The Untold Story of Lay's
A Natural-Born Salesman Herman Lay was born in 1909 in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a middle-class family. His father was a bookkeeper and his mother was a stay-at-home wife. When he was only 11, he started selling Pepsi-Cola from a homemade stand in his family’s front yard. Herman charged only 5 cents while the baseball park across the street cost 10 cents for a Pepsi. His stand was so successful that he managed to hire other kids to work for him. We can see as a young boy he excelled in sales. After graduating from high school, Herman attended Furman University on an athletic scholarship but Lay was restless during college he was more interested in the art of business than studying, and keen to get involved with the world he dropped out and decided to work instead. Herman Lay's Struggles During the Great Depression First, Herman and a friend invested 100 dollars each to sell ice cream along a parade route. Unfortunately, the route changed at the last minute, and two were left ...