I believe that most of people have heard a story about Kyle MacDonald, who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of fourteen online trades over the course of a year. In this blog, I would like to talk about my experience of trading my red paper chip to an eyebrow knife in 40 minutes in downtown Vancouver.
This task was given by my Sauder transition team leader. His purpose wa
s to help me to build a better communication skill which is very important the business world. This task is very challengeable because I have to select random people who I have neve
r known them before and try to trade with them. I have two plans in the beginning. One is to do my first trade at The FaceShop. Because based on my previous experience, this store will give customers a lot of free
sampling. I am hoping to use my paper chip to trade with a small sample. However, due to the high customer volume on weekend, sales did not have that much time to talk to me. I was kind of disappointed at that time and realize that the task was not easy at all. The second place I want is Telus store. I introduced myself first as a Sauder student to the sale and explained the task. He was a very nice guy and gave me a Telus shopping bag. I then went to the food court and got some nice packed tissue paper from a lady. I was so happy because I know that lots of people in the food court might need tissue. So I was look around to look for someone who seems need tissue at that time. I finally aim at a couple who is having fries and a big backpack with them. (It is important that the
person you are looking for has something to trade with you. Because sometimes, there is someone who would like to help you but doesn’t have anything on them). The girl gave me her eyebrow knife and I gave her the tissue paper to exchange.
40 minutes goes by fast. I learnt a lot during this task. First of all, it is important to find suitable people and it would save you lots of time. Same idea with doing business. Always look for the most suitable people who could represent their company to talk to. And never be afraid to failure. Failure always comes first then success. It is more important to learn from the failure instead of being upset. Always introduce yourself first! If people don’t know you, they will not trust you and will not do business with you. Business is everywhere and about everything. Trading a paper chip seems small, but it is still a type of business. Building a better communication skill will help us with business a lot and I believe that is the reason why our professors gave us presentations and group works to do.
