LEARNING THE FINE ART OF BEGGING

What kind of business man are you?

In this installment, Dave among other things is learning the fine art of the gift of "gab"... There is a real art to begging for sales, money, and particularly fund raising for an event that your participating in. Not every one of us can do it, but if your the only one, well its got to come naturally, and fast. Dave had a lot of things going in his favor, he works in front of the public most of the time in his full, and part time gigs. He also teaches classes for the wildlife department from time to time, and is in front of a lot of people where he works.

Dave also planned a very simple direction for his marketing plan. First find where the crowd is going to be that ride motor cycles as much as you do. Then find companies associated to your passion, and the crowd of cyclists, then approach both of them. In all businesses you need a game plan, direction, and business plan with advertising that markets yourself or product to others, and the costs associated to it, to do it.

The simple steps in Dave's case is, "what can I get the most bang for buck", with a limited budget, limited time, and limited resources to help. Dave went old school, and did the simple table, and chair with some promotional materials, and found a family member to help. Some times that family member choice, can either go in your direction or be a real hindrance to not only the product your selling, but an ice pick chiseling away at your self conscious to the point of exploding every five minutes.

Kind of like that Uncle Bill, that uncle everyone sees at the family get together"s but no one talks to for a reason. Fortunately, Uncle Bill was part of another family, and couldn't make it to help Dave in his quest to get funds for his journey.

Dave did his home work. He did some very simple print materials that had some visuals, and good information for hand outs. He went to the sponsor of the trip, and got merchandising directly from them that was very collectible, priced moderately with a donations in mind at his price points.

With this in hand, making contact to the venues, and working out the details to attend different location around the Saint Louis, Missouri area was the next challenge. It took a lot of time on the phone. Some good conversations, and some not so good conversations came out of his efforts.

Dave never gave up on anything, keeping detailed notes, names, phone numbers, and a journal of what he talked about to anyone he called. Dave was on the right path to getting in front of many of his fellow bike riders and businesses. Now it came to the pitch...

If don't know what a pitch is, well you might want to lock yourself with pen and pencil, and start writing one. "Simply the elevator pitch." You have ten second to 13 seconds to tell me who you are, what you do, and why I should keep listening to you. You may think this is crazy, but I know people that can do that in one sentence.

Dave, mastered his lines quickly, and of course Dave is in front of the public a lot, and it was hard in the beginning, but came naturally at the end. When I first met Dave, I watched him go from a rabbit to well oiled owl looking for prey. Dave had a lot of fun with it, and when it came to bikes, and small talk, Dave could talk your arm off, and multitask at the same time. I saw him one time talking to six people with six different conversations, and never missed a beat in anyone of those conversations with that many people.

The video below is the first in a couple of installments about how to put yourself in front of people to collect money for a charity. Dave, got his first sponsor, Neon Lights during his first couple of events. This video shows a little of his sponsor and where Dave was marketing himself, and what I captured with my cameraman.