Workin it . . .

Yesterday afternoon I had had enough of making cold sales calls- the kind of phone calls where you basically pick a phone number, call it, make the pitch, and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't So I decided to acutally try and do something what productive with my time. I pulled out my Sigma Nu fraternity alumni directory and flipped to the Houston, TX region. I found a guy who worked for a big law firm downtown and called him up. I introduced myself as a recent SNU IU grad who moved to the area just a few weeks ago. We talked about IU and fraternity stuff for about 20 minutes. I didn't mention who I worked for once until he asked me. Without pitching anything, he said he would be interested in hearing more about what Houston Dynamo had to offer. Finally having a positive phone conversation was a pleasant change of events.

That afternoon we had to count all the seats in the stadium to make sure they all actually existed. The front office is taking every necessary precaution to gurantee every fan in attendance for our last home regular season on Sunday has a positive and memorable Dynamo experience.

Later that evening I had my first major networking/ public relations event. The weekly radio show Dynamo Power Hour hosted by Glenn Davis broadcasted an extended two hour show at the Taco Milagro restaurant downtown. The restaurant chain is owned by one of our larger clients who has not been the happiest with his Dynamo partnership lately. Before the account was assigned to me, the account executive before me has promised him the world and obviously could not provide it. The sales team has tried to patch the relationship ever since. When it was appropiate, I sat down with the client just in introduce myself and learn more about his business. We talked soccer, the status of the stadium being built, etc. He said he was very happy with everything and verbally committed to renewing his partnership for 2008. A great crowd showed up for the show and got to hear commentary from players Brian Ching and Stuart Holden, and head coach Dominic Kinnear.