As I sat watching the TV after posting my blog, three thoughts rain through my mind--"have to talk to 25 people. what am i going to do when i am told to get lost. Is there anyway to decrease the chance of being rejected?" Suddenly I remembered Robert, my friend, used to go door to door doing sales for ADT. "I should ask him about his experience and maybe he can give me some advice." I thought to myself.
After one hour on the phone with Robert, I learned two ways to decrease my chances of getting rejected. 1) Build a rapport. 2)Maintain balance between selling and creating rapport in the conversation so you don't get caught up in just yapping away and no sale. He also suggested me to let the people know that it was an assignment. This would help to tone down the situation.
However, this was still not enough to make me feel comfortable. "What else can I do to make myself less rejectable?" I asked myself. Suddenly an excellent thought came to mind, "why won't I tell them I am a graduate student from the University of Washington, which I am an Alumni, who just started my business(this is true), and that my teacher(Brain teaching me something defines him as my teacher) gave me an assignment to meet 25 people a day and reported daily on my blog. This only left the part me being a "graduate student" a white lie." With a convectional smile I said, "Perfect!". Brian didn't give me any rules on how I go about meeting people. He just said, "meet 25 people a day and report it on the blog."
With barely any energy from a restless night, I turned off my 9:00am alarm. As I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling, I could hear my fear and my committed self battling each other. "Are you crazy?" asked my fearful self. "How bad do you want change Vyvyan?", replied my committed self. Suddenly I realized I was like Jakel & Hide. How interesting a simple task as this can turn a person into bipolar? "It is like making friends. Don't make a big deal out of it. If they don't like you, find new friends, " said my committed self. Finally, that gave me a little courage to move forward and face the unknown. I guess it is true, we fear what we don't know.
Before I could get ready, I had to take care of my nine months old puppy. After my procrastination on taking her out for potty and feeding her, I took a shower and got dressed. Then I found myself procrastinating even more by making excuses that I needed to eat. I guess it was best for me to eat something or else I will faint. Finally, I was out the door at 12:30pm.
As I drove out of my cul-de-sac, I saw the postal woman passing out the mail at our mail box. "There is your first 'victim'," I told myself. So I followed my strategy. I began the conversation by asking her if she was our regular postal woman. Then asked her a series of questions that was about her such as how long she was at the postal, if the retirement is good, why did she bid for the route, and so on. After I built the rapport, I asked her if I could ask her a few questions. She hesitatingly crossed her arms and said, "yes". I told her about me being a student and that my teacher gave me this assignment and was wondering if she mind being apart of it. As soon as I said that, she relaxed and asked me if it was okay if she answered them as she worked. "Definitely," I said. I gave her my business card and told her how I was just starting my business and how my teacher wants me to meet 25 people a day and report it on my blog. Then I sweatily laid out the three questions Brian had given me. She answered yes to the first two and was shocked with the last about "if she would talk to me again or just hate me." She said, "why wouldn't I want to talk to you again? You do mortgage right? We are considering to remodel so I will need to talk to you about that." As those words came out of her mouth, a HUGE smiled came onto my face. "This is not so bad after all," I told myself.
I continued my day by presenting the same story to everyone I met. By the time it was 8pm, I was only able to conversate with 13 people. I was disappointed in myself, but I could not do anymore due to three reasons. 1)I took too long a 1 1/2 hour talking to Dana(owner of a florist) about why she is selling her business. 2)I had to go buy brown rice for my dad who I just found out today has diabetes, dog food b/c there's no dog food left, and pump gas at Costco before it close. 3)I realized the people that I could have an actual conversation with were people that worked in a small shop that closes at 6pm.
I did not wanted to give up so when I was at Costco, I tried to conversate with Member clerk and the return clerk but they were closing so everyone was in a hurry. So that did not work. So then when I went to pump gas, I thought about conversating with the guy who stood around watching the station, but my fear of bothering him at closing time held me back. It was 9pm and I'm sure he wanted to go home to his family on a long day at work.
The only four things that comforted me was 1)I now have the knowledge to know how, when, and who to talk to. 2) that no one rejected me. 3) Two people want to talk to me about buying, one person want to talk to me about rebuilding credit to buy, one wants to talk to refinancing to remodel, and one within a year wants to talk to me about getting money out for his business. 4)I gave it my best today, and I will do it BETTER next time!
The following is the list of the 13 people who answered yes to the third question:
Janice Bue - Postal Carrier (need to remodel)
Casey - Ranger Boat (she stated that she did not need money nor does she think she will ever need money b/c her husband was an Engineer)
Rashi -Public Storage as Property Manager (was nice and friendly to talk to)
Jason - Aaron's (furniture) as a Sales Manager (very friendly)
Adriana -Aaron's as Customer Service Rep(young 19 yr who is getting marry?)
