Day 3 of Expo

Well, today is Day 3 of the expo.  So far the week has been going well.  The last 2 days we have been at the expo booth all day selling and fitting shoes.  The shoes have been selling well, and I'm finally getting my sales pitch down.  It's actually kinda fun once you get going!  We had a little rain at the end of the day yesterday, but other than that it's been great weather.  There is a chance of rain on race day as well, so hopefully there will be some sunny skies.

Last night they had a VIP party (dessert and drinks) for athletes and expo vendors, so we went there for a little bit.  The party was at the Lake Placid ski jump and we were able to see a few people come off the ski jump like they do in the Olympics.  I'm not sure if any of you have seen it before, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.  They come off of this jump at about 60 mph and land so gracefully-- it was amazing!  

I've got about an hour and a half until the expo starts again and until then I plan on staying in this bed.  My feet are aching from standing all day every day and constantly moving.  This morning I got up extra early and ran with Stephen, our company president.  He is a great runner and today showed me how to do a tempo run.  I was telling him yesterday that I'd like to work on my running speed a little bit, so he explained the science behind a tempo run this morning to help me get faster.  Basically, a tempo run is where you are running at your lactic threshold for a portion of your run.  This pace is faster than what you're used to-- typically about 1/2 marathon pace and hard enough that you aren't able to talk.  It was a good workout-- he also helped me a little bit with my form and gave me a few suggestions on how I can run better.  We also passed the swim course for the Ironman, which was all marked and ready to go.  I'm so excited to watch it tomorrow!

Stephen's a very intelligent guy and got his bachelor's degree in marketing, like me.  He's had a lot of experience in both marketing and sales and so I asked him if there was one thing he wished he'd have known when he first started in the field, what it would have been.  He had a great and long answer... I thought it was very helpful, so I'm going to write it down while my memory is good :)  

He said a few things: 1) Know the product, how it functions, and its features.  2) Understand the consumer.  It's important to understand what the consumer wants and what the product can do for them.  3) Sales is about both knowing the product and having a relationship with the customer.  He said that some people only know one of the two-- either knowing a lot about product and not building a relationship, or knowing nothing about the product but building a good relationship.  It's good to have a balance of both.  4) Sales and marketing are different from each other and it's important that in a company both are able to understand one another.  A lot of times marketers haven't done sales and salesman haven't done marketing, which can sometimes create a conflict.  5) Not everyone is going to like your product.  Sometimes you can use the feedback to improve the product, but sometimes there are just people who are going to say no when you're trying to sell something... which is why it's important to understand the consumer, but also be able to accept that not everyone is going to want the product.  

Anyways, that's it for now.  I'm taking a morning nap :)  Good luck to everyone at the Bix today!!  It's my dad's 30th year doing the Bix-- so have fun, Dad... and happy running!