Determination and Story Telling

Professor Wortmann, if you're reading this, I'm owning up to falling short of the determination portion of the class with the bartering assignment.  I'm still sitting on the Beer Pong set and have only made three trades so far.  With a big final project due for my other class, unless I go on a mad tear, I'm not likely to do all 10 trades.

Am I giving up completely?  No!  My last-ditch effort is to see what kind of crazy story I can write up and see if I can dump the beer pong set on eBay for huge return and maybe use the cash to make a few quick last-minute trades.

Here's the story, off the top of my head.
--

This Beer Pong set changed my friend's life, and now it can be yours!

Todd was always up for a game of Beer Pong, and all of his friends knew it.  When a weekend getaway to a cabin in northern Michigan was planned, Todd was assigned to bring the cups and ping pong balls.  In a rush to leave after work, Todd forgot to grab the grocery bag he had set aside, which contained his contribution to the food pantry in the cabin and (of course), the essentials for Beer Pong.

Exhausted after driving 6 hours from Chicago to the cabin, Todd was rightfully shamed by his friends when they all realized that due to Todd's botched exit, they were out both the Doritos and Beer Pong.  After much jibing, Todd was pressured to make the situation right, so he was sent back out on the road on a mission for chips, cups, and balls.  As fate would have it, there was only one local party store open.  Moping into the store, Todd grabbed a few bags of cheesey-powdery goodness, and set out looking for cups and ping-pong balls.  No luck.  Partially defeated, Todd got in line behind a young lady.  Todd noticed two things about her.  First, she was incredibly beautiful, with long dark hair, bright eyes, and a captivating smile.  Second, she was carrying this very Beer Pong set.

While waiting in line, Todd found out that her name was Meghan.  To is partial dismay, he also found out that Meghan carried in her hands the very last Beer Pong set in the store.  Ever the charmer, Todd gleaned that Meghan was also in town from Chicago, meeting some friends for the weekend at the same campsite he was stationed.  Now, I'm not sure if he had any ulterior motives other than the Beer Pong set, but he convinced Meghan to ask her friends if they wanted to merge groups at the campsite to kick the weekend off right.

The weekend resulted in proper amounts of debauchery for the combined group of 20-somethings, and while Meghan thought Todd was a nice enough guy, she brushed off his (numerous) attempts throughout the weekend to get to know her better.  Undeterred, Todd challenged Meghan to a one-on-one game of Beer Pong on the Sunday before packing up and heading home.  If he won, she had to go out with him back in Chicago.  If she won, she got his phone number but not visa versa.  Any courtship would be done on her terms.

Meghan beat Todd handily, and she stayed true to her word.  She got his phone number but not the other way around.  Todd didn't stay disappointed for too long, however.  3 hours into the drive back to Chicago, he got a call from an unknown number.  He talked to Meghan the remaining 3 hours back to the city and arranged for their first of many dates the following weekend.  This was three years ago.

Todd bequeathed me the Beer Pong set at his and Meghan's wedding earlier this summer, saying I needed some practice.  As a believer of fate (and already being married myself), I am now passing this set and its story onto a person needing its history and influence.
--
Ebay listing here.

Trade Three - Care for a game of Beer Pong? Please? Pretty please?

What: Anchorman DVD (new - $5) for a Beer Pong game (used - $10)
When: Wednesday, 7/30 @ 10:30pm
Where: Via Facebook Messenger

With the help of a co-worker and Facebook, I was introduced to Marty, who was willing to trade me for the DVD.   Marty offered my choice of: DJ Hero for the Wii, a Frisbee  or a Beer Pong game.  I initially was going to go with DJ Hero, but apparently it's not a hotly traded game.  I thought about trading it in at Gamestop, but they stopped accepting it for trade ins.

I gladly accepted the used Beer Pong game (~$10) for the trade of the DVD ($5).  I may be at a bit of a disadvantage, as my younger cousins will be quick to tell me that the best way to get a beer pong game going is to just pick up a sleeve of Solo Cups and a container of ping-pong balls.  Grocery stores usually sell them together in the same aisle.

The next trade may be more challenging than the pen.  Someone in class said that the begging method has worked well.  I may have to resort to that.  I have 7 trades to make in the next 3 weeks... Way behind.

Craigslist Fail

So, I'm woefully behind on the bartering assignment.  The brew kit swap never materialized, and my (mostly) passive approach on Craigslist has basically equated el suck-o.

I'm determined to get all 10 trades, so I'm taking a more direct approach.  Here's my current plan:

1. Ask my friends to introduce me to friends of theirs whom I have never met before who would be willing to trade.
2. A co-worker introduced me to the Garage Sale section of Craigslist.  If the friend-of-a-friend route doesn't work, then I'll directly target items from various online garage sales around Chicago.

