First the story, then the lesson--
Silent auction time outside the Garth Brooks Teammates For Kids fundraising dinner at the NHL All-Star Game in Dallas. I have a bid in on the game-worn All-Star jersey of goalie Marty Turco, one of my son Hayes' idols. The bid is relatively low, so I don't mind when a guy named Hersh Borenstein takes it a bit higher.
So I up him a bit.
And he ups me a bit.
And so on...until I'm near my threshold. I figure maybe I better look elsewhere, and check out some of the other signed jerseys.
Well Hersh has the leading bid on EVERY one.
Now, I can do two things:
- Walk away and chalk it up to experience
- Blow my budget and my brains out in a war against Hersh
So I do neither. I go back to the Turco sweater, and in a firm-but-tongue-in-cheekiness manner, write this next to my final bid:
"For Crissakes, Hersh!
Give a Lanzman a break here and let me take home a sweater for my goalie kid!"
The end result? Hersh backed off, Hayes' eyes popped out, and money was raised for Garth's foundation.
And the moral of this story is that to get what you want, sometimes, all ya gotta do is ask . Don't let the fear of asking get in the way of setting off your next big Pow!...in marketing, or for your kid.
Life is full of Surprises, but often, they need to be prompted.
(And by the way, thanks Hersh. You're a mensch.)
