Man, your dogs are tired. They started howling about halfway through your day and you can’t wait to kick off your shoes, shed the socks or stockings and relax.
Then, you’ll put a couple blocks of foamy plastic on your feet and read in the new book “Croc,” by George “Boe” Boedecker, Jr., about those “ugly” shoes.
As a hungry 10-year-old, George Boedecker, Jr. knew all the hustles.
He knew how to grow his income with a Christmas card and a few stamps for the customers on his paper route. He could spot an idea from a mile away. He also knew that he could fill his belly by taking his customers’ milk deliveries. Nobody ever complained.
He grew his paper route, figured out how to have illegal keg parties for profit and took a job delivering pizzas for Domino’s before attending “Pizza College,” where he schemed to meet the chain’s founder.
That ultimately led Boedecker to the San Francisco area, where he turned a few stores around by taking shifts at competitors’ locations for a few days to see how they did things. When he left Domino’s, he says he was courted by several other chain stores but turned them all down.
At some point, Boedecker had become a reluctant half owner of a boat in Florida and, there, he noticed that then-popular dock shoes were lacking in style, comfort and workability. He fiddled with materials and figured out a new kind of shoe. He gave them away by the dozens.
He called them “Crocs,” he says, because other related words were taken.
Those “ugly” shoes made Boedecker a multimillionaire.
To be wildly successful, he says, ignore rules; in fact, make your own. Also:
• Don’t pay any attention to naysayers, especially if things are working out.
• Avoid “terrible people.”
• Be adaptable.
• Give your money away.
• Know your limits
• Business and life should both be fun.
“Do that,” he says, “and you won’t run out of tales to tell.”
Dipping your toes into “Croc” might be disappointing at first. Is the author actually bragging? Eh, maybe, and it could be off-putting. Stick around, though, and you’ll see that what seems like a boast is really an honest showman’s prelude to a madcap tale that grows wilder by the page.
If this book were, in fact, a movie, you might compare it to “Animal House” for the sheer but very intentional chaos. Boedecker is a business nonconformist, and while readers might not be brave enough to do the things he did, it’s fun to see how it worked for Crocs.
The benefit from taking the ride with him here is in the solid business-and-life advice you’ll find between the bedlam. You don’t even have to be a businessperson to enjoy that.
Readers who want a rollicking tale of a successful company will love “Croc,” especially if there’s a pair of foamy comfort on your feet right now. Find this book, grab a chair and kick it.
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s reviews of business books appear in publications in the U.S. and Canada.