Portland Sales Event

I was in Portland for Jerry's Radical Relating workshop. Our homework on Saturday night was to get a stranger to invite you into their home for dinner. Now, I've heard of this exercise and always thought...shit...I hope I'm never asked to do that.

Soooooo. I asked Peggy, who went through the Illusion Conclusion Course with me, to do it together. She's an 8 and can out 8 me.

We went into a neighborhood in Portland with homes, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Seemed like a very "chic" area. But what the heck, let's do it.

Peggy had to meet her daughter before we started, so she dropped me off by a coffee shop to see what I could drum up. Having done all the sales for the past few years, I hit the ground running. Talked to about 12 people in the space of 15 minutes. Can you believe the number of people who don't cook at home anymore? Sheesh, usually young, probably not married. Most were open to talking to me (and I didn't even have time to create a spiel).

After I talked to 90% of the folks in the coffee shop, I was sitting outside when Peggy came back and I reported my results. We started walking down the street and saw a small health food grocery co-op. We figured people would be buying food for dinner. We talked to another 6 - 8 folks and struck out again.

I thought, maybe we need to be in a neighborhood where people are cooking dinner. It was getting on to 6:30 and we had the story that our window of opportunity was closing. We saw a guy in laundrymatt. He said he was in the middle of moving but that people were friendly around here, so keep it up.

We walked down the street and tried a house with a light on. Two teenage boys came up on their skateboards and said they lived their. We told them what was up and they wanted to know if their mother knew. I asked if their mother was home...oops, wrong question. Hey kid, wanta buy some dope?

So we started walking and were contemplating giving up. Then I walked by a driveway and there was a young guy lighting a barbecue. Bingo, someone who was cooking. I walked up to him and told him what was up. Said we'd go buy a bottle of wine and dessert. He said, he and his girlfriend were going to have a simple dinner but if we want, sure come on back.

Yippee.... So walking about a foot off the ground we went back to a bakery picked up dessert and a bottle of wine. Came back and meet Nick and Amy.

Turns out Nick is a chef in between jobs and was going to start working at a high end restaurant opening in Portland. Amy is a second year law student and wants to go into estate planning. Peggy is a new financial planner so they could set up some networking possibilities.

Nick will be a new Sous Chef and finally have people under him. His dream is to open his own restaurant.

He made a roast pork tenderloin with mustard rub, roasted new potatoes on a chopped leek and shallot simmered sauce. Great presentation!!

After we left, we both felt very much alive. What an evening.