At the beginning, everything seemed so difficult. The teacher already told us about making a booth as final class project at the very first meeting. I was so overwhelmed.
I always believed that I was not good in ‘promotion’ activities, like making booth and ensuring people to come to the booth. I was not a good seller. I really had no idea how to do this.
But slowly, everything was just getting better for me and my smart team mate, Paulina. We chose Philippines culinary as our main theme. So, I had to learn a lot about the food. At least by searching them in internet.
We started everything with the main concept. What would we do with the booth? Would we just be serving the food and hoping people would stay for more than one minutes? Or we put extra value in this activity? We said yes. And the extra value from our booth is the history behind the food. And how we would present this idea? We agreed to make this in an interesting way: pop quiz.
So the idea was clear. We would invite people to come to our booth and to taste our food for free. While sitting and eating, we would start the quiz to make them stay longer. And hopefully, to give them some knew knowledge about the local food too.
We chose three famous Philippines food: sisig, leche flan, and lumpia. Paulina got the idea. I followed her by starting to learn the story behind them. This food was not just delicious, they also had interesting stories.
Worries about how we would get the food was solved when we found good food in ISO. It made a lot of things easier for us. We could focus on how we would decorate the booth with papers, hand writing, and drawing. (Honestly, it has been a very long time since I made my last drawing. But it was worthed. I never lost that passion and excitement!)
When the D-day came, we had very limited time to set up the booth. Both Paulina and I had midterm exams for other courses. But finally we made it, with a lot of improvisations, especially on how we set up the booth. (I really liked the background whiteboard. It reminded me to some cozy vintage café!)
It was an exciting two hours. My main job was inviting people as many as possible. Paulina then would take care of the presentation. And she did it brilliantly. People enjoyed both our food and also the pop quiz. (Just look at my friend Zayar, the guy in the white t-shirt! He was so impressed. :-))
At first I honestly thought that persuading people to have some free food would be an easy job. Who would reject the free food? I was expecting every person I met would be like the young student that gave her staring eyes and wide smile soon after I offered her a free food.
I was wrong. Many people refused the offer. “Sorry I am busy,” they said. “I have a class,” the other one replied while waving his hand.
Maybe I still need to learn more on how to persuade people. It is a skill, and maybe someday I will really need this one. But surely I can be proud of myself for what I achieved. We had more than 50 visitors. And the best thing was: they were staying at our booth, definitely more than one minute, to try the food and to enjoy the quiz! Bravo, goal achieved!
It was really an interesting class project. A new experience. A fun.
Here are some lessons learnt:
- Preparation is everything. Good preparation will only leads to better execution.
- Always open yourselves for other’s ideas. Make discussion!
- Reliable friends will always benefit you. Find a good community! Get involved, and trust them!
- See rules and deadline in a positive way. They are not always limiting you, they are challenging you to be creative.
- Be prepared for improvisation. Be aware.
- Believe in what you have. Be confident.
- Finally, enjoy every moment of your hard effort. It’s too precious to be missed. Don’t let worries drive you!
Cheers, everyone!
sunarsrengenge 