Volume 3: My days in a college fraternity Chapter 108 Seize this opportunity
Tommy and Sophia walked out of Tampa International Airport and got on a business car that took them to St. Petersburg, Florida. The driver was a local white man wearing a floral shirt. He kept curiously observing the young man and woman who had booked the airport business car pick-up service through the rearview mirror.
"In St. Petersburg, every tourist has to accept your gaze like a Soviet spy?" Tommy asked when the other party glanced at him for the fifth time.
The driver grinned at Tommy in the rearview mirror. "No, except in February and November, there are very few tourists like you two who are so discerning and choose to vacation in St. Petersburg. They prefer to go to Miami."
The driver then focused on driving without saying anything more. Sophia looked at Tommy next to her and said, "I think you should reconsider this. Advertising in California is obviously a better choice."
"My intuition tells me that Florida is a better choice." Tommy said as he looked at the scenery outside the window.
The two of them flew from California on the west coast to St. Petersburg, Florida on the east coast, certainly not for vacation, although the magazine said that Florida has the purest sea water and the most charming scenery in the United States.
They were there to talk about television commercials, ads that sold computer software on television.
Throughout the United States, there may have been advertisements selling computers on television, but software advertisements have never appeared on television. It seems that from the day the software was born, people in the software industry have believed that people who buy their software absolutely do not need to know the name of the software from TV.
The business car passed through the Clearwater Bay with its white sand and blue sea, and the large village of St. Petersburg appeared in front of the two people.
The locals wearing vests and shorts, straw hats, smoking pipes, and carrying fishing gear or farm tools made Tommy and Sophia intuitively realize that they had come from California, the most populous and richest state in the United States, to Florida, a poor state in the United States that is full of blacks and illegal immigrants from Cuba or Central America.
The home television shopping club that Tommy wants to meet is located in St. Petersburg, which looks not much different from Warwick.
Holly, Jason and even Sophia had no idea why Tommy chose to go far away instead of close to home. Holly even regretted providing Tommy with the company's information. They wanted to set up a training school in California and advertise in faraway Florida. The main problem was that the company's TV shopping program could not be seen by Californians at all, as the signal only covered Florida.
Between a hamburger joint and a car wash on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, Tommy finally saw a sign advertising the Family Television Shopping Club.
Pushing the door open and walking in, there was only a hall that was roughly the size of two garages. Seven or eight people were sitting in different postures, talking on the phone enthusiastically. If there weren't a string of wind chimes hanging on the door, no one would have noticed that Tommy and Sophia came in.
Although the air conditioner was whirring, the heat in the hall still felt overwhelming.
"A toilet paper storage box with a radio function? My friend, I don't know what went through your brain to come up with such a product, but it's very difficult to sell. Yes, the people who watch our show are poor people who want to get benefits, not idiots with too much money to spend. We have to rack our brains to come up with all kinds of advertising slogans. We broadcast it three times a day, each time for fifteen minutes, and the price per week is five thousand yuan, which is already very cheap! We have to convince the people who watch the ad, why do they have to turn on the radio just to go to the toilet? Do we rely on the radio to teach them how to go to the toilet? Before we can find the radio signal, they may have already finished pooping."
"We are a family TV shopping channel, not an adult pay channel. Even if you go to bed with me, you can't be put on a call girl advertisement! We don't want to close down yet, but you can leave your phone number. I may call you after get off work on payday..."
"Is it possible to sell a tape recorder with a camera function ? Have you applied for a patent? Who would buy a five-kilogram tape recorder and carry it to take pictures of people? Of course, if you are willing to pay a high price, it is not impossible. We can always accurately find all kinds of fools who are willing to pay..."
Sophia stared at the hall filled with chaos, swearing, and a strong smell of tobacco, and said to Tommy, "This is completely different from the TV advertising company I saw in California. Are you sure it's here?"
"It's certainly different here than in California. It's more direct and never hypocritical," Tommy said, looking around the hall.
