The first “marketing” experience I remember clearly started in 9th grade. Our High School baseball team did fundraisers every year to earn money for stadium lighting and field maintenance and the like. As a freshman who wanted to make a good impression on my coach, I sold “cereal coupons” to everyone I knew in our small town in Idaho. I even went to the neighboring cities and sold to people my family was associated with there. Not only did I love sales and interacting with people, but I realized pretty quickly that it was all about “Who I Knew” that helped me win the grand prize of new baseball spikes.
Every year after that it wasn’t about IF I was going to win, it was about how much more I could sell – from oranges to “dollars per feet the ball was hit”.