1-800-Awesome The Book – Making 10k an hour
Chris Rugh the business Coach and the book 1-800-awesome
Look for the book soon here is a snip from the first chapter……
The Lies the World Tells Us
I was fresh out of college and there I stood in the elevator, on the way down, with Jim Martin looking over at me as if he had initially underestimated me and was now actually seeing me for the first time. I was looking very much like Gordon Gecko, even down to my short ponytail, and feeling just as cocky. In less than an hour I had cost Jim Martin a whole lot of money. It seems that given my lack of experience, I was an ‘un-professional success’, but a success just the same.
Earlier Jim Martin had assumed that he had me over a barrel with all the advantages of years of experience and business smarts on his side. I had come to the warehouse to review the physical inventory assets from a bankruptcy case and to decide what I was willing to pay for them. Thinking he could easily out-fox me, he stacked up all the assets so he could hide things in the center, making it difficult for me to see what was really there. I showed up to that bankruptcy auction in a small unassuming office in downtown Detroit and I sat there quietly as the bankruptcy attorney brought the asset list out. The bidding was started at $1000 for the lot of assets and as the bids went up…and up…and up….I continued to sit there and just listen. Finally the bidding stopped at $8000. The auctioneer is asking for more bids, but no one is willing to go higher; Jim is smiling like the Cheshire cat and everyone else is quiet. Just as the auctioneer says, “Going…” and before he can say it again, I quietly but clearly say, “$8500”. Jim seems kind of startled, but answers back with “$9000”. I took it up to $9250 and Jim again ups it to $9500. Jim isn’t smiling anymore; in fact, he’s looking just a little bit peeved. But I don’t let him see me sweat as we bid against each other, finally taking the price to $15,000.00. And I was sweating, not because I was nervous, but because I was excited and tense and wondering how Jim would take it. You see, Jim Martin had spent years buying bankrupt assets, and here I was, a young guy with a new diploma and little else, trying to make my way into the business. I was a real greenhorn, an unknown entity, an unproven punk. As I had cost him more than a few thousand dollars, he said absolutely nothing to me as we got into that elevator. As we stood there, he silently looked me up and down. Finally, when the elevator doors closed on us, he turned to me and said, “You clean up nice.” When I’d showed up for our first meeting I had been wearing my ‘f-you fashion sense blue jeans, a t-shirt and a work jacket that I had borrowed from my father. Unfazed by his silent stares and dead-pan comment, I looked back at him and replied, “Yes, Jim, I do clean up nice. I can run very well in both worlds.”
That proved to be a defining moment for the relationship Jim Martin and I would develop from that time forward. We had sized each other up. The respect was now mutual, and Jim Martin and I soon………..
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