No Day at The Beach

After numerous emails and snail mail invitations to potential customers in the company's backyard- San Francisco – the company managed to beg, borrow and plead for 16 participants. Thanks to Don Cane there were contests and prizes at every hole and on the morning of the tournament it appeared that the response from the auto dealers in the Bay Area was better than expected. The Livermore Valley course proved to be a challenge for the golfers and the representatives of the company.

Of course, general electrified didn't show up to golf and only made an appearance at about 3:00 p.m. Naturally, his first question was whether we had sold anything as he thought it would be normal for a group of golfers to sign up for smoke and mirror products between swings.

Needless to say the golf tournaments – only eight of them- turned out to be a disaster. And since the company had no sales tracking to speak of, general electrified said they didn't bring in any revenue and The Co-Founder continues to profess they were the best promotion the company ever had. Both may be right. And of course, nobody ever went to Pebble Beach- a sham of sorts- but that's the foundation of this fictional company.

And the company, Fire M, an acronym for Fictional Results Marketing, is based on smoke and mirror products.

To Fire M's advantage, there is a serious disconnect between many automotive dealers and the Internet. For two guys who knew absolutely nothing about the automotive industry except that they wanted to eventually buy luxury cars, (general electric can barely drive, there is a victim in India who will second that statement, if he were able), it is remarkable they have grown Fire M to the proportion they have. This isn't because of the products the company offers or the sales tools they offer their sales team. The Fire M success story is based on the fact that auto dealers were at first hesitant of the Internet and then they were enamored by it once they felt they were falling behind the competition.

Hence a handful of companies, Fire M included, began to gain ground in the automotive community. And while the dealers fell for the products, sales pitches, contracts that were being sold, the manufacturers turned their backs on many of the companies that were throwing their hats into the ring.

So when general electrified refers to potential clients as "suckers" he isn't far off the mark.

Tomorrow: How Fire M mapped out their territories.