Travis - Aaron's as Customer Account Manager (would like me to talk to his wife about buying, musician consultant on the side, just moved from Cali, just got married, very cheerful guy, offered me a water bottle as he greeted me(which I am grateful b/c that one genuine kindness, something that should be seen more often in this world), a preacher's son, one loving soul. I'm amazed and admire how he still is so loving even though he deals with rude and mean people day in and day out.)
Aaron's website is:
http://www.shopaarons.com/privacy.aspx
This is the best sales team I have met in a long time. There was one more employee I could have met but he was out to lunch. I couldn't stick around because customers started to come in to pay their bills and things got busy. So I left. I had not eaten anything all day and it was 2pm already. I saw a restaurant two stores down and decided to take a lunch break. I ate at a restaurant name "Pho Saigon". With only 6 people on my list, I wanted to get more. So I tried to carry a conversation with the owner in the same manner as I have done so far, but it did not work. I did gave my business card to them, but I could tell it was useless because I was not able to even get their name. The funny thing is I too was Vietnamese and spoke to them in the language thinking it would create some bond. However, I was so wrong. I learned that it is a whole new ball game when it comes to selling to the Asian market. The experience taught me to stay away from Asian businesses. This is also why I did not count this as "meeting someone new".
Then I decided to walk along the strip mall and see if there was any other business I could go in. Suddenly my fear took over and convince me to not go to any of those shops due to what just happened. Then I could hear Brain's voice repeating in my head, "you need to meet 25 people/day or else you need to find a different business." With greater fear of leaving this mortgage business, I decided to walk over to Schuck's who was also neat the complex.
David - Schuck's, Sales Associate (couldn't really talk to him because he had to ring up people. He taught me big businesses are too busy to have time to conversate.)
Sarah - Midway Tropical Fish & Pets, Reptile Expert (she was nice and she is looking to buy a house)
...I need to take a break from gritting here for a second. I really need to take a shower, brush my teeth, and finish my laundry. It is already 1:38am and I started this post at 11:30pm. I can feel my makeup turning greasing an a zip popping up. I'll be right back....
...okay I'm back. Wow, it is 2:10 am already. Gzzz... I need to figure out a strategy to this. Staying up late to get everything done is not working....so here I go back to the story....
Cherisse - Midway Tropical Fish & Pet's customer (Highline Community Colllege, she is interested in buying a house but would like to rebuild her credit first)
After Cherisse, I needed a break from walking all day and the sun. I went home to check on my dog. I then decided I should drop by my mom's hair salon shop, Manhattan Hair Salon, where there are lots of small business at. It fell in the guideline of being a route to the city even though I know that was not a big deal as long I meet 25 people.
David - Movie Rental, clerk(student at Highline Community College)
Dana Wammer - Celebrations Florist, owner (she was the one I got so caught up about her business that we spoke for an hour and a half)
After I spoke to her, I realized how late things were getting. It was almost 7pm. So I went back to my mom's shop and saw her cutting some guy's hair. "Hey, there's an opportunity for you to meet someone new." I thought to myself.
James - Emerald Cove, Owner (mom's customer, considering refinancing to get money for the business within a year, will give me the website to his restaurant later so I can market it on this blog for him)
Then my mother closed the shop and told me she needed to get her nails done at her friend's shop. "Hey, that's another opportunity there. Take it you are desperate to meet your goal." My committed self encouraged it. So I followed my mom to her friend's nail shop. After sitting there for 1 hour with out saying much, I realized how hard it was for me to sell to her in Vietnamese. I did the whole dialogue once again and did not get a response. At least this time I got here name.
Hanh - Beautiful Nail, Owner (I gave her my business cards anyway and she was my last customer.)
...so this was basically my first day of my assignment. I've learned a lot and I'm burned especially I only ate one meal and had very little sleep. I think I will take a break tomorrow because I need to figure things out on how to do this more efficiently. I will use tomorrow/today(since it is 2 am) to strategize things out so I am using my time more wisely and actually achieve my goal. I was so caught up in needing to meet 25 people and running errands that I forgot that I had a spiritual meetup at 7pm, which could have helped me with my assignment. I will make up the 12 people this weekend at two meetup events...I'm very grateful for meeting only kind people today--it was a blessing.
PS
Please excuse the grammar errors since it was really late(or should I say early morning) when I wrote this. My brain is basically fried for today.
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