I recently found myself being burned out at work and so I decided to instill some much needed Humor into my personal and expert life. I had been a sales menagerial for the last 15 years, I was making a very comfortable living and all things looked great on the outside, but on the inside I was of course doing more crying than laughing. I was on the rode traveling 4 days per week, my marriage was on the rocks and I believe I was suffering from a mild case of depression. That's when a chance encounter with a stranger changed my life.
At the time, I was employed as a Sales Director for Boca research and I was responsible for our company's booth at Comdex in Toronto Canada, the largest computer show in the country. I flew up a few months early to interview some extra events clubs to fabricate ideas and a theme for the show. I had all the time used humor as an effective business and communications tool and I wanted to employ a firm that would fabricate a creative and fun theme and promotional campaign for the trade show.
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I interviewed 3 firms and decided on one that came up with the idea of a circus theme. They recommend a 3 ring circus venue with circus performers that would rove straight through our space and speak with clients and achieve stock demonstrations. One of the performers and I struck up a close relationship while the show and started doing stock demos together. His name was Jim Ince. Jim was a seasoned performer that studied at the Sorbonne in France and was very well known in the Toronto Area.
That night I invited Jim to supper to become better acquainted and pick his brain for some creative ideas. I mentioned to Jim that I of course enjoyed performing with him and I wanted to fabricate my improvisation skill. Jim knew I lived in Chicago, Il and he recommend that I look into taking some classes at Second City. After I returned from the show I called The Players Workshop of The Second City and signed up for their 2 year program,"Creative Expression straight through Improvisation". The agenda took us straight through the creative process of Improv, culminating with the students writing, directing and producing our own "Saturday Night Live" show on The Second City Main stage. This was truly a colossal palpate and I learned so much. But what I of course learned was that I truly had a gift and passion for Imrov and I wanted to take my life in a new direction.
My business had also agreed to partake in the world's largest computer show, Comdex. This international trade show is held in Las Vegas every fall ands of course attracts over 3 million citizen in a one-week period. This particular year, I was charged with running the Boca both. In additional to all the other duties connected with the show set-up and booth management, I was assigned to provide an intelligent giveaway item to attract citizen to the booth.
I put on my creative sales hat and view long and hard about what would be an innovative, creative and cost-effective way to get client and media attention. I had been racking my brain one evening and came up with only a few lackluster concepts, so I took a break and went out to supper and a movie with my wife and some close friends. After dinner, I had some time to kill before the movie started so we went for a walk.We happened to come across a novelty store, wandered in and took a look around. One particular item caught my eye - a propeller beanie sitting on a shelf between a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and a pail full of unidentifiable gadgets. This was an absurd itsybitsy hat - too small to fit a typical human head - with a propeller boldly affixed to the top. My creative intuition told me I must wear this cap. To the chagrin of my wife, I wandered around the store seeing like a complete fool, but I was struck by a thought: "Technical People" are generally referred to as "Propeller Heads" maybe there's a tie-in!"
This was not just a new way to amuse myself and embarrass my wife; this would be an perfect commerce connected gimmick! After checking into the price, I realized this was too good to pass up. I decided to order a gross and emboss the phrase "The Boca Beanie" across the front and give them to current and possible clients.
I was amazed at the overwhelmingly obvious response. Clients were falling all over themselves spinning the itsybitsy propellers absurdly standing atop their heads. I relayed this facts to my marketing group and after some additional consideration; they pick to follow my idea and purchase 25,000 propeller beanies. When my sales staff and I started giving them away at the show, the response was overwhelming. Boca had the hottest giveaway and the most booth traffic at the show, even more than Microsoft and Ibm! Lines of citizen sneaked straight through the floor of the presentation hall, blocking other booths, protection had to be called d for crowd control, waiting to get to the Boca booth to get their hands on a "Boca Beanie". As I frantically tried to demonstrate my products, and as an overwhelmingly whole of citizen crowded around me, I yelled ""Be cool, don't be a fool and get your free Boca Beanie". It wasn't long before the media got wind of the beanie. Before I was done spinning my propeller, I was interviewed on the Cbs Evening News with Dan Rather, featured in Usa Today, The Wall road Journal and in all the commerce trade publications.
This was of course the most effective sales tool I had ever employed-simple, fun and a itsybitsy wacky. Most important, the inquiries and sales orders that followed were very impressive! We set a business sales narrative because of the "Boca Beanie". Humorous ideas attack at the oddest times- you can't force a great idea, it's born from your creativity and attentiveness to the world around you. A new study published in a major business publication stated that "of over 700 Ceo's, over 98% of them indicated they would much rather hire somebody with a good sense of humor than somebody without one."
So, if you are scratching your head seeing to solve a business problem, look to humor, it can pay huge dividends and you can have a few Laughs in the process!!!
How I Used Humor to Survive and Thrive In Today's competing enterprise Environment!Friends Link : Choose Monitor know memorial good hard drive Server Rack Rails
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