I am a little behind on my blogging, I still need to post pics from my Saturday night rendezvous in Adam's Morgan and our sushi date night with Nick & Janice last night. But this story took priority.
The last name Zuckerberg has become become a household name. {Ever heard of a little thing called Facebook?}
I recently inherited Westchester County in NYC as a territory for work, so I've spent a lot of time prospecting and setting up calls with businesses in the area. I sent a bunch of leads to my market partner to so she could set some meetings for me this week. She called me today at 2:30 and said "There's a dentist who wants to talk right now if you can". Luckily, my other 2:30 appointment rescheduled, so I had a few minutes before my next call. Teeth whitening deal- here I come!
As with any call, I prepped by looking up his website and Facebook fan page. I noticed he was really tech saavy and had over 1400 "likes" on Facebook- that's a lot for a dentist! I got more excited about the appointment, my approvals team would definitely give me the green light to feature him, so I called him right away.
I didn't really pay attention to the name... I talk to dentists, plastic surgeons, and optometrists quite often. They're all Dr. Somthing, and a lot end in -berg, -stein, and -son.
The call started out the way I dread-
Me- "Hi {name}, this is Kate with LivingSocial. Thanks so much for speaking with me today. How familiar are you with our company?"
Business Owner- "Never heard of it"
Grrrrreat. So I started from scratch explaining our platform. I can't reveal every detail of the conversation for confidentiality reasons {trust me, I'm not that important, I just can't reveal our stellar sales methods}, but I'll tell you that it was not a slam dunk call, he gave me a ton of objections, and he kept me on my toes the entire time.
He was well versed in Social Media {imagine that} and actually travels to speak to dentists about the importance of utilizing Facebook and other online tools to grow their practice {should have set off a lightbulb in my head}. Additionally, he said that some of his 1400+ fans were because of his son {again, lightbulb}. A lot of business owners' kids organize their social media campaigns, so I ignored the comment and proceeded as usual. There were 1 or 2 other "son" references... and after about 15 minutes the pieces started coming together. Zuckerberg- Facebook- Son- Wealthy New York Neighborhood- Holy- Crap. Am I talking to Mark Zuckerberg's dad?
Nah, can't be.
We continued the call, and talked him through teeth whitening features and some of the benefits for getting new patients. The more we talked, the more I started to think it could be the father of the world's most important social networking site. I really wanted to google him, but knew if I found out it was his dad while I was talking to him, I would be totally nervous and probably get really awkward, so I didn't. The call ended up going really well, and I am scheduled to follow up with him tomorrow.
I hung up and turned to the guy behind me and said "Ummmm.... so...... I think I might have just talked to Mark Zuckerburg's dad". And sure enough, we searched his name in Google, and here's the first thing that pops up-
Immediately I panicked and tried to think through everything I said. Did I sound like an idiot? Is it bad that I didn't know who he was? Was I really explaining social media to the father of the king of social networking??? Will I get in trouble for blogging this {even though I'm going to anyways}?
The first part of the conversation I remembered is when we talked about LivingSocial vs. Groupon. Since he seemed social media savvy {gosh I'm an idiot}, I said "You remember MySpace, right? Well Groupon is the MySpace of the Daily Deal world. And LivingSocial is like Facebook- we came 2nd, but we learned from the 1st companies' hiccups and created a premiere and elite brand". I was sucking up and didn't even know it. How embarrassing.
But, I will say one thing- it's pretty awesome that his son is a gogillionaire and he's still down to earth. He's still working and spent 20 minutes on the phone with me when I clearly didn't know who he was. But maybe it was kind of refreshing for him? Who knows. He was a very nice, had a good sense of humor, and {shocker} knew a lot about the importance of social media in marketing plans.
So what will I take away from this experience? I'm not exactly sure. But I do know that I have a new "fun fact" to tell in group settings and at team building events ;)
It reminds me of a quote my Nana once told me about famous people- "Sweetie, they're just like we are... they put their pants on one leg at a time". Only his pants are probably tailored and silk lined, and mine were $12 at Forever XXI.
Awesome! You crack me up KJ.
ReplyDeleteKate - that is hilarious and awesome! I loved this story.
ReplyDelete