When new employees join our organization, I burden them with my stories. These can get tedious once you’ve heard them once or twice and are downright irritating after you get to the third or more retelling. But I’ll go out on a (personal) limb and suggest they are quite fascinating the first time around.
The stories combine some surprise, adventure and a dose of lessons learned. The biggie of course is my African adventure. Not everyone gets to live through the end of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil war working on a daily newspaper, drinking (strong) beer and riding a sanctions-busting motorcycle. Thankfully, the beer and motorcycle never happened at the same time — however a gravel patch ‘destroyed’ the bike and my ill-fated repair efforts taught me I should never aspire to be a skilled motorcycle mechanic.
Other stories include my “cracking” of Air Canada’s Aeroplan program (causing havoc within the program’s administration and resulting in the destruction of benefits for thousands of elite fliers — bad me), the gaming of the U.S. government’s Non Preference Immigration Visa Lottery (which resulted, among other things, in my getting lost in the Pentagon’s parking lot and discovering I really like doing business in the Washington DC area) and most recently, an insanely intense two-week battle with a California “click bomber” who set out to destroy my Google AdSense account (which generates a pittance in monthly revenue but which I didn’t want to see disappear under the cloud of thousands of “invalid clicks”.)
Most likely, you have your own stories. Hopefully they don’t get too boring. Stories are helpful in the construction marketing process, especially if they are relevant to your clients’ needs and concerns and can relate to a memorable message. Some drama, pathos, problems solved and solutions uncovered can bring your business to life far more than cliche-ridden remarks about “customer service”.
I suppose the stories I communicate in this blog should relate to construction marketing successes, but I can’t get out of my mind that evening in Monrovia, Liberia, a week after a military coup when I drove around town in a commandeered taxi with a drunken soldier who wanted my watch.
Thankfully, my life is now much more boring.