Finally, a middle-aged man hung up the phone and walked over to the two of them. He looked them up and said, "We don't need interns here, unless you don't want any compensation, but only our recommendation letter."
"See? That's what I said. It's absolutely not hypocritical." Tommy first said to Sophia with a smile, and then explained to her:
"I called Actor Software, a California company that wants to place a TV ad here, and I 'd like to appoint your partner, Bob Costa, to help us sell it on the show."
"Bob! Your fans are here!" After hearing what Tommy said, the middle-aged man turned around and shouted loudly towards the hall.
Soon, a brown-haired white young man, about twenty-four or twenty-five years old, came over from the corner, looked at Tommy and the others in confusion, and then looked at his companions with an inquiring look .
The middle-aged man said to him, "They are going to put up an advertisement saying that they called before and are from California and hope to appoint you to help..."
"Tommy, Tommy Hawke, right?" Hearing the other party's words, the young man named Bob Costa smiled, took the initiative to extend his hand to Tommy, and said with a smile: "I'm Bob, we talked on the phone before."
"This is my legal advisor Sophia." Tommy introduced her and then looked around at the noisy surroundings: "Can we go somewhere else to talk? Or would you like us to each have a loud speaker and talk face to face?"
…
Tommy and Sophia sat on lounge chairs under a parasol next to a caravan. Bob took out a few cans of Coke from the refrigerator in the caravan and placed them on the table next to them. After doing all this, he sat down and said with a smile:
"I guess it should be quiet enough here. The environment here is nice."
Tommy took the Coke and opened it and took a sip. "That's great. Let's make it short because I want to finish discussing the advertising issue in three hours and then go to the airport and fly back to California."
"I've thought about it carefully, Mr. Hawke..." Bob Costa crossed his arms, leaned forward, got closer to Tommy and spoke.
Tommy interrupted him and smiled to remind the advertising program host who was considered the originator of the live streaming anchors in the world and made a billion dollars by live streaming, "Just call me Tommy, Bob."
The reason he came to Florida was because he saw the information about the Florida Home Shopping Club TV advertising company that Holly gave him, and found Bob Costa's photo and name on it. Although this was a company established last year, Bob Costa was a well-known business figure who had given a speech at a business school in his previous life.
This guy became a talk show host after graduating from high school, telling all kinds of jokes in bars to make a living, but he almost starved to death. He then went to the radio station to be a talk show host. Since he started hosting the late-night talk show, taxi collision accidents have increased by nearly ten percent compared to before, because the drivers became sleepy listening to his jokes.
Because he was constantly humiliated by listeners who said that listening to him read commercials was funnier than telling jokes, he simply tried to be a host of a TV commercial. As a result, it was proved that this guy was born to be a TV salesman. He introduced products with all kinds of jokes, which were easy to understand. 70% of housewives in the United States had bought the products he promoted in TV commercials. Later, he even created a rule of not charging advertising fees but directly sharing the profits. That is, he sold products in his commercials without charging advertising fees, but he would take a certain commission for each product sold.
"Okay, Tommy, I've probably sold more than seventy kinds of products on TV sales shows. As long as the other party pays, we sell everything, including the Rubik's Cube that can cheat. Because many parents here can't beat their children, it sells very well. Parents buy it and use it to maintain their dignity in parent-child games. We also sell bras that deceive men into growing chest muscles without exercise. In fact, we also sell them to women. Some small sizes are sold to women, and they are told that wearing them can make their breasts bigger... But to be honest, I think your software is the most difficult, because the viewers on TV are all low-income viewers, most of whom are housewives who want to buy something practical and cheap. I guarantee that 80% of the viewers don't have computers at home." Bob Costa said to Tommy:
"Of course I'm willing to do business with you, but I'm afraid you'll complain about unsatisfactory sales later, so I'm telling you first. I know software is very expensive, about the same price as buying a computer. Do you think those women will buy it?"
