mr. Douglas explained to me that his company had recently completed the publication of a totally new and comprehensive home reference library and were looking for ambitious young men like myself to help them introduce the product into the marketplace.  He said he could show me how to make more money doing this than I could haul to the bank in the back of a pickup truck.  I never forgot the visual that his words painted into my mind in that moment.  I saw in my mind’s eye my father’s old green 1953 Dodge pickup bouncing along the dirt roads of Nokomis, where I grew up, filled with hundred dollar bills flying into the air as I sped along.  I accepted his job offer immediately and was told to report to work the following morning for a four-day crash training course.

The training course was conducted by an amiable hoary-headed fellow named Stan Andrews.  Stan was a retired Naval officer and his relaxed manner instantly put all of us new recruits at ease.  During the four-day course, we were required to master a word-for-word product presentation that lasted over an hour.  I took careful notes and each night rehearsed my presentation to my mother over and over until I had it down perfect.  I told Mama I was going to make more money than I could haul to the bank in the back of a pickup truck.  She smiled and said, “Well, I hope so.” 

Stan Andrews must have been pretty impressed with my potential as a junior sales executive because upon completion of my training I was assigned to Mr. Douglas’ very own car crew.  This was quite an honor for me, for Mr. Ronald U. Douglas was The Big Cheese, the Branch Manager himself.  I was told that Mr. Douglas normally did not take rookies into his sales crew. 

My first evening in field service, I waited on the street corner in front of the San Carlos Hotel to be picked up by Mr. Douglas at 4:00 P.M.  I did not want to miss my ride on my first day of work, so Mama dropped me off a good hour early.  As I waited in the hotel lobby where it was considerably cooler, I was propositioned by several sexual predators before the big gold four-door Mercury finally rolled to the curb and Ron Douglas waved for me to hop in the back seat with a short fellow in a loud plaid sports jacket and a pompadour hairdoo to die for. This young man introduced himself as Pat Cummings from Birmingham, Alabama.  Though Pat looked no older than me, he had a very sophisticated manner about him.  He possessed a deep man’s voice that impressed me greatly. He said he was eighteen years old and had been in “the book bid’ness” for over a year.

We waited a few minutes for another person to join us who was renting a room at the San Carlos on their weekly rate.  After a few minutes, Ron told Pat and me to wait in the car while he went to get this other individual.  He left the car running.  It was the most luxurious car I had ever been in, with plush, tan leather seats and an air conditioner that kept us chilled, in contrast to the unbearable summer heat and humidity outside.

Presently, Ron returned in the company of a slender young fellow with perfectly coiffed fine, blonde hair, pale skin, dark wrap-around sunglasses and a perpetual scowl on his face.  He smelled wonderful and I knew that whatever kind of cologne he was wearing, it wasn’t Old Spice.  He was attired in an expensive brown sharkskin suit with a yellow shirt and matching tie.  The knot on his tie was perfectly dimpled and bowed, with a diamond pin collar stay underneath.  His tie was held in place by an equally impressive gold chain.  He wore sharp-toed alligator shoes, shined to perfection, with silk socks and a multi-colored pocket handkerchief that matched his suit.  I looked down at my own scuffed shoes and white athletic socks and pushed my feet further underneath the seat. 

As he settled himself into the front passenger seat next to Ron Douglas, this dapper young man turned and looked directly at me over the top of his sun shades with scorn.  He did not nod or speak directly to me at all.  This was Wesley J. Sklander of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  Though only a few years older than me, Wesley Sklander projected an image of swagger, sophistication and arrogance like I had never before seen.  I was totally in awe of him.

Uh oh! I have run out of space for this week’s column.  But not to worry.  I will tell you the “Rest of the Story” in next week’s column.