A few days ago was my first day at the AI-GSU show. The experience was….different than I was expecting to say the least. The building was bigger and was less packed with people than I thought it would be. There was a machine making cotton candy for free, along with some people giving out coffee. Also, a lot of the tables were smaller than I thought they would be. “That tiny space costs so much?” I wondered. “What made renting out that table so worth it?” As I would later find out, the table is just the set up, it’s the people and the connections they make that matters.
As a youth ambassador, I was tasked with going out to collect interviews for the research project tapestry of emotions. What I had to do seemed relatively simple: Get someone to talk about one specific emotion and how it feels for him or her (Ex: A time you felt this, physical sensations associated with the emotion, what is the most common emotion for an age demographic, etc). However, there was one major hurdle to getting the interview: Actually getting a person to agree to do it. People will say no if given any reason too, and even I knew that simply going up and asking someone “Can you take this survey for a research project I’m doing for a nonprofit?” would almost guarantee a “No”. To help solve this, Caitlyn, the CEO and founder of curaJOY, gave me some advice: Talk to the person first, make him or her feel on top of the world, like you’re coming to him or her specifically for advice. Then segway into getting the interview. With that knowledge in mind, my group and I set off. But as it would turn out, I would need a lot more help than just that.
My first problem was actually going up to talk to people. As an introvert, I don’t like large crowds. Or going up to someone and starting a conversation. But that was what I was assigned to do, so I somehow managed to go and start talking to people. There I ran into my second problem: How to steer the conversation towards the tapestry of emotions research project. I was told to let the people talk about themselves first so that is what I did. The problem was, I was taking a too roundabout method, trying to wait for an opportunity to ask “Would you be willing to answer a question for my research project, tapestry of emotions?” I wasn’t actively trying to seize my moment, I was lying in wait. So no wonder that my using the roundabout method failed. Either the conversation dragged on too long or by the time I had the nerve to bring up curaJOY, the pivot seemed too unnatural.
Frustrated, and only after ten minutes at that, I walked back to curaJOY’s booth. I told the CEO that I was not cut out for this, that I couldn’t do this, and that she should just stick me in filing for curaJOY’s stuff, where I wouldn’t have to talk to people. It was then the CEO realized that I needed some more guidance. Leaving the booth in the hands of another curaJOY member, she showed me how it was done. She went up to a table and started talking to the people. I didn’t know how, but next thing I knew, she had gotten an interview. It was at this point I decided to pay extra close attention to figure out the process. Overtime, I began to notice a general pattern.
The method the CEO used was the same one she instructed me with, but somehow, when shadowing her, I understood it even more. Just having the information on how to do something isn’t always enough; sometimes, there has to be a live demonstration. That is why teachers do a demo before letting kids try something on their own. If it can work in the classroom, why can’t it work in a business environment?
Shadowing the CEO, watching her do a few demonstrations and then trying it out myself was the secret formula for success I had been looking for all along. Somehow, I managed to get an interview from almost everybody I tried talking to. The interviews were good as well! I set a record among the youth ambassadors, getting 9 interviews on my first day! My first day, the day where I told the CEO that I couldn’t do it, but I did! I did not break my record the next two days, but I still managed to bring in a large number of interviews, and the other youth ambassadors and I managed to meet our quota of 50 interviews. Words can’t express how amazed I am not just at my group’s progress, but also of my personal growth as well. The trade show gave me a taste of the business world, and now, I feel more prepared for it.
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