This Week's Column: How To Perc Up Sales

How to Perc Up Sales

Before you reach for your next cup of coffee, you might want to read this.

Researchers have found that a moderate dose of caffeine - found these days in coffee, tea, cola and energy drinks - can increase your willingness to be persuaded. That is, provided you aren't distracted too much, you can be convinced of something more easily after a jolt of java.

The study has some very interesting implications. For example, it explains why junk email still flows into our inboxes every day. SOME of you must be drinking coffee when you read your email in the morning, whereupon you are convinced that mail order liver transplant kits are a good idea. You buy twenty, which only encourages the emailer to send out more messages.

The research also means that sales pitches are going to become more interesting. Sales people familiar with the study will ply their prospects with caffienated beverages; people who wish to retain some skepticism will have to find ways to avoid such drinks. I can see many a potted plant in meeting rooms across the nation coming down with a bad case of the jitters.

Superbowl ads will no longer be hot properties. Instead, advertisers will pay top dollar to get their message on to your coffee cup - after all, what better time would there be to present an ad? I can also foresee major advances in coffee cup technology as a result of this. Forget boring old paper or styrofoam cups; within a decade, we'll have interactive, multimedia mugs that can download commercial content from the Internet via a wireless connection tucked away in the cup handle. (You laugh - ten years ago, did you think your telephone would play World Cup video highlights?)

I also predict that wives will start bringing fresh, hot coffee to their husbands without being asked. The husbands, ever clueless about such things, won't make the connection between the appearance of a cup of joe and the following discussion. They will simply be convinced that the living room does, in fact, need repainting and that the lawn needs mowing, and further that a dishwasher would be a really good buy.

Loan applicants will start bringing strong coffee to meetings with their bank manager. Students will forego an apple in favour of bringing a caffeinated energy drink to their teacher - especially if they're just about to hand in an expository essay.

In-car coffee machines might make a comeback. Busted for speeding? Offer the nice constable a well-deserved hot drink as you explain how you didn't realize you were going too fast. Failing that, bring a really good cup of espresso to the judge just before your lawyer presents your defense statement.

I think I'd also like to see this research expanded. Will machines and electronics work better if plied with caffeine? I know I'd try anything to get my printer to work properly the first time, even if it meant plugging a USB cable into my coffee pot.

I can also see coffee-laced appeals for donations becoming a trend. Indeed, let's try it now:

1. Go get a big mug of your favourite brew.

2. Come back, sit down, and enjoy it.

3. You think it's a really good idea to send me half a week's pay.

No, huh?

Well, I bet I've convinced you of at least one thing with this week's column.

And that's that you really, really, really want a cup of coffee, right now.

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MAILBAG: This week's question: How many cups of coffee do you drink in a day?

Last week's question: Given the opportunity, would you be an urban farmer?

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Chandra,

Hello, Great work! I always thought that it would be great if I could come up with a Pet The Beef attraction a la Pet the Dolphins. Many farmers out this way are inviting tourists to spend some time Dude Farming and vista viewing. Just wish I could find a hook! You might also look into milking co-ops they have become the new way to obtain raw milk.

Bert

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Chandra,

Would I be an urban farmer? Nope. I'm already a rancher...the real kind who raises cows/calves, and does all the work associated with that---including shoveling the -er- schtuff out of the calving barn! Don't think buying a beef would work for the urban people though; it costs too much to get one butchered, then send the frozen meat out. And most ranchers just aren't set up to do that! Although we do sell calves or bulls over the 'net sometimes. The price we get is about the same as it is at the auction yards. (Much too low for the high expenses!) Anyway, in today's world, anything the farmer or rancher can do to stay in business is OK with us! It's becoming ever more difficult to keep family farms and ranches up and going and paying their way. So whatever benefits the farmer/rancher, really benefits everyone. Everyone has to eat!

Jan
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Chandra,

Just to comment on "urban" farming as you presented it, what would you do with a bale of cotton when it is delivered to your door? That would make for some real hard core dinner conversation.

Charlie
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Chandra,

I am 45 and sold my House in CT last year and moved to a little known place call Offerman, Georgia. It is two acres and on a dirt road next to a farmer's 35 acre field. I have built a hen house and now have eight hens, two roosters, eight young chicks hatched out three weeks ago and now ten one week old Turkeys. I gather 5-6 eggs a day and sell some to buy more feed for my growing flock.

My garden is producing tomatos, broccoli, bok choy, summer and zucchini squash. The onions are drying, the red potatoes are being dug daily. Sweet peas great off of the vine. The peanuts go into the garden this week and I made egg plant parmesan last night with fresh globe and ichibon picked right from the organic garden of mine. The chickens provide the (organic) fertilizer

The hog pen will be finished by the end of June and the grape vines show they will provide fruit for at least eight gallons of wine this year. The blue berry bushes will give me plenty of fruit for the jams I make.

My pond will be dug this fall and then stocked with catfish for those days I don't want to go to the river to catch supper. The smoke house is well on it's way to being completed so I can make my own Bacon and sausage and salami.

I have both a deep well and a shallow one with a hand pump for the times te power might go out.

BTW I am a man (house husband) and love staying at home while the girlfriend drudges off every day to fight the boredom of a schedule at work.

Retire early? YOU BET!!!!!

Paul
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Chandra,

No. No. No. In the 70's we had a self-sufficiency farm, and I worked like I have never worker before, for very little return. The organic vegetables and homemade bread and home-reared chickens, ducks, etc, were probably delicious - my sisters still tell me that I made duck egg brioche that was beyond heavenly. I was too damned tired to know. I like it better when we share the load, one man milks, the other collects the eggs. We all do too much, have to know too much, our heads will all burst one day, I swear. Then we will have to all learn another skill, head re-engineering. Bah, humbug.

Lyn
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AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS KIDDING:

http://tinyurl.com/rfgdn
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