Serving Up Optimism
I love the optimism we’ve been hearing from the industry lately. It seems as though everyone we call has a good story to tell, a positive view of business, and a downright cheerful disposition. Because we are barraged by the same doom-and-gloom headlines as the rest of the world, we at Canadian Powersport Trade have been pleasantly mystified at what appears to be a beacon of hope in Canadian industry.
While talking with Nanaimo’s Dale Erickson who owns Harbour City Motorsports and VI Honda with his wife Jana, we got to talking about this unwavering enthusiasm rippling across the industry, and Dale explained an important lesson about optimism. It goes a little something like this:
There once was a boy who decided to start a hot dog stand. He went out and purchased one dozen hot dogs, set up a booth, and away he went selling every hot dog the first day. Rolling on the momentum of his success, the boy bought two dozen hot dogs the next day and again sold every single one. On the third day he sold three dozen hot dogs, and on the fourth day he sold four dozen.
The boy’s sales continued to increase daily. Customers would often ask how business was going, and the boy would always reply with enthusiasm that business was great and couldn’t be better. Customers were inspired by his upbeat message and those who used to stop in for one hot dog started buying two, and by the 12th day in business, the boy was easily selling 12 dozen hot dogs a day.
But one day the boy went home and was greeted by his father, who was holding a newspaper open to the financial section. “Look here, son,” said the father. “The paper says there is a recession coming. You might want to be careful with your hot dog business.”
The boy heeded his father’s advice. The next morning he only bought 11 dozen hot dogs to sell from his stand. When his regular customers arrived and asked how business was going, instead of his usual enthusiasm, the boy responded with uncertainty: “I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s a recession coming, you know, so it’s hard to say.” Soon those who used to buy two hot dogs were now only buying one, and daily customers started coming twice a week until the boy found it difficult to sell a dozen hot dogs in a week.
I don’t want to beat the brilliant proverb about self-fulfilling prophecies any closer to the edge of cliche-dom, but it really stands to reason that attitude goes a long way. If successful sales and marketing are as much about reading people and the development of relationships as they are about the functionality of whatever widget might be the latest, I see no reason that something basic like attitude can’t make a broad stroke of difference in defining a company’s success. And judging by the positivity we’ve been hearing across the lines these last few weeks, it looks as though our readers are about to sell a lot of hot dogs. Great work, folks. ~JK
