Chapter 54

After classes for the day ended, I ran some errands. I needed to pick up an easel, pad and markers from the office supply store. I also went to pick up some seafood at the seafood market and to the Latin food store to get some flour tortillas. I then drove out to the produce stand just outside town for some herbs and mangos.

I came back and studied for my classes, did my reading and my homework. Shannon stopped by and I asked her to start cleaning in the living room since I was having company. She stripped and changed the bed so she could start the laundry but left the bedrooms and den for last. I told her that if she wanted to fuck or suck my dick, we should do it first since I might be busy later. She said she would be happy to look after me and walked into the den, dropped her panties and bent herself over the desk. I took a few licks from behind but I didn't want to get on the floor or break my neck, so I stood and fucked her from behind. When I finished, she turned and licked me clean before heading to the bathroom to clean up.

I asked her to stay for dinner and fixed the fish tacos that I'd recently brought home. She cleaned the guest room, den, living and dining room while I fixed dinner. We sat down and ate together and she had never had fish tacos before. She liked them and we were just finishing, when the first knock came. It was Erica. Shannon went back to finish the last of the bedrooms (mine). I invited Erica in and she sat at the counter while I cleaned up from dinner.

"It smells good. What did you fix?" she asked.

"I fixed grouper, fish tacos with a homemade mango salsa with cilantro and lime. My cleaning lady was here so she ate with me."

"I guess I should say I'm sorry for my earlier comments, this place is very clean and huge," she said.

"Those words are often used to describe me,"

She took a second and then blushed a bit. "Touché," she said. "Is it OK if I look around while you finish up?"

"Sure, can I get you something to drink?" I asked.

"Do you have a Tab?" she asked.

I just shook my head. "Of course. Do you want it in a glass with ice or cold in the can? I can also put some Jack Daniels in it if you want that," I said.

"In a glass with ice would be nice. We can save the Jack until later".

"You may need it later, since I tend to do my work alone. That way if it is wrong or bad, I only have one person to blame. The result is that I have strong opinions about what should be done to earn an A."

"I heard that." She said. "Did you take all these pictures?"

I saw that she was looking at the Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks shots and replied, "Yes, I've taken all the pictures on the walls. I started out learning landscapes and then moved on to other subjects. I rode out west over the summer and those were a couple of stops I made."

There was another knock at six. Joyce and Heather were at the door and I saw Eric riding up on his bicycle. I let them all in and went back to put the last plate in the dishwasher. I offered the rest of them drinks and handed out two more Tabs and a beer. I said, "Before we jump into this, I have some house rules."

I saw Eric roll his eyes but I pressed on. "Rule one, make yourselves at home. I'm not going to wait on you hand-and-foot. If you're hungry or thirsty just help yourself. If you're going to grab a steak and cook it up for dinner, ask if anyone else wants one and fix one for them as well. Rule two, take your dishes and throw them in the sink so I don't have to pick up for a half hour after you leave. I have a cleaning lady who comes on Mondays but she does the dusting and vacuuming, not picking up all the trash I left around all week. Rule three, well, that's enough rules so just have fun while you're here."

Heather said, "I can live with that. I like it here. We have room to spread out and work. There are no roommates and plenty to eat and drink. Should we all bring some drinks or snacks?"

"No, just tell me what you want and I'll pick it up. I've so many people stopping by, that in no time your stuff would get eaten, especially if a mob shows up for a pool party."

"You have a pool?" Erica asked.

"Yes and clothing is optional if you don't have your suit," I said.

I got out the easel and pad. I asked, "Does anyone want to take the lead and organize this thing?"

Erica said, "I have some ideas but I want us to work as a team. We need to come up with a company, product or service to represent. We need to gather data on the consumers that use those services. We need to understand the media options and come up with a campaign."

I said, "I think that's a good start but let's see what else we can add to the list, and then we can organize or group the tasks where there are similarities."

Eric said, "We could do a focus group."

Joyce said, "We can decide on a local service company or a national product."

Heather said, "We will need to design a logo to bring recognition to the company"

I said, "We will need to find out the needs of the consumers and focus on the features and benefits that will meet those needs."

There were a few more ideas that we added and the pad was full.

From there we broke the tasks into areas and then prioritized them. We talked about the pros and cons of different companies and products. I stopped them and asked. "What're we trying to achieve as a team in a marketing class?"

Scott said, "Get an A, man."

"Right," I said. "What do we need to do to get an A?"

Joyce said, "Put together a successful marketing campaign."

"Right," I said, "Are we really going to displace Coke or Pepsi with a new soda? The five of us?"

"No," said Scott.

"Are we going to do it with any other national product driven by a team of over a hundred marketing specialists with huge budgets?"

"No," was heard from three people.

"I say we go local. Let's promote a service."

"I think you can do it. My business is booming," came from Shannon as she walked in. "Britt helped me market my services and he had the right formula to make it happen. My goal was one-half to two percent of the student population. I have three and one-half percent as an end number."

"What is it and how did you do it?" asked Joyce.

"I do cleaning for dorms and apartments for students." I market my services towards the parents and the students. I had flyers and posters made and worked with the school and apartment owners to promote my services.

"I saw those. My mom was pushing me to sign up but I told her I could do it myself. After walking in here, I would be embarrassed to have everyone over to my place. Is it too late to sign up?"

"No I'll get you a card. There's also the benefit to the community, of providing work to students that need work that fits with their school schedule." I'm not saying to use me as a project but another local business could use the same approach. My return on investment was amazing."

Heather said, "I like that idea. Do we need to discuss it further or can we vote now?"