My goal is to get mostly caught up this weekend, so I need 4 trades.  5 or 6 would be ideal.  Will post an update on Monday.

Trade Three - Great Odin's Raven!

Now we're rolling...  I was able to secure a trade for the Anchorman DVD for a home beer brewing kit.  I'm going out of town starting tomorrow through Thursday, and I wasn't able to meet up with my confirmed trading partner in time for my trip, but I will conduct the swap next week when I return.  Based on a quick Google search, I'm looking at a value for the brew kit for anywhere between $20 and $60.  Not bad for a $5 DVD!

I am going to be under the gun to perform Trade Four next weekend so I can stay caught up with the class, but I have a feeling it's going to be a bit easier from here on out.

Is Craigslist a cop out?  I don't think so... You still need to find a way to articulate value for the product you're trying to sell.  I used pity to offload the DVD, but I'll need to be more creative next time.  Before the end of the assignment, I would like to be able to perform the trade without actually sharing that I'm doing it for a class.  Hopefully my sales "skills" will have elevated by that point.

Trade Three - Craigslist to the Rescue?

Let's see if this works...

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/wan/4561611766.html

Just posted.  No takers, yet.  Some of the responses should be interesting...  I fully expect it to be like Christmas morning with my email inbox.  Probably like "Bad Santa" Christmas, but Christmas nonetheless.

Update:
Craigslist disabled my add, but I may have gotten a taker (and a good one!) before they shut me down.  Not sure why they did.  Fairly PG posting.

Update 2:
Dave M offered me a slightly used jogging stroller, but it would have been quite a hike to get it.  I re-posted the add under the appropriate section, so we'll see if I get any takers closer to the city.  Sorry, Dave!  Thanks for the offer.

Trade Two - Working for It

So, I had had this KitKat in my bag for about a week.  Every so often, I would unzip the compartment in my backpack to see if it had melted.  During the couple really warm days we had, I left it at home on my desk.

I procrastinated during the week because I had targeted (what I thought was) the perfect opportunity to trade up from my KitKat.  The wife, kid and I were planning to attend a friend's party on July 4.  While I did know the people throwing the party, there were a lot of people there whom I didn't know.  A lot of family members and neighbors of the hosts were there, none of which I had ever met before.  Surely they would be sympathetic and enthusiastic to assist in my plight, right?  Piece of cake, right?  Yeah... not so much.  Honestly, I was relieved to leave the house with anything.

Trade 2

When: Friday. July 4, between about 4:00pm and 9:30pm
Where: Friend's Independence Day party
Who: Eventually... the host's neighbor Rob
What: $1 KitKat for $5 Anchorman DVD

My wife, son, and I got to the party at about 3pm.  There were already a handful of people hanging out on the patio.  The wife and I each grabbed some food/drink and we sat the muchkin in the kiddie pool while we made introductions and joined the conversation.  In a normal social setting like this, I would totally be carefree, but in my head I'm crafting the bartering pitch, stressing out that I'm going to freak out my friend's family and neighbors.

I waited until more people arrived and a few more beers were imbibed.  During a break in the conversation, I actually stood up from out of my chair and told everyone the whole story.  I told them about the ES course, the assignment, and how I made my first trade.  I then offered my KitKat to anyone interested in bartering with me.

I think waiting for more beers to be consumed was probably not the best idea.  Either that or I didn't do a great job explaining the point of the assignment.  Or people were just screwing with me.  The following are the items that I turned down (sometimes more than once) from people at the party over the course of a few hours.  I continued to take more and more grief as the evening went on.

1. A 4th of July pinwheel (from one of the neighbor kids)
2. A can of pinto beans (from the host's brother)
3. A cold bottle of Leinenkugel Summer Shandy (from the host's mom)
4. A small rolling pin-like back massager (from the host's father)

After turning down these items over the course of the evening, someone mentioned a hat that was purchased the night before at Ravinia during the Earth, Wind, and Fire concert.  Unfortunately, the host of the party (my friend) was the one who purchased it.  She wanted to give it to me, but I had to decline due to the rules.  Too bad... it was a cool sequined hat.

It was nearing the end of the evening, and I hadn't yet successfully bartered the KitKat.  Honestly, I didn't really push the issue much after turning down the back massager three times, as I didn't want to be killjoy.  I was fairly certain that I would be heading home without a trade when luck struck.  After spending about 4 hours in the kiddie pool, my son had run out of diapers and... was in desperate need of some new drawers.  Our friend's neighbor was kind enough to head over to their house and grab a spare diaper for us.  When he came back, he surprised me by tossing a DVD of Anchorman in my lap (unopened!  $5!)  Relieved, gladly exchanged my (slightly mushy) $1 KitKat for the DVD.