"The price is 49.99. We promise that after you buy it, you only need to study hard for eight days to master it. Then you can go to the newspaper and look at the high-paying advertisements for big companies recruiting clerks. Oh, and there is free training. We have cooperated with many university student organizations and held free training courses. Of course, there are also free training courses here in Florida, so you only need to buy the software. You don’t even need to buy a computer yourself. We provide computers for free training, and then there will be a job with a minimum weekly salary of two hundred waiting for you. There are travel agencies everywhere in Florida, and those travel agencies need clerks to help enter passenger information. Let them find out how much people who help travel agencies enter information earn per week. After buying our software, she will have a decent income like those people." Tommy took out a cigarette, lit one, and said to Bob.
Bob's eyes widened. "49.99? My company bought a second-hand computer for 300 dollars, and we also wanted to make some spreadsheets to make ourselves look more upscale. But when they heard that we were a company, they directly quoted us 1295, which is enough for us to buy four computers. I mean, if it's really 49.99? Unlimited? It's not a scam? And there's really free training?"
"Of course." Tommy nodded affirmatively: "We won't lie to anyone. We are college students. We just want to do some charity activities to help women and earn a small profit to cover our expenses."
"If the price is this, I think I can give it a try. Many women here can only do odd part-time jobs and stay at home most of the time. Otherwise, they wouldn't watch this kind of commercials every day to kill time." Bob was somewhat tempted. His biggest concern before was that the price of software was too high. A group of housewives would not spend hundreds of dollars to buy a piece of software. But now it only costs less than fifty dollars to buy the software. The most important thing is that you can get a stable and high-paying job, which should be tempting for many people.
Tommy looked at Bob and asked in confusion, "Just a try?"
"That's right, since I've never sold this thing, I can only try..." Bob explained to Tommy.
Tommy suddenly changed the subject: "How many of those bras that claim to automatically grow chest muscles have you sold?"
"More than 90,000 pieces, but it's very cheap, only 9.9. Even if you don't grow pectoral muscles, the audience can accept it if you just wear it as a normal vest." Bob thought for a moment and said to Tommy.
“How much money can you make if I put it on for four weeks?”
"If you buy the best time slots, it will cost about 20,000 yuan a month. I only own 10% of the company, so it will cost about 2,000 yuan?"
“We can find another way to cooperate.”
"What method?"
"I will pay the advertising fee, but I plan to pay it after the broadcast. I can sign a sales agreement with you privately. As for how you explain it to your company partners, that's your business. The content of the agreement is that I will pay you $14.99 for every set of software you sell."
“…” Bob widened his eyes and looked at Tommy.
Not only him, but even Sophia next to him was petrified instantly!
She had seen how stingy Tommy Hawke was. He said he would pay her eighty dollars a week as a part-time worker, but she had never seen any of it. Yet, he was offering so many benefits to this TV salesman named Bob?
This guy must be gay! When facing a beauty like me, he would just exploit her again and again, but when facing a man, he would raise the price?
Tommy looked Bob in the eye. "I don't need you to sell 90,000 units, but if you can help me sell 10,000 units in Florida, which has a permanent population of 9.7 million, you can get 149,900 dollars."
"If I sell one set , I can get fifteen dollars? Fifteen dollars?" Bob took a few deep breaths and asked Tommy uncertainly.
Tommy said in a positive tone, "That's right, so I hope you can carefully design your advertising slogan. In addition to tricking them into paying money, you should also add that the original intention of Actor was to help the poor change their fate, promote women's employment, etc., to win the favor of women and the poor. In order to do the right thing, Actor is under tremendous pressure because some software vendors don't want to see the poor acquire knowledge like them. Sophia will give you the specific information after signing the contract."
"I don't need to look at those materials to believe in Actor's original intention." Bob calmed down his excitement and spoke.
Tommy asked with a smile. "Why?"
Bob also laughed: "Because first of all you are willing to give me a high price to help a poor person like me change my fate. This is the closest I have ever been to earning 100,000 yuan since I was born."
"Then seize this opportunity."
