Starting to get nervous

[Mike1286]

For those who haven't seen or don't remember some of my recent posts, I've been scrapping for years and have just within the last 6 months formed an actual business to make it easier to advertise and also get the tax benefits of owning a business. So far, I've gotten a few calls outside the couple regular pickups I've had for a while or from family and friends. But I did manage to land the opportunity to run a collection event for my mother in law's work. They do an electronics recycling event for earth day every year. She told her boss about me and she was happy to let me run the event. I'm super excited. Now with the event 2 weeks from friday, that excitement is slowly transforming to nervousness. Lol. I'm fairly prepared but having never held one before, the nerves are starting to shake a bit. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it went here, but in the mean time, wish me luck.

[frankieg079]

Good luck. That's a good score.

[eesakiwi]

Get a good nights sleep before hand and think up answers to questions you may get asked.

Generally, you get up and get things sorted and attend to things and then its like a long jog, you never stop moving, but you make progress every minute and don't really have to look behind you.
Try out different 'patter' (talk/ spiel) and see what works, don't joke too much, and be educational without 'pushing' or giving out too much info.

Most people will be happy to find out a little bit so they can chat to friends about it in simple light helpfull interesting conversation.

Don't dwell on negative aspects such as pollution, but the positives like education and how recycling helps many people in different stages in life and their family's too.
By lunchtime you will have done a lot of work and achieved much, by the afternoon you will have your patter sorted to the word, by the second, with as much in there as possible while keeping their interest.

I volunteered at the gates of a festival once, 'greeting'.. I have never interacted with the general public in life before, ever, mostly doing manufacturing and fixing things in engineering.

By the end of the day I had my spiel right, with everything possible in one question/greeting.
They would look at me, crack up laughing and hand over tickets, pop truck latch, answer and ask the right questions and say
"You have been doing this all day haven't you?".

[nutpie]

Just have a truck big enough to haul everything off at the end of the day. Let the world unfold before you.

[TheDude80]

Remember take pictures, or it never happened . Good to see you're moving on up Mike. Congrats and be sure to let us know how it went.

[Mike1286]

I'm renting a 26 ft truck. My fear (and partially hope) is that 4 times that worth of stuff shows up. Lol. I'm getting paid a flat rate from the host so I'm not worried about nobody showing up. I'll make a decent buck even after expenses. It's not being advertised publicly so that calms my nerves a little. The host is a real estate office and they're sending flyers to employees, friends, family, and clients. So a decent audience, but again, not wide open public. I will definitely be taking lots of pictures so that I can use them to advertise event holding in the future.

[hobo finds]

Give out your card and info to anyone who drops off items. And on that Monday after the collection make sure to drop off donuts or bagels to the office that you are doing this service for! Good luck I hope you fill up the truck several times!!!!

[Mike1286]

My plan is to set up one of the easy up canopies from my camping gear and have a table with both my cards and cards from the real estate office for people to take. Also where I'll set up my card reader for any tv drop off fees. I'm going to have a couple coolers with bottles of water, which, if it works out, I have a distant family member that owns a bottled water company. He's looking into making me some with my business card design on the wrapper. The host is asking for small donations from people who drop off that will be going to lurie children's hospital. They asked me if I'd be willing to follow up after the event with a report of how much was recycled. I haven't told them this to keep it a surprise, but I'm figuring on making a small donation from my company based on how much I make off the scrap when I give them the final numbers.

[hobo finds]

Also as its a Earth day event I would get a bunch of seed packs flower or veg and attach my card to them.

[DakotaRog]

Hobo thinks of everything...!

[Scrappah]

It's bound to make you nervous where it's a new thing. It will get easier after the first time.

Easy to say but hard to do: Don't overthink it. Trust yourself. Just go with the flow and roll with it. It's only difficult if you make it difficult.

In it's simplest form it's just a trash pick up event ..... right ?

[Mike1286]

Figured I'd throw out an update since tomorrow is the big day. About a week ago I advertised my services publicly on a recently new to me app "nextdoor" which I talked about in another thread. Well, it's been more than successful giving me 2 to 5 pickups every day since the posting. So what was once my parents empty garage that they are graciously letting me use as staging for the event til I can process everything or rent a storage unit if it takes too long, is now a half a garage. Lol. I ended up taking a half day off from my full time today so I could make a run to the yard with anything that was ready to make more room. I'm currently gathering up everything I need for tomorrow so I can stage it at the front of the garage. Tomorrow mornings plan is pickup the rental truck, head back here to load the supplies, head out and set up. I've already been taking lots of pictures even though the event hasn't happened yet. So if I don't have a chance to post as I go, I will definitely put them all up when all is said and done. That way TheDude80 knows it happened.

[Mike1286]

I've officially gone from nervous to freaking out. Possibly even in over my head. I just found out that roughly 12000 people know about this event. When I talked to the lady in charge and she said, "we're only telling out clients about the event", I thought no problem I got this. As it's my first event, I never even thought to ask how many clients they have. Well I just (as in the last half hour) found out each employee, 60 of them, told their average each of 200 clients about the event. So unless my calculator is broken, 12000 people could potentially give me some stuff in the next 2 days. Wish me luck.....

[greytruck]

Are you accepting crt's? That would be a problem if you get hundreds of them.

[matador]

Have two phone numbers ready: Uhaul, and a storage facility. As long as you don't get a CRT problem, you'll do great!

[Mechanic688]

So unless my calculator is broken, 12000 people could potentially give me some stuff in the next 2 days. Wish me luck.....

I believe it can only lead to bigger and better things, as in your client talking to other companies about how you handled the event. (if it goes well)

[Mike1286]

I'm trying to stay positive. When i pick up the rental truck tomorrow, i will definitely be asking where the nearest pickup location is should i need another truck. I've already looked into storage. There's multiple units near me in the 10x20-10x30 range. And even if fees get added on, "one dollar moves you in". lol. I have a few friends on standby that are willing to work for beer. So, I should (hopefully) be ok one way or another. I am accepting crt's but I'm charging for them. We'll see how it goes and i will definitely keep you guys updated. Thanks for the good wishes and support.

[CTSSolutions]

Very cool man. I hope you have 12,000 business cards on hand!

Best of luck to you. Keep your wits about you and your phone charged.

If you start to get overwhelmed, make sure to give the camera to someone else. We want pics come hell or high water!

[CTSSolutions]

I believe it can only lead to bigger and better things, as in your client talking to other companies about how you handled the event. (if it goes well)

I second this. Assuming people aren't stuck in line for an hour trying to give you their computer, you're phone is about to blow up with business.

I'm kinda serious about the business card thing. Maybe not 12,000, and maybe not business cards because the event is tomorrow, but even a half sheet of paper with your company name, drop off location, number and what you collect sitting on a table by the truck. Make sure people go home with your name in your hand. There are 24 hour copy shops all over man, I'd have a few thousand flyers to hand out. This is a great networking opportunity for you to pick up organic growth of your company.

Good luck man. Take a deep breath and take it all in (I guess I have puns today).

[Mike1286]

Well, so far today hasn't been super eventful. But that makes me wonder if tomorrow will be the same, or if I'm gonna get slammed since not too many people showed up today. I'm sure a lot of it is that it's Friday and people are working. Still got a decent amount of stuff for how few showed up. Luckily only 2 or 3 tvs so far. I have a nice high percentage of the good stuff. Have about 5 laptops. 8 or 10 desktops. And lots of other decent yielding scrap stuff. Got a lot of good pictures of my setup. And slow or not, I'm still having a good time. It at least gives me time to break stuff down in the back of the truck so I have less to work on later. Lol. Well see what tomorrow brings.