What I learned here is that saying 'no' can be difficult.  In an open forum, it can also be discouraging to the rest of the people within earshot, even if it is a friendly crowd.  I did nearly swap for the beer and the back massager just to actually make a trade and not continue to potentially hurt feelings, but I felt like I would be much worse off that if I just held on to the KitKat.  Also, never take a situation for granted.  Be prepared with a story, even if you think an interaction is going to be easy.  Who knows if a better story would have changed the outcome of the initial offers for me, but I consider myself lucky.  Until next week.  Stay classy, Chicago.

Cold Calling - Part Two

Rather than venture into Mordor, I stayed in Australia and contacted camera shops in Melbourne and Brisbane.  Last night, I had a success rate of about 24%.  Tonight, my success rate was 30%, largely because I took a look at the individual web pages of the camera shops and cherry picked the places that I had a better shot of connecting with the store owner/buyer.

CAUTION TO THE REAL ENTREPRENEURS!  I do think that you can easily shoot yourself in the foot by doing too much research when it comes to cold calling.  In my case, I felt justified in skipping a shop or two because they we big box stores.  If I were doing this as a real entrepreneur (and not just someone trying to find a store owner to answer my questions), I would not discriminate a single call.  You never know who you might get connected to, even at a big box store.  In fact, last night I was able to get a separate list of supplier contacts from calling a store that I likely would have skipped tonight.  In the real world, it's probably better to put the blinders on, stick to the script, and think quickly on your feet if someone drops something in your lap.

38 calls and I have my 10 completed surveys.  Phew!  Only took me 3 hours, 15 minutes last night and about 45 minutes tonight.

Now, onto making all of this fit into a nice Word doc...

Cold Calling - Part One

The other ES assignment that is due for this coming week is the notorious and dreaded cold calling assignment.  Pretty much everyone who is planning on taking Entrepreneurial Selling at Booth has heard about the CC assignment.  I'll be honest.  When Professor Wortmann told us the first day of class that he was changing the syllabus up a bit, I was hoping this meant CC was shown the way of the dodo.  No such luck.  The assignment is due this Monday, and there was a lot to prep for.

For the CC assignment, each person in the class needs to cold call enough companies or organizations until they are able to successfully speak to 10 people with buying authority, and have that person answer a 5-question survey.

I'll be honest.  I hate it when people cold call me at work, and I'm not particularly nice to them.  My coworkers who sit within earshot of me are sometimes horrified by how I verbally assault cold callers.  I, of course, assume that everyone I'm about to call is going to be just as unforgiving as I am.

This should be rich...

First thing's first.  My groupmates and I needed to select startup to work with throughout the quarter.  Luckily, there are a lot of smart, enterprising folks where I work.  A couple of them designed, developed, and funded the production of an external LED flash device for iPhones.  It's called Nova Wireless Flash, it's unique, and very cool.  With Nova, you can actually take high-quality pictures with your iPhone in any lighting condition.  Head over to http://wantnova.com to learn more (and pick one up).

Now with an actual product to pitch, I needed to think about how to approach the cold calling assignment.  Here were my challenges.

1. Who do I call?
2. What do I say?
3. When the hell am I going to call them?  I do work full-time, and with my son recently out of his crib, he's normally asleep by 9pm.

Who do I call?

This one wasn't so hard.  From talking to the founders, they want to target B2B customers.  Nova is already available on Amazon for B2C, but identifying the right B2B targets has been a challenge.  For this, I decided to target digital camera shops.  With photography moving to phones, these shops need something to related to the pro-sumer/enthusiast market.  Nova is a perfect fit, in my mind.

What do I say?

Luckily, I'm married to a marketing executive, so the wife helped me structure my script and survey questions.  I tried to organize it so I could quickly identify the buyers and move on to the next store if I couldn't connect to the right person

When am I going to call them?

No bloody stores are open anywhere in the US at 9pm at night, so I'm kind of screwed there.  I know the assignment is going to take a while, so I need to be able to have a window of time where I'm not feeling rushed.  Plus, it's Thursday, and I only have until Monday to get this thing done.  So... I decide to call stores in Australia.  

Fortunately (I guess?), I work fairly regularly with folks internationally, and since the cell phone reception in my house is terrible, I  use Google Voice on my computer to make international phone calls.  It's cheap ($0.02/minute), and I can use my gamer headphones and mic.  Again, with Google to the rescue, I quickly identify a bunch of camera shops in Sydney, wrote down numbers, and start calling.

So... How did it go?

