Herman School of Business
Cracking the College Code
With about as much humility as Jim Cramer has hawking his books, I believe HERMANISMS belongs on every college campus in America. It will give students the reality side of their education to balance the academic side of their studies. So, naturally I marketed it to the department heads of many colleges in both English and Business offering to give a talk at the school, for no fee.
In all I sent out roughly 300 books in several States, and I got back less than five responses. After much follow up, and in some cases additional books being sent, the silence was deafening. I called colleges and talked directly to those in charge of teaching our sons and daughters…and offered to give them a real life, actual business person…chock full of wins and losses, to share with students the road they want to travel…and got almost a total Bupkis. Wait, that’s not true…I actually got less than nothing…because one school had me meet with the head of PR who said as I was buying her lunch…”We don’t know who you are so students wouldn’t come to hear you speak…but we would love a donation from someone like you who has obviously made lots of money and that would help our school.”
Frustrating right? Almost enough to make you just walk away from the college gig idea. But one young man who got the book from his parents who read HERMANISMS saw the light! He was a member of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and he put together an assembly including other students from the American Marketing Association and that event back in November inspired me. I loved being there in front of a huge body of students…bright, energetic, and hungry to hear from the world outside of academia…just like I thought they would. After the speech (I was awesome) a group of the students took me out to dinner and continued the dialogue we started at the assembly. Another student at Salisbury University also got the HERMANISMS bug and he set up the same type of speech before his group, the Financial Management Association. Are you thinking what I was thinking?
Yesterday I met with Giotto Troia, that student who started it all at UWW and his new business partner, Dana Aschacker…who at my suggestion have formed a company called BLACKBOOK MARKETING. I have signed a six month deal for these two students to get me as many college gigs as possible over the next six months. You see, they will market me to other students, just like them, who hold positions in the campus organizations where Chapters of the many great business groups are located. And BLACKBOOK MARKETING will be paid a monthly retainer, with cash bonuses for every gig they set up. The two students will be able to hire other students to help their new business, and I have agreed to cover all marketing supply expenses…they can’t lose money on this, their first business venture, as they get their monthly fee and never pay out-of-pocket costs such as telephone, postage, etc.
Thus, I believe I have cracked the code on how to get on college campuses and spread the gospel of HERMANISMS. And in the process I will be showing students how to run their own company, planning weekly marketing strategy sessions, doing actual business stuff, earning money for results, finding out that partnerships are a bad thing (I already told them that was a key component of my idea here), and proving to myself that indeed, through this effort, ultimately more books will be sold, and more speaking engagements outside of college gigs will result from the publicity we will get after the project works.
Look for Troia, Dana and Herman on Oprah sometime this Fall telling the world how a businessman can connect with students and teach them more than just what is in those textbooks.
- Posted: 18 January 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Starting a business
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