An Elevation Celebration, Talking to Strangers, TTG Team Building, 1970 VW Bus for Sale
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
5:57 am. MT, the sun just woke up, she’s slowing climbing the sky. I’ve got my coffee, my trusty fireplace to my right and we have a house full of team members. They are getting ready to head back east; we’ve had a pretty good three days out here in Conifer, Colorado.
We have spent the last two days supporting our local community, passing out swag and connecting with strangers. We don’t hide what our firm does, but it is not clear what we do from our swag. We are simply looking to start a conversation. In the last two days, we’ve passed out 500 tie-dye koozies, 1000 guitar picks, 1000 tattoos, 1000 stickers, and we met a couple of thousand people that didn’t know we existed.
I drove the van to our spot at the Celebration Saturday morning to get set up. As I was driving in, I met a man that told me he had a 1985 VW Bus, but he was envious of our 1970. We chatted for a bit before I drove to my spot and started setting up. His name was Peter.
Our give away at this event was a very cool retro VW Bus Cooler. We thought it fit our image; it was one of the coolest things we’ve given away; it was a big hit and encouraged folks to give us their name and number. We plan to reach out to everyone and say thank you for stopping by and see if they might be open to a conversation about our firm. No hard sales, just a warm call, thanking them for stopping by.
We had many people fill out a ticket to win, once they realized we really were giving away our VW Cooler, they wanted to put their name in for a chance to win this awesome piece. We ran our booth for two days from 8 a.m. to 5:00 Saturday and Sunday and at 4:20 p.m. yesterday had our neighbor in the booth next to us draw a name to see who won.
I’ve not counted the number of entries, guessing from the bowl, we have anywhere from 500 to 750 names of possible winners. We did a FACEBOOK Live event to stream to the masses, the winner. During the stream, I called the winner and told him he had 24 hours to call us back. We tore down our booth and headed back up to the mountain house for one of my Queen famous meals. About the time the steaks were on the grill, the phone rang, and it was our winner.
He was belly laughing; he said I am the winner! He said I have a 1985 VW Bus. I said, “did I meet you when I was setting up?” He laughed again, “yes, you did, and I am still very envious of your bus.” It was good that our VW Cooler found a good home. I’m heading down the mountain to meet Peter this morning to give him his gift.
During the weekend we walked and met with other companies showing their wares. We bought some jewelry, and I bought a pour-over coffee maker homemade by a local resident. We got talking, and he told me he too had a 1970 VW Bus. He had just put a new engine in it but found out a fuse panel had failed and now it was just sitting there. I asked him how much he wanted, and he pitched a reasonable number. I’m tempted to call him and buy that bus. If you are looking for a 1970 VW Bus with a new engine but does not currently run, let me know. I can connect you, he seemed motivated, and I know that with a little work someone can get that van running and on the road.
The downside of this weekend might be my 2nd or maybe an 8th-degree sunburn. I used sunscreen, but obviously not near enough. I’m pretty crispy, but I deem the burn worth it for this weekend’s experience with our new neighbors and our team, we worked very well together.
That’s it, happy Monday. Today is an opportunity to make some of the micro changes you been contemplating, changing your behavior just a little to start hitting some of those personal goals. Do one little thing differently. Maybe eat a little fewer carbohydrates. Maybe get up and go for a long walk. Maybe get home from work and instead of reaching for that beer you take your mate and go for a walk discussing your day.
Every day you wake, you have an opportunity to start over and begin reshaping who you are. You can be anyone you choose to be, but remember to be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."