I started dialing at 9:45PM and made 29 calls to about 25 different shops until 1:30AM.  Of those 29 calls, I was able to have 9 people answer my survey end to end.  Of those 9, 7 were buying authorities, so not bad at all for the first night.  A handful of them were really excited by the product and wanted more info.  I forwarded those contacts on to Nova, so hopefully something material comes of this (other than my grade on the assignment)

I think it helped that I told people right away that I was from Chicago.  They were probably curious as to why the fuck I was calling and kept me on the phone.  I'll take it.  It was also incredibly helpful that the product is so compelling and has an actual legit website.  A few of the store owners I talked to loaded the website up while I was on the phone with them.

What else did I learn?

People in Australia are really nice.  The "rudest" denial went something like this: Me: "Hello, my name is Zach Malsom and I'm calling...", Her: "I'm sorry... Could you hold on a moment, please?" (hang up)

Karma does not travel internationally... I'm thankful there weren't a bunch of assholes like me on the end of the line.

What's next?

I need 3 more successful responses.  I may have exhausted Sydney, so I'm thinking I call Middle Earth (New Zealand) tonight.  I hear Sauron loves his iPhone.

Update:
Apparently I made some inroads.  The Nova team received some unsolicited emails from a few of the places I contacted last night, looking to distribute the product.  Cool!

Entrepreneurial Selling - First Trade

Ok.  After 5 years, I've finally found a reason to blog.

Fast forward from 2009, and I'm currently on classes 14 and 15 of 20 at Chicago Booth (fingers crossed for a June 2015 graduation).  First is Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity.  In this class, I will be dissecting the balance sheets, income statements, and cash flows of start ups and learning how to draft PE deals.  Pretty cool, if you geek out at Accounting and Finance, but it's going to kick my ass.  My second class is Entrepreneurial Selling.  This class puts you in the position as the founder of a start up and forces you to get out there and do what entrepreneurs need to do to get a business off the ground... sell the great shit that they just invented.  While the discounted cash flows and deal sheets of EFPE will undoubtedly be tricky, I'm going to have to push myself to work outside my comfort zone with ES.

I have a few assignments to do this week for ES.  The first is a cold-calling assignment, which I may explain another time.  The more interesting assignment starts this week and lasts for the whole quarter (10 weeks)... The Barter assignment.

Here's an excerpt of the Barter assignment:

Each student will be given a pen during the first session of Entrepreneurial Selling. Your assignment is to barter that pen for something of greater value, and continue to barter your goods for goods or services of greater value throughout the quarter. Your goal is to end the quarter with something of much greater value than the pen (approximate starting value is 25 cents).

There are some ground rules.  I can't barter with anyone I know.  I cannot use money as part of the exchange.  I can only barter for products.  I have to make at least one trade a week.

So, I was given a blue BIC pen at the end of the first day of class.  I take the L to work and back every day, so I have endless opportunities to try to barter with complete strangers, but folks on the morning and afternoon commute typically like to be left alone.  On Tuesday's commute, I forced myself to look up from Facebook to see if I might be able spot someone who would find a BIC pen valuable.  "Nope.", I convinced myself, and looked back down at my phone.  Leave them all alone.  Keep your head down and get to work.

After a group meeting for class, I took the typical L ride north.  I convinced myself that I would barter this fucking pen.  Below is a recount of the first trade.  I'll try to document each trade shortly after I make it for two reasons.  First, I think it's an interesting exercise, and second, I have to write a report at the end of the quarter, so if I'm going to log the transactions, I might as well do it here so I can (mostly) copy and paste later.

Trade 1

When: Wednesday. June 25 @ 8:30pm (after EFPE meeting)
Where: Brown line, between Paulina and Iriving Park
Who: Two unsuspecting young ladies who sat in front of me
What: $0.25 blue BIC pen for $1 KitKat

Play by Play

I got on the Red Line at Grand, and I was going to ask a lady who sat next to me, but she was writing an email, and I was concerned that I wouldn't have time to pitch my pen in time to make a trade before Belmont.  Total cop out.

I got off the train at Belmont to wait for the Brown, and I noticed an approachable-looking lady standing nearby on the platform.  I debated internally for a couple minutes whether I should ask her, but I'm pretty sure I gave her the creeps, because she walked to the end of the platform.

I got the train when it arrived and went a few stops.  Luckily, two young ladies got on the train at Paulina and sat in front of me.  Undeterred, I made my pitch.  I inquired whether I could ask a strange question.  They looked at me pretty much just like all those girls at the bars did 12 years ago.  To put them at some sort of ease, I showed them my student ID and explained the assignment.  Luckily, one of them had heard of the bartering assignment before and offered me a brand new KitKat. I accepted the trade and swapped my blue BIC pen ($0.25) for a tasty KitKat ($1.00).  It was quite a relief and actually pretty energizing.  As I was walking home, I thought of randomly offering my new KitKat to a passerby.  Baby steps, I suppose...

For my next target market?  Is it too skeevy to try to trade a candy bar at the playground (while pushing my son on the swing)?  Hey... I look legit, right?