$ Free Money $

• Where will you go? I went to two places: the lobby of my dorm and Turlington Plaza. I went to these two places because I wanted to reach two different demographics. There are mainly freshman in the dorm and there are all ages of people at Turlington so I wanted to see if freshman vs. other grades would accept the dollar more eagerly.
• What kind of people will you approach? I approached people that were on the phone or people that looked like they were in a hurry to get to/from Marston Library.
• What will you say to get the conversation started? I asked how they were doing and told them my plan for the dollar bill to get the conversation started.
• What is your plan for the conversation? For conversation, I told the five people I gave dollar bills to that I was doing a daily acts of kindness movement. It is not random, but rather systematic acts of kindness that happen on a daily basis.
• Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away? Out of the five attempts I thought that I would get all five to take the dollar; however, to my surprise I was wrong. I only had three people out of five actually take the dollar bill. The two that did not take the dollar bill said they "did not feel right taking my money" and to "donate it or give it to someone in need."

Reflection

• When I first read the directions for this exercise I thought it was absurd! I did not want to give away my own money to random people. After doing the actual exercise, I can say that it was fun and felt good to give to others and see the smile on someone's face. Giving away a dollar seemed really hard in the first place because the idea of giving away money is not something I like, but after following through with the exercise it was not as bad as I thought. I am glad that not all five people took the dollar, though! I planned to talk to people that were either on the phone or people that looked rushed or busy because I wanted to see if they would actually stop for me. I did stop a person who was on his way to work and was also on the phone and he surprisingly took the dollar bill with only a couple questions. It felt nice knowing that I could make his day better. Overall, this exercise might scare some folks because not many people enjoy giving away their own hard-earned money but for the sake of learning I think giving away less than $5 is a bargain. 

Giving Away Free $$$

Week 7 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

The biggest surprise to me in the reading was how important branding and how to position the brand. It is true that people will pay a higher premium for a brand they can trust and a brand they are loyal to. 

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. 

One part of the reading that was confusing was the part about which attitudes matter to the buying decision. I was confused about the concept of immutable personality traits that rarely bears much fruit.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? 

The first question that I would ask the author would be: why do you think that tastes and preferences outweigh the traditional demographic knowledge of a given population if tastes and preferences are always changing? My second follow-up question would be: Wouldn’t it be hard to gauge customer tastes and preferences and very expensive?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? 

There was one thing that stood out to me that seemed somewhat incorrect. Traditional demographic traits such as age, sex, education levels, and income seem to be a good basis for marketing strategy, which Daniel Yankelovich claims they are not. He rather says that values, tastes, and preferences override the traditional demographic traits.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

2) Reflection on the feedback from Elevator Pitch No. 1: The feedback that I got was in my opinion positive, although one person said that my product is similar to the idea in "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" but I never saw that movie so I am not sure of that similarity. I think that people liked the Shark Tank approach and thought that if this product could be produced at a reasonable price point then customers would definitely be willing to buy it.

3) What did you change based on the feedback? As you can see in the video, I am very sick while recording this and did not have the same passion as in my first video. I was also going to be more enthusiastic in the second elevator pitch, but since I have had the flue for the past 10 days it was tough to muster the enthusiasm.