Greetings,
Today I wanted to share a mini preview of the podcast that I am working on about Sam Zemurray and his early years in business. How he works his ass off to save money, discovers his purpose in life, and has his first major victory in business.
This content is based off the book The Fish That Ate the Whale - The Life and Time of America’s Banana King - written by Rich Cohen
If you are interested you can buy the book Here - This is a non-affiliate link, just providing in case you would like to pick up a copy.
This book is packed full of lessons that you and I can use in business and life.
If you want to 100x something - then pick up this book for $18 and you can easily do that or possibly even a lot more
Below are a few selections from the book that I share on the mini podcast
Check out the Deeply Driven Podcast if you would like to learn more about some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs.
Sam traveled to America with his aunt in 1892. He landed in New York, He was 14 or 15, but you would guess him much older. The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children. They had to struggle every minute of every day. From his first months in America, he was scheming, looking for a way to get ahead.
Catch and tie that animal, boy. It was a Zemurray's first real job, racing through the slop with a rope in his hand. Paid a dollar a week, he kept the job just long enough to know he would rather be the man who owned the hog than the man who collected the junk, and would rather be the man who discarded the sheet metal than the man who owned the hog.
Mobile was a seedy industrial port filled with all the familiar types—the sharpie, the financier, the scoundrel, the chucklehead, the sport. Sam was a bit of everything. He could be shrewd, but he could also be naive. He was greedy for information
The waterfront was crossed by train tracks. Dozens of lines converged here. Boxcars crammed with coal, fruit, cotton, and cane stood on the sidings. The train sheds were crowded with peddlers, most of them Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia. They bought merchandise off the decks of ships and sold it from carts in the streets of Mobile. One evening, Sam stood on the wharf watching a Boston Fruit banana boat sail into the harbor.
Sam’s keen observational skills and ability to see treasure where others see trash is soon to kick in. The bananas that did not pass muster were dumped on the side of the yard, where they were further divided.
Some were designated as turnings, meaning they were on their way to being worthless. At the end of the day they were sold at a discount to store-owners and peddlers. You could see them, with their carts piled high, trundling through the streets, calling, Bananas! Bananas for sale! A nickel a bunch! Yes, we have bananas! We have bananas for sale!
The bananas that did not make the cut as greens or turnings were designated ripes and heaped in a sad pile.
A ripe is a banana you have left in the sun that has become as freckled as a hardy boy. These bananas, though still good to eat, delicious even, would never make it to the market in time.
In less than a week they would begin to soften and stink. As far as the merchants were concerned, they were trash. Sam noticed everything, the care with which the bananas were handled, the way each box car was filled and rolled to a siding, how men from the banana company, college men, moved through the crowd barking orders, but he paid special attention to the growing pile of ripes.
Zemurray’s first cargo consisted of a few thousand bananas. He did not spend all his money, but retained a small balance, which he used to rent part of a boxcar on the Illinois Central. The trip to Selma was scheduled to take three days, meaning he would have just enough time to get the fruit to market before the sun did its worst
You've got good product there. If you could just get word ahead to the towns along the line, I'm sure the grocery owners would meet you at the platforms and buy the bananas right off the boxcars.
During the next delay, Zemurray went into a Western Union office and spoke to a telegraph operator. Having no money, Sam offered a deal. If the man radioed every operator ahead, asking each of them to spread the word to local merchants, dirt-cheap bananas coming through for merchants and peddlers, Sam would share a percentage of his sales.
When the Illinois Central arrived in the next town, the customers were waiting. Zamurray talked terms through the boxcar door, a tower of ripes at his back. Ten for eight, thirteen for ten. He broke off a bunch, put the money in his pocket. The whistle blew, the train rolled on. He sold the last banana in Selma, then went home in the dark.
