Bosco had neglected to tell me that I would be making a
presentation to a group of about 100 people at the conference.
“I’ve told them you’re a marketing guru,” he said as he
handed me a sheet of paper.
I was so surprised to hear this that when I first looked at
the paper, I found I was attempting to read it upside down. I turned it around and read:
Web Marketeering – Michael Drabeck, SlipNot Internet
Marketing Specialist
Do you know how to sell your products and services on the
World Wide Web? Do you have an email account?
Do you even know how to connect your PC to the Internet? Not being able to communicate on-line could
be driving potential customers right away from your door.
Web Marketeering will show owners and managers how to take
advantage of 21st Century technology without you having to know your
bits from your bytes.
“Bosco, this is terrible!” I exclaimed. “Who wrote this shit?”
Bosco just smiled and pointed back at the paper.
“It’s not really a big deal.
Just show them how to write a coherent email message and then talk up
SlipNot’s consulting services for a half hour.
That’s why we’re here. Now get
ready. You go on at 4:30.”
Fine. So now I was
going to have to put together some kind of lame dog and pony show on no
notice. I had to admit that the task
wasn’t all that big of a deal. What
irritated me was that Bosco had clearly known ahead of time that I had been
“volunteered” to this little service, but he’d chosen not to share this fact
with me until quite literally an hour and a half before my little presentation
was supposed to start.
I ran into Allan about ten minutes later and our fearless
leader had bestowed upon him a similar honor.
He grumbled that he’d been tapped to give a talk to an even larger group,
almost 200 people, on the basics of Web site design.
“The only Internet connection I’ve got in my classroom is
dialup!”
“Take ‘em to SlipNot’s site and select ‘Text Only’?” I said, as always, trying to be helpful.
“Nice.” He replied sarcastically.
“You could use the DSL connection I’ve got to show the micro
camera.”
“My classroom’s down the hall from the booth by about 100
feet. Even if we could find that much
cable, we’d probably have to boost the signal somehow and I don’t know how the
hell we can do that…unless.”
“Unless,” I interrupted as I smiled at him and he grinned too
when I added, “unless we can find a wireless router somewhere in this hotel.”
Armed with a company credit card, Allan and I tracked down
the head of the Tech Department in Guest Services. He was somewhat grumpy when we suggested that
he hook up a wireless network on the fly and he told us the cost for the router
and the labor would set us back about a grand for the day, not including the
fact that we would see an increase in the Internet connection fee of another
$500, seeing as we were now opening up that connection to at least one
additional computer above and beyond the one that SlipNot had ordered for the
micro camera’s hook up. When we were
finished adding a third connection for Les Bernstein, one of SlipNot’s salesmen
who ran across us while we were negotiating all of this (he had been trying to
find a way to get on line so that he could place about $15,000 in orders that
he’d taken from a few of his better customers), we tacked on a little over two
thousand bucks in fresh charges to the company account. We also ordered a sandwich for Les, a couple
of beers for me, and a big bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water for Allan.
I barely had enough time to toss the beers down before 4:30.
When I finished my talk on the proper etiquette for sending
emails, I walked into Bosco’s class, where he was teaching a seminar on
advertising. This was really what he was
best at. Bosco could work a room and
when he was on, as he was that day, it could be great entertainment.
“Raoul!” He called out to a guy sitting in the middle of the
room. “How long you and I know each
other? 30 years? Anyway!
Huh? It’s true ladies and
gentlemen, I’ve known this fellow since he stopped cutting hair and started
selling it. That was a long time ago,
but it’s made you lotta money, hasn’t it?
“This guy is a success ladies and gentlemen. He’s taken risks. He’s planned his work and worked his
plan. That’s how you get to own 8 stores
and to pull in over a half million a year from each one of them every year,
year after year.”
The guy smiled, a little red faced with embarrassment for
having been singled out, but still very pumped for having been named by the
great Bosco Ignatz as a player. People
tended to like Bosco and to crave his attention. He had charisma and his approval
mattered. I had to admit that even though
I’d known Bosco a long time, that he’d infuriated me and appalled me as many
times as he’d amazed me – I still liked to hear his praise. Raoul Liston was from that same place and
right at that moment, he was the envy of more than just a few of the people in
that classroom. Bosco continued to
dissect the things that Raoul had done.
He’d run a pair of very successful hair styling salons in St Louis,
making about $35 an hour for himself and then leasing a total of 27 chairs to
other stylists. He was doing well and
then, as Bosco pointed out, he’d met Bosco at a trade show.
“You know what I told him to do?” Bosco asked the class. “I told him to burn his studios down.”
This got most of the group chuckling. It was a line almost every one of them had
heard. It was the gospel according to
Bosco Ignatz.
“I’m serious!” Bosco went on.
“I told him to get out from behind the chair and learn how to sell
hair. Now, selling’s a dirty word. Who in here wants to admit that he’s a
salesman?”
I put my hand in the air and Bosco laughed.
“This is Michael and you know what? He really does like to sell. And do you know why? Michael’s motivated. He’s motivated by money. He has very simple needs. He always needs more money and so he’s become
a selling machine. He doesn’t care what
anyone thinks about that. He knows how
to help people make decisions and that’s what it takes to be a great
salesman. You have to be a
decision-making consultant. If you can
figure out what your client really, really wants and you can help him find it,
he’ll give you anything you want in return.”
It was classic Bosco.
He’d taken two people from his audience, showered praise on them and
used them as examples of the sales principles he would outline in the rest of
his class. He’d included everyone in
that room in a private conversation and in doing so; he’d tapped into them
all. They all wanted to know more. They needed what Bosco was selling. And they’d give him what he wanted to hear
how they could own 8 stores and become selling machines themselves. I gave Bosco a small wave and stepped out the
door and into the hallway. I was just
entering the main ballroom when someone caught my eye and began to stride
across the floor towards me.
**********
The next installment will be posted on October 20.
If you'd like to read the entire book today, GO
HERE.
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