CEO Intern Cast Diary

We've got only a few days left here and soo much work to do.  We're almost finished with our plan to double the revenue of the company, which has been a long time coming.(We were supposed to have a one pager at the end of the first week)

The current plan is to finish this plan as soon as possible and talk it over with the chairman by Monday.  Then we're going to merge it with a plan that he has and Present something to the employees.  Hopefully they'll like the ideas and 

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Our producer deliberately kept us in the dark about how the phone system worked.  As a result, we had all kinds of funny solutions to get things done.  For instance, in lieu of hanging up a call on speakerphone properly, I figured out that hanging the receiver up five times in rapid succession would do the trick.  For the first two weeks this was the only way to ensure that we weren’t still on speaker with someone.

 

Today’s blog isn’t about this though.  Today, Charlie and I have it figured out.  We can park calls, we can call other offices, dial out of the system, we can make announcements!  Right now it’s just me, Charlie, and Prescott (our producer) in the office.  Charlie and I are calling each other, making announcements, and bugging Prescott over the phone.  I just wanted to share how proud I am that we’ve mastered the phone system and spread the word that internal phone systems are the BEST!

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Yesterday we started making calls to the companies that we want to deliver presentations to. You would not believe how easy it is to get shut down making cold calls. I just want to tell people that we save companies like theirs money every day. I don't want their social security number, I don't want their date of birth. I want to talk about deep cryogenic tempering, wear resistance, stress relief and stabilization, but some of the people that I called are genuinely skeptical that I am who I say I am and don't want to put me through to any of their engineers. I have some contacts in St Louis, but none at all in Indianapolis, and I know a guy from Chicago. This is going to be tough.

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Yesterday we started researching companies that we can try to sell to in the area. We're going to give sales presentations to 5 companies in each of three cities. We have to decide what companies to approach and research them and their need for cryogenic treatment. There are hundreds of companies in every major city that would benefit from cryogenic tempering the only question is how large of a company can we walk into, talk to the right person, and sell them on the benefit to the company? If a company makes $1,000,000/year in sales? Probably. $10,000,000/year in sales? We could, but is our time better spent with a $5,000,000/year company, or should we try our luck with a $100,000,000 company? I can't really say at this point. I've never been on a sales trip...

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I mentioned in a prior blog that I got to do a short intervies with Jay lefler and Kenny Wallace.  I thought that this was a once in a lifetime oportunity, but I may have been mistaken.  Our associate producer has been calling some race teams that will be in the area in coming weeks and getting some promising responses.  I'm really excited, because 300 Below has been working with the race teams for over 15 years.  I would love to get the chance to interview more drivers.  I would also love to interview thier engineers and pit crews to.

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Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the Midwest.  Being born on long island and having spent most of my life within 20 minutes of Boston, I grew up with the stereotype that there’s nothing to do here.  If you like shopping for expensive clothes and surfing, you're right, but if you like tractor pulls and dirt track, you'll fit right in.  Truth be told, I have a strong preference for races that occur on pavement, but I'd take dirt track over the mall any day.  There's just one thing that that puzzles me.  I can't understand why people who dirt tracks in every county and tractor pulls at every fair drive soo slow.  Everywhere we go, the road is full of drivers traveling at or below the speed limit on the straightest, best maintained roads that I've ever seen in my life.  The worst part is the tendency of most people here to assume the speed of those around them.  This leads to an inordinate number of slowpokes riding side by side, for miles.  They can't be bothered to speed up or slow down a fraction of a mile per hour to pass or allow you to do so or drive in the same lane as the car that they're pacing.  This makes me wonder just how they got there.  Did their similar speeds result in them winding up next to each other after hours of driving?  Did they start out together?  Or did one of them just take a liking to the speed of the other during the process of passing them?

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We've got most of our surpluss capitol on ebay now and its time to get down to buisness for real. We have untill thursday or Friday to make a plan to double the revenue of the company. There's no time to waste if we're to do a good job on it.

We watched the footage of me interviewing Jay Leffler and Kenny Wallace. It was clear that Kenny didn’t know that I’ve built part of a car that I later raced, but a majority of the people that he’s interviewed by are TV personalities and not engineers. Even more amazing than interviewing Kenny Wallace was meeting his father and seeing him with his entire family. I met his father! Do you know how many NASCAR babies that man has had? But seriously after that it was time to get to work, for real.

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This weekend was relaxing. We finally had some down time to do laundry, clean the cabin, and catch up on some much needed sleep. We got some waterskiing time in too. I was forced to learn slalom skiing when the team found out that I already knew how to water ski on two skis. At first I wasn’t thrilled, I wanted a relaxing spin around the lake on both my skis. The team’s persistence paid off. Not only did they get me to try to get up on a slalom ski, but they got me o do it, with the promise that I could get the other ski when I succeeded. For the first time since we’ve moved in the cabin isn’t covered in clothes, boxes and luggage, which is nice. It took about 10 hours of five people’s work to get I that way.

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                Today Nick, Charlie and I learned how to use a forklift.  We're no experts but we had a good time learning.  When we were done learning and gave up the forklift to a steadier hand, we started cleaning off all of the equipment that's been living in the back of the shop for up to 3 years.  With a little tinkering, I got the VW air compressor working again.  The kill switch failed, causing the engine to have no spark.  Right now it's just disconnected from the distributer, but we changed the engine from a ‘won't start, don't know why' to a spick and span machine that starts on the first pull every time.  We just need to track down the specs around the office and on the internet, before we sell them on Ebay for some capital.  I feel acomplished, considdering the fact that all of the manuals are in German.

I just discovered the scooters at the cabin and now obcessed with racing nick when we get home, but we've been getting home soo late day after day that I haven't had the chance to ride in the daylight.  But when we get the chance, he's going down on one of those little death machines.

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