Erica said, "All in favor say Aye."

It was unanimous. Shannon handed her cards out and then gave me a kiss and said, "See ya next Monday."

Scott asked, "Does every customer get a kiss at the end?"

She said, "No, that service isn't included, but Britt is special and his is the only apartment I still clean. I'm too busy counting money the rest of the time."

She left and Erica said, "Alright, what type of local service company should we look at?"

I said, "I use a frame shop over on Second Street but I didn't know it was there until a friend told me about it."

"Who buys frames?" Scott asked.

"That's our job to figure out and then market to that set of customers," I said. "I've some ideas but don't want to take over so let's start brain storming again and then in twenty minutes we will stop and focus on what ideas we like and what ideas to trash. Then we can do the same for other businesses. Another option is that we can list other businesses first. We are at a huge advantage since we can pick the business instead of having to create something for whoever just walked through the door."

Joyce said, "I have my hair cut locally."

"I use the bike shop down the road," said Scott.

Erica was writing again. We added a restaurant, car wash, bookstore, print shop, I added the head shop to have fun and provoke thought.

Erica asked, "Anything else?"

No one answered so we looked at the list. "Pros and cons?" asked Erica.

I said, "I'm a lazy guy so I would rather promote something that most people don't think about versus having one company that competes with ten others on the block. Everyone that I know of has their hair cut or trimmed every so often and everyone has a place they already use. Do we really want to try to convince someone, that it is possible for them to get a better haircut somewhere else? That it will better for them to use our shop, because the people in our shop are nicer, more experienced and cheaper than where they currently go for a haircut. People go to different places to get their hair cut for different reasons. I like that the girl who cuts my hair wears short tops and I can see her boobs when she drops me back to give me a head massage and wash my hair."

Scott said, "Where do you go, man?"

I laughed and said to Joyce, "Is that what we should advertise? It seemed to bring in one new customer."

Joyce said, "No, I go where I do, because she does a good job."

Heather said, "I just want it to look nice for the $5 that I have to spend."

Joyce said, "This could be hard. Let's look at the others but I would say that the restaurants would be the same and maybe the car wash, because you could really only sell price and location and location could be good for one person and bad for another."

Erica said, "We are down to a print shop, book store, frame shop and a head shop."

Heather said, "Book stores are either focused on school kids or recreational readers. The only one that would make sense using our criteria is the bookstore that sells schoolbooks but isn't part of the University. The only thing they offer is better prices and they only have that at the beginning of each semester. It would be like Shannon's cleaning business."

"Does anyone use a print shop for noncommercial needs? Do they ever have someone who says, "Man, I wish I would have had that printed weeks ago?" Erica asked.

Scott said, "I think that people who need printing simply go and find a printer or go to a certain shop because someone recommended it. However, we can say the same for framing so I say we knock those two out."

I said, "I still like the frame shop but let's look at the rest and then we can talk about the differences."

Scott said, "Since you're buying the beer and I'm getting another one, I'll indulge your request." He went and got another and asked if anyone needed anything while he was up.

Joyce said, "The only one left is the head shop. I don't even know what that is."

Heather said, "It is a place that sells tie dye, incense, and all kind of other hippie junk so they can sell bongs and pipes for smoking pot as well."

Joyce said, "Is there even a head shop in town?"

"Yes," came from three of us, and Heather would have made it four, but she hesitated.

Joyce said, "Is it an easy project?"

I said, "It would let all the kids that needed bongs know where to obtain one, or they could just ask the person they bought the pot from. That's what I did." I knew I'd just outed myself but I didn't think it would be a problem.

Erica said, "Britt, since we've gone through everything and you brought up the frame shop, why don't you make a pitch for us."

"Well, I'm a photographer and I've had some of my work framed. I can go to Kmart, buy a cheap frame and put my artwork in there but the results will be very plain. On the other hand, I can take it to a frame shop and they'll mat the picture, meaning that they put a border around it. They have frames that are cheap or expensive, plain or decorative." I took one of the frames off the wall and handed it to one person to pass it around the room. It was of the spires at Crater Lake.

"Think about what it would look like if it were just a picture, all the way to the frame."

Joyce said, "So the market would be artists."

I said, "That would be one market. How about a family portrait or the picture from your last vacation that turned out awesome?"

"We had a couple of those," she said.

"So every family is a possible customer say two to four times a year."

"That's a pretty big market," said Heather.

"You can have specialty frames made or special ordered them. What if Scott was trying to protect his Farrah Fawcett poster from potential flying messes? He could have her framed and covered in glass for easy clean up."

Joyce, the slow one, said, "Like what, a food fight?"

"Thank you, Joyce, for protecting my honor," Scott said.

Heather said, "He meant that Scott may make a mess or lose control when he jacked off while looking at the pictures. That's why Britt has had to frame every photo in his apartment."

I loved the banter and said, "You're completely correct, Heather, and I had to pay extra to get them all done in one day when I heard Scott was coming over. I had them put double glass on the ones in the bathroom."

Heather and Erica burst out laughing and Scott turned red but he still joined in. Joyce stood and looked at some of the photos and said, "These girls are nude."

Scott, who hadn't even looked at the wall after he got his first beer, stood to look at them as well.

Erica didn't want to lose control of the meeting and said, "All in favor of the frame shop say Aye."

We had come up with our project.

I said, "So, based on what Heather said earlier, our next step is to gather data on the products, services and competition. Do we want to do everything together or break up into teams?"

Heather said, "Teams, we can get more done that way."

"I don't know anything about art but I'm willing to do the leg work if needed," Scott volunteered.