CEO Intern Cast Diary

After a long, particularly stressful day of work, we did what all CEOs do: enjoy a round of golf at a prestigious country club.

Now, by prestigious country club I mean the aerated corn field across the gravel path from the cabin. Oh by the way, we had an extreme thunder storm rampage through Decatur just a few hours prior to our excursion. You can only imagine the mud.

Young and stupid, Charlie and I hopped in the golf cart with the Cryo treated golf club and a few balls and headed for the first tee box. Standing in deep brown mud, Charlie and I fired our first shots into a distant corn bushel, the first green. Naturally, we chased down each shot in the golf cart until we finally holed out. Warmed up, we headed for the signature hole. Following the muddy slope down to a small pond (really just a huge mud puddle), we parked the cart and teed up. After launching our drives to an imaginary green, we hopped back in the cart. Funny story… Golf carts and mud don’t mix well. Before we knew it, the rear two wheels were completely submerged by the viscous mud. In grizzly effort, Charlie shoved the cart from the rear as I pulsed the gas: one foot sliding in the mud, the other on the pedal. After a seemingly endleess twenty minutes of panting, cursing, and flying mud, the cart emerged victoriously from the black diamond slope.

Returning back to the cabin, we find Gabe stumbling around as usual. Covered in mud, all we do is stare blankly at Gabe.

“Aw, you guys went off-roading without me,” exclaimed Gabe, shoving Charlie out of the passenger seat and signaling for me to go back.

I figured, “Well, I won’t make that mistake again.”

Long story short, Gabe and I, end up in the same ditch with mud up to our knees.

“Charlie, bring the Tahoe,” Gabe whimpered. “We got the cart stuck again.”

In another purely savage (for lack of a better word) attempt, Charlie and Gabe pushed the cart through the mud as I steered into the pitch black night. Within minutes, the cart sprawled up the hill. Like heroes returning from war, Charlie, Gabe and I, returned back to the cabin, and swore never again.

Truly a lesson well learned. I hope…

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              I honestly can’t believe its July already. Just as we wet our feet in the world of cryogenics and small business management, the end is starting to push forward. With so many challenges, meetings, tasks and goals to complete we needed to organize them. In a simple but innovative approach, Charlie suggested we consolidate all of our personal calendars onto one huge calendar. Now populated by corporate tours, lunch meetings, dinner appointments, sales challenges, and a big red X signifying our last day, we finally have everything in front of us. Like any successful CEO, we must prioritize this mass into time guided goals.

In my mind, we have two major assignments. The first is to initiate and complete five sales challenges in St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Chicago. The second is to generate a report which proposes an action plan to generate 300 Below’s revenue within a reasonable time frame. Individually, each of these could take months to successfully complete. From this point, we have three weeks. Just a little bit of pressure…

As these next weeks progress, each day has never become so valuable. In order to complete our sales challenges, we must engage potential clients on the phone to set up a formal presentation in their office. In order to do so, we must research each company, their industry and craft specific, targeted sales pitches. Not to mention, in our free time (do we have free time?) we must analyze, design, and blueprint the various factors in further improving 300 below.

I think a nice vacation wouldn’t be a bad idea after all of this. ☻

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           Before coming out to the Cabin and starting CEO Intern, I never really gave much thought to the lifestyle out in the Midwest. Even though Prescott and his parents constantly mentioned that life and the people out here were much simpler than the East coast, the thought process never initiated. Flying into and wandering around in down town Chicago, I couldn’t feel too much of a difference from New York City. Well, Chicago was a bit cleaner and the people were nicer. Nothing too substantial…

            After entering Decatur, and being immersed into a culture of Wal-Mart, tractor pulling, outdoor music festivals, Steak n’ Shakes, horseshoes, and the Chevy Silverado, I knew this would be different. A welcome difference nonetheless.

            It is difficult to track the progressive change in my outlook and appreciation for life out here. But I must say, after more than two week acclimating to this environment, I actually kind of enjoy it. The simple things such as lighting fireworks, skeet shooting, or talking to the people in town have really come to materialize with all of us. It seems to be easier to understand and appreciate the people and the lifestyle of the Midwest without any of the congestion and clutter of suburban life. So far this trip has been quite humbling and will surely create some lifelong memories.

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           One of the biggest lessons we’re beginning to understand and incorporate into our lives is the necessity of balance in order to plan and succeed. After a long day at the office on Monday, some members of the team unwound by performing an extended concert on Rock Band late into the night. As always, the morning comes quick, and work always starts quicker. As I look around our marble conference table, rather our combined executive desk, I see worn faces and even a “power-napping” comrade. A long night of “rockin” doesn’t mix well with a long day’s work.

            When I was young, I would always ask my Dad how he could leave his head office in Kenya for weeks at a time to visit us. “But don’t you have to work like all the other Dads,” I questioned sitting on his shoulders. “As you grow older son,” he replied, now holding me in front of him. “You’ll understand what separates the successful businessmen from the rest.”

As the years passed, and I delved deeper into my emerging business career, my father’s advice materialized. However, managing my time only proved crucial when I became overburdened by assignments…

Not anymore. From the moment we awake at 6:30 am until the late hours at night, every hour of day must be carefully organized and managed. As a CEO, absolutely anything can arise with or without a moment’s notice. In order to be successful, you must accept or learn to accept, this work style and lifestyle. At first every section of our day became overrun by clutter, responsibility, and disorganization. Although our days remain very similar, we have become or are beginning to acclimate and almost welcome this flexible environment.

