Go Hard or Go Home

Over this bank holiday weekend I was selling drinks at carnival, what seemed to be easy money turned in to the hardest two days of work I have ever done. Although it could have also been the best, sometimes its easy to forget what hard work feels like, when your in the business of creative thinking. Over the last two days I definitely proved that i still had the hard graft in me. I turned from a savvy marketer to a blue collar street trader, the thrill of the hard sell kept the adrenaline going. It had been a while since my direct selling days, but I found my self quickly into the swing of things using all my charm and wit to sell drinks. I had forgot how much skill it actually takes to judge and adapt your communication style to so many different people.

The main learning from my carnival experience is poor planning is certainly a recipe for disaster. Possible due to ignorance or arrogance I assumed due to the sheer amount of people any sort of drink would be easy to sell. Not so true we managed to sell out all the red-stripe on the first day, and just a few soft drinks. Had I done my research I probably would have found out that beer was going to be the best seller and not bought an equal amount of Giuness and soft drinks.

It was the quick thinking to concoct a punch and give away free samples that really saved the day. We managed to create a frenzy around our Carnival punch, this turned an almost waste of time, effort and money, into a great learning experience and profit.

Moral of the story is always research and plan a strategy for the task at hand, and if you don't be prepared to work, like my basketball coach use to say GO HARD OR GO HOME.