This week I had the pleasure of reading a really good book called "How to Win Friends And Influence People" written by Dale Carnegie. The book is all about how to handle people and win them to your way of thinking in a tactful and honorable way. Everyone should read this book at some point but expecially anyone going into business should have the skills and topics covered in this book mastered. The biggest thing that I took away from the book is that people really aren't interest in you. if you want to be a successful person you need to get your mind off yourself and make the happiness of others your top priority. Although there may be many things about you that are interesting, others would almost always prefer to have you ask about their lives. This is especially true in business relationships and salesmanship. If you want to win, make others feel important and needed.
As far as the 100 dollar challenge goes I have been kicking around a few ideas. The first one I played with was starting a small errand running business. The problem with that is that I really don't know the rexburg area yet so I wouldn't be very efficient and I would have a hard time finding my customers because I simply don't know where they are. The second is the idea of starting a hot chocolate club. This idea came to me as I was walking to class in the subzero temperatures of rexburg. I wanted so badly to have someone just hand me a cup of hot chocolate as I went to my next class. That is when it occured to me that I had seen someone with a backpack that could hold hot chocolate and dispensed it through a hose. I was thinking that you could sell people tickets that they could present to you and get unlimited hot chocolate on campus for an appointed period of time. I would be in the busiest areas of campus at appointed times that ticket holders would know and if they brought me the ticket they would get a quick cup of hot chocolate from me and my back pack. The big problem is that the backpacks cost several hundred dollars. I will either take the risk and buy the backpack or try and make my own back pack. I will have to report back on that in about a week or so.
