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EVERYBODY’S DANISH & This & That!
By fred | October 10, 2009
Sometimes being an elder citizen has its moments. This morning was one of those. Sally, my bride of going on 60 years is an early raiser, I have no doubt it comes from years of getting up to provide a breakfast for my boys and me. I remember on some trips out of town I would have to leave at 5 A. M. , I told her time and again to skip getting up that I could pick up something on the way. No way, she would be up at 4 A. M. making breakfast – she figured it was her job to send her man out with a decent breakfast. Did I say I married one super lady before? Well, I am saying it now!
Anyway, Sally even now at our advanced ages still gets up at 6 A. M. and gets the kitchen going, cleaning and chopping a big bowl of assorted fresh fruit our one vice each morning no matter the price of the stuff in the winter months. When I wander in at sometime after 8 A. M. it is my job to punch “George,” George is our coffee maker, punch his button to get him working, then if it is an egg day, we only have eggs on Wednesdays and Saturdays, after we finish our fruit bowl – I do the fried eggs and toast.
This morning for some reason I just felt like a soft boiled egg, for some reason I could not remember how long the eggs had to be in the water after it boiled, so I innocently asked Sally, “How long does it take to do three minute eggs?”
Sally looked at me really weird, then I got it! Another of Uncle Fred’s senior moments, ha well, as I said before, the one big advantage to being so old it that folks will always excuse you, guess the younger set figures we are all a little bats in the head now so they will let it go.
In this part of ‘Everybody’s Danish’ I relate to the one thing, the one class that probably aided me in my life as a businessman more than any other. I MC’s some very large meetings, huge groups of people, to smaller groups and used that lesson every time. It is a simple message, easy learn to look, act, feel comfortable talking to large groups of people.
So let us head back to John H. Francis Polytechnic High School for that lesson —
A LESSON LEARNED
The three things that are remembered about high school are girls, athletics, and the clubs, and in that exact order. The classes were just something you had to do. Oh, I am sure that they pounded some knowledge into our heads. It is very funny that of all the classes of math, history, language, typing, business, music, only one really stands out.
The class was a public speaking class that I was required to take after my classmates had elected me their senior president. The teacher constantly stressed that I speak out. I was very shy about talking to a group. We had well over 300 kids in my senior class so it was important that I learn to be comfortable talking to them as a group. My buddies had also elected me as a co captain of our football team the semester before, but that was different, there was no large group and I truly believe that the only reason they made me a co captain was because I got so beat up playing. From working in our store I was not shy about talking to one or two people, but a group that was something else.
The teacher said to pick out someone in the very back of the auditorium or room where you would be speaking. She said just speak to that one person as if no other person was in the room. For some reason or other that was the very best advice and the best ‘learn’ of all of the lessons learned at Poly Hi.
Years later, her advice helped in business, and other activities, time and time again, everyone is nervous about speaking to large groups, it is completely natural. I had been elected as Sergeant of Arms in the very prestige’s ‘Wine and Spirits Importer Club.’ The battle in the club of well over a hundred members from the largest wine and liquor importers, all the big money firms in New York was for the Sergeant of Arms spot. You had to really screw up big time to not be president in four years. All you had to do was work your way up the ladder.
The only reason I ever got elected was because several representative of some of the huge millions of dollars importers were battling for the job, it would make em look good to their bosses – so to eliminate all the in fighting, the bulk of the members figured that they would elect good old Fred, as his little import company was of no threat to anyone. I did accept the nomination, but was always worried about when I would be president and have to be the guy with the gavel that had to do all the talking.
The president had to talk to some very, very, large groups. Many guests of the club were life and death to the business life of the members. Hundreds of millions upon millions of dollars worth of booze was sold to guests of the club.
Like the buyers of the chain grocery and drug chain stores that bought our stuff. We would have a ‘Chain Store Buyers Night’ where all the chain store liquor and wine buyers and their wives would be invited to a very elegant dinner and dance as guests of the club. There would be five hundred people at deals like that, and as president you had to be the master of ceremonies, make introductions, thank people, and in general keep things going.
For the entire year that I was president I asked a good friend and fellow member Bill Shallert to do me a favor, Bill was then the wine buyer for a large wholesaler called Simon Levi & Company. I asked Bill if he would sit in the far back of any restaurant or ballroom we were having an event at. For that entire year I would just find Bill in the back of the restaurant or where ever we were, grab the microphone, and start to talk to him. Other members said that I looked very ‘cool’ up there at the podium, not nervous at all and actually I wasn’t, all I was doing was talking to Bill.
After the last meeting of the year, when the new president took over Bill said, “Let’s have an after meeting drink in the lounge.”
“Sure why not,” I said.
Leaning over the bar, Bill said, “O K Fred, can I sit in the front now? I have a slight hearing problem and most the time this year I never knew what was going on.” Poor Bill, he couldn’t hear what was said half the time, but he sat in the back all year so I would be comfortable and have someone to talk to, a super guy and a good buddy.
That one thing, taught by that one teacher, had sunk in. That one thing helped me all my life. If you can’t speak to a person, or a group of people, you had better get the hell out of the selling business. I was in selling all my life. I wish I could find that one lady teacher and tell her what a big difference she made by her few words of wisdom.
Topics: THIS & THAT from Uncle Fred | 1 Comment »
October 24th, 2009 at 6:23 am
I haven’t received any email from Ray Toohey for weeks. Has something happened to him?