Local Knowledge - The Key to a Full Stomach!

22 July, 2007 - General Business - 4 Comments

Sorry for the lack of blog posts over the past couple of days. I flew in to Ohio on Thursday, and since then I’ve had no time to write. But, I have a few minutes now, after our plans for the evening changed slightly. :)

The nature of the world these days allows most entrepreneurs to work even if they are thousands of miles from home. That also means we can pick up contracts and new customers from other countries too. It’s at those times when knowledge of the area you are dealing in comes back and pays for the effort it took to digest. Of course, knowing the business you’re dealing with is also incredibly important.

I’m going to share a little story with you and hopefully there will be some sort of moral at the end. Four or so years ago I went to Spain on holiday with my old man, and we decided to hire a car so we could do some travelling. We scheduled a full day to travel to the Spanish border with Andorra. We had no plans for once we were inside Andorra. It was more a trip so we could say we had been to that country (I know, a full day of travelling just for that sounds a bit much, but we had an open top Grand Vitara. :D ).

As we travelled further, we got hungry and decided to stop in a village for something to eat. Of course, by this time we were far from the tourist areas where everybody speaks English, and we didn’t know more than a few words of Spanish. We walked in to a bar with a sign for food, went towards the counter and asked for a burger. Well, the owner of the bar looks up at us with a blank stare. We ask for a burger again. We ask for a burger again. We ask for a burger again… you get the idea. She didn’t have a clue what we were saying, and we had no clue how to say “burger” in Spanish. As we stood there and asked for our burgers (by this time feeling like two total idiots, but hilarious none the less) an old guy sat at the bar, cigar in hand, beer in the other, looks up and gives us the “Stupid f-ing English!” look.

Ten Minutes Later…

We stood in that bar for at least ten minutes. The only words we said were “Burger? Hamburger? Chips? Burger? Hamburger? Ham?”. :lol:

Our conversation went like this:

English: Hamburger?
Spanish: No. Me no understand.
English: Burger?
Spanish: No. No understand.

We came out of the bar with nothing to eat, only to see the sign outside had a picture of a burger.

We should have known the language, and we should have taken note of the sign. I’m sure showing her the photo would have solved all our problems.

I know, this was slightly off topic, but it’s all I can handle right now (I’m still jet lagged from my day of travel on Thursday), but hopefully I’m going to bring this post altogether with the conclusion.

I guess the moral to this story is you should know your environment, and you should know your prospects and customers. Do you research! Find out who your prospects’ board of directors are if you’re providing a service where you have to pitch your company. If you deal with customers on an individual basis, then find out everything you can about them. Knowledge is power. The more knowledge you have regarding the people you sell to, the more likely you are to walk away with a burger, as opposed to not.

When was the last time you walked away without a burger? :D

PS. Hey, a couple of quick notes. Remember the guest post about PageRank that I wrote on Jane May’s, Daily Web Ideas? Well, Jane was kind enough to contact me to say she was impressed with the post, and she would like me to post more frequently on her blog. So, Jane’s readers will be seeing a lot more of me over there very soon. Cool, huh? Thanks Jane! :)

One more thing. My post about OS!M’s attracted the attention of Steve Farber, who I spoke about in the post. In fact, he was so kind as to email me and write a blog post on his blog, about my site. Thanks Steve! :)

That’s all for now. No promises, but I’m hoping to record a rather interesting vlog tomorrow. Hopefully it will work out. :)

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Posted on 22 July, 2007 by Jamie Harrop
Filed Under General Business |

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4 Comments»

Comment by Jason
2007-07-22 01:37:33

Great, I’ve been waiting for another.

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Comment by chrisblogging.com
2007-07-23 18:38:01

Traveling is always fun, and anytime you can learn a lesson from it, all the better!

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Comment by chrisblogging.com
2007-07-24 18:22:57

I never knew I was so dependent on your blog until I came today and there was no update! I am waiting anxiously for another great post!!!

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Comment by Jamie Harrop
2007-07-25 01:31:34

Yeah, I’m sorry Chris. Things have been non stop here, and I’m so tired it’s unbelievable! Ya know what, I may just record a vlog right now. :)

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