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            Ok, so how do you design a plan to double the revenue of a company that has been successfully turning over profit for the past fifteen years? By the way, you more than ten years of financials to analyze as well the current resources, personnel, and infrastructure. Oh yeah, and you have two days to complete this… Good luck!

            This is a basic synopsis of the financial framework and company development assignment Pete gave us just last week. By giving us unprecedented access to more than fifteen years of financial history, every story, and each secret of 300 Below, Pete expected us to devise a revolutionary plan to double and maybe even triple the revenue of the company in hopes of reaching the ten million dollar benchmark. Now being the eager college students we are, we of course became very excited at this opportunity, but naturally procrastinated until two days before the deadline (Friday morning, 8 a.m.).

            With just a basic understanding of QuickBooks Pro, we finally delved into the company’s financial history today. As we “wandered,” so to speak, around the P&L statements and balance sheets, we started to sense a redundancy and ineffectiveness in what we were doing. In other words, we were just going around in circles without any plan. To heighten our tensions, Pete appeared on the conference line to check up on our progress and add an additional eight sub-analysis to be covered by our plan. Instantly, minor disagreements reached the level of full out argument as we scurried to find a solution. However as I always say, “all conflict leads to eventual resolution and innovation.” Eventually, we designed a query based system to organize all our past client’s accounts by amount, year, and name. In turn, we could analyze our biggest streams of revenue and compare it to our resources, personnel, and overheads. Furthermore, this would allow us to analyze the expandability of 300 Below, and deduce a plan to better marshal our current resources and lay the groundwork for future expansion.

            All in all, this was an excellent exercise to draw the group through conflict, even more conflict, slight demise, but eventual cohesion, and decision. Critical financial analysis and vision are truly essential to the success and welfare of any firm. It was an honor to have 300 Below bestow this responsibility upon us!

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Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delay in blogging. These last couple days have been fully packed with excitement! So much so, that I even needed Monday to recover. Where to begin…

Let’s start with golf. Last week we found out that the Futures Tour, the prequalifying tour for the LPGA, was in town for a tournament and looking for a few caddies. Sensing a good time, Charlie and I signed up. Being an avid golfer and having caddied in the past, I really looked forward to watching these girls tear apart the course. I had the pleasure of caddying for Alejandra Shaw, a Scottish girl from Chile. Although this was her first year on the tour, she played with the confidence and grace of a seasoned veteran. With wicked winds and hardpan greens, the course played brutally. After two solid days of competition, effort, and vigor, Alé didn’t make the cut. While some might look at this like a broken sense of accomplishment, I enjoyed working with her discussing every shot, reading each putt, and just making a great new friend. What an incredible experience!

Since we didn’t make the cut, that left Saturday and Sunday open for some fun. Hauling the boat over to Lake Clinton, a horseshoe shaped lake used to cool a nuclear power plant, we began a fun and relaxing afternoon chilling and jet skiing. It was hilarious to watch everyone try to bounce up on the skis and hang on as Pete, -300 Below’s previous CEO, carved boat against the oncoming wakes. After consuming the local burger legend, the Horseshoe – a whopping burger loaded with waffle fries and cheese resting upon two golden pieces of toast. By either an act of God or raw hunger, I managed to finish this daunting challenge. Returning back to the boat, I immediately entered a food coma and proceeded to enjoy one of the best naps I have ever had as the boat gently rocked back and forth. Really not a bad way to spend a Saturday…

To thank Pete for everything he had done for us so far, we decided to host a Father’s Day barbeque in his honor. In the kitchen, I started with a bowl and just started mixing anything and everything that looked good to make a few marinades for the burgers, and the peaches. After about half an hour of trial and error, I had an English barbeque baste for the burgers, and a pear and white wine marinade for the peaches ready to go. As the guests arrived, the grills fired up and a fine evening commenced.

I guess that’s just the life of a CEO… Not too bad, I guess. :)

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Wow, what a day! Up until today, I thought we could function without any conflict. But any successful group must face conflict, and well, today was our day. Just as we entered the office and said our greetings, we began our first daily meeting. Within moments, we drafted a quick agenda and began discussing various topics such as our WiFi situation, our Ebay sales challenge, the possibility of hiring a Cryogenic’s specialist and creating a code of conduct for appropriating our work time, basically the daily tasks every CEO encounters. We discussed several styles of leadership with accomplishing each of these tasks such as appointing a head person for each job or attempting to tackle everything as a group. In the best interest of time and efficiency, we determined to appoint individual leaders for each job.

As the meeting continued, we decisively resolved each problem and scheduled any remaining tasks. However, when we began discussing the company policy for conducting personal business on company time, an underlying tension surfaced. Instead of directly pointing fingers at one another, the team chose its words carefully, and determined that only in cases of extreme emergency could personal “business” be dealt with. To further assist with developing this policy, we met with 300 Below’s Dick Mayberry, the veteran sales manager, to share his past experiences with personal company policies. In turn, we learned that employees simply know better than to waste the company’s time. Simultaneously however, in the adjacent room, the CEO interns’ office, was one of the interns conducting personal business red handed.

Overall, it was quite an interesting, exhausting day as usual. Sides and tensions are beginning to form. How long will these develop before dangerously spilling over and pull the other interns into the cross fire?

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