Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The village idiot of Las Vegas makes a move in Chinatown...

What's the best way to describe the new job I have? Interesting is a good word for it. Let's face it, how many small town white guys from Kansas do you know that work as an ambassador to a Chinatown district? Let me go over my job in a little more detail:

The company I work for, onlinerestaurants.com, has put me in charge of signing up Asian restaurants in Chinatown. The model works as follows; We offer our services which include online ordering and food delivery. If a customer orders their food off of our site, we're entitled to a percentage of their net sales. Currently I'm working with a couple of Asian friends of mine. They're providing the contacts, and I'm in charge of closing and contracts. The last few weeks my Asian friends have been kind enough to introduce me to a number of restaurant owners in Chinatown, and the experience has been delightful. Admitting so, progress was a lot slower then what I would have hoped for, and then today happened.

"I know that you guys can kill this process! They're over 300 places in a 2 mile radius that could use this process! We are the first one's to the party. Let's get em!" My two Asian partners are terrific people, known them since I moved to Las Vegas. They're like Chinese versions of me. I wanted them to know that I was ready to see the levy break! My friend Kam asked me what the numbers were. "Right now guys, we've sold our service to three places in two weeks. We've talked with well over thirty businesses. Something needs to happen real soon." About five minutes after my rant,  Kam gets a call and tells me this after he finished.

"That was Mike, he said his brother wants to sign up. Cheng's said they would sign up as well if you meet them on the rate. One more thing Joey at the House of Joy wants to talk with you as well." I'll always remember this moment for the rest of my life, that's when I knew for certain my beliefs were correct. I took a moment to gather myself, and then all of us looked at each other and smiled. This was before we started the days door to door.

I walk into this Thai place on Spring and Jones, and right in front of my eyes is the most beautiful Asian girl I have ever seen, turns out she was the manager, so I told her how our service works and how we could help them make more money. I was doing my best not to look like a fool, which is hard for me some times. Anyways, she looks at me with what I could have sworn were green eyes, and says. "I like this idea. I want to sign my place up for it. Is this your idea?"  I looked at her with an accelerated heart beat, and said. "Yes Mam, and I've got a good crew to back it up." I was feeling a humongous vibe with her, and you never know if you don't ask. "How about you and I get a drink some time? Maybe eat some sushi as well." Turns out the vibe I was feeling wasn't mutual. "Look Honey, I got a boyfriend. Maybe some other time?" The important thing was that she signed up for the service!

The crew meets for dinner to go over the last two days numbers. "If I'm correct, we now have five new restaurants, and three more on the hook in the last two days." Both of my partners nodded in agreement. "Well done men! Well done!" I knew when I first hooked up with these guys that I was making the right choice. "Salute to Chinatown and all of the restaurants in it." Usually when I throw salutes up I like to have a shot or beer with it. These guys don't drink, so I had hot tea. "Hey Rob, tomorrow I get you another suite at the Hard Rock for a few days." The sound of my partner Kam's voice was music to my ears. I love the Hard Rock!

I like to end every post of mine with a thought I'm having...Call it the village idiot thought of the day. "I was reading an article about entrepreneurial habits, and the writer of the article asked if it was better to be consistent or explosive. I thought about that for a moment and came up with this answer. "You've got to be consistent to find any kind of explosiveness, unless you win the lottery or something like that."


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