America 1982

Tommy and Sophia walked out of Tampa International Airport and got into the commercial vehicle that took them to St. Petersburg, Florida. The driver was a local white man wearing a floral shirt. He kept curiously observing the young people through the rearview mirror who had booked the airport commercial vehicle transfer service. men and women.

"In St. Petersburg, every tourist must receive your attention like a Soviet spy?" Tommy asked when the other party looked at him for the fifth time.

The driver grinned at Tommy in the rearview mirror: "No, except for February and November, there are very few tourists who are as discerning as the two of them and choose to come to St. Petersburg for vacation. They would rather go to Miami. .”

Then the driver focused on driving and stopped talking. Sophia looked at Tommy next to her: "I think you should think about it again? Local advertising in California is obviously a better choice."

"My instinct tells me that Florida is the better choice." Tommy said as he looked at the scenery outside the window.

The two of them flew from California on the west coast to St. Petersburg, Florida on the east coast, certainly not for a vacation, although the magazine said that Florida has the purest water and the most charming scenery in the United States.

They were here to talk about television advertising, advertising on television to sell computer software.

Throughout the United States, advertisements for selling computers may have appeared on TV, but software advertisements have never appeared on TV. It seems that from the day software was born, people in the software industry believe that people who buy their software absolutely do not need Know the name of the software from TV.

The commercial vehicle passed through Clearwater Bay with white sand and blue sea, and the large village of St. Petersburg appeared in front of them.

The locals wearing tank tops, shorts, straw hats, smoking pipes, and carrying fishing gear or farm tools made Tommy and Sophia intuitively realize that they had gone from California, which has the most populous and wealthy people in the United States, to the place where black people and Cuba or Florida, the poorest US state for Central American smugglers.

The Family TV Shopping Club that Tommy wants to meet is located in St. Petersburg, which looks not much different from Warwick.

Holly, Jason and even Sophia didn't know why Tommy chose to stay far away from home. Holly even regretted providing Tommy with information about this company. It set up a training school in California, came to faraway Florida to advertise, and most importantly The problem is that Californians cannot watch this company's TV shopping programs at all, and the signal only covers Florida.

Between a burger joint and a car wash on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, Tommy finally saw the sign advertising the Family TV Shopping Club.

Pushing the door open and walking in, there was only a hall about the size of two garages. Seven or eight people were sitting in various positions and talking on the phone enthusiastically. If it hadn't been for a string of wind chimes hanging on the door, they might not have been there at all. Someone noticed Tommy and Sophia walking in.

Although the air conditioner was whirring, the hall still felt oppressively hot.

"Toilet paper storage box with radio function? My friend, I don't know what your brain has been through to develop such a product, but it is very difficult to sell. Yes, the people who watch our program are poor people who want to get benefits, not money. We have to rack our brains to come up with various advertising slogans for idiots who have nothing to spend. We will play them three times a day, each time is 15 minutes, and the price is 5,000 yuan per week. This is already very cheap! We have to convince the people who watch the ads, why Just go to the toilet and turn on the radio? Do you rely on the radio to teach them how to use the toilet? They might have finished defecating before they can find the radio signal."

"We are a family TV shopping channel, not an adult pay channel. Even if you go to bed with me, you can't advertise for escorts! We don't want to close down yet, but you can leave your phone number. I might call you after get off work on payday. for you……"

"Is it possible to sell a tape recorder with a camera function? Have you applied for a patent? Who would buy a five kilogram tape recorder and then carry it to take pictures of people! Of course, it is not impossible if you are willing to pay a high price. We can always find all kinds of fools who are willing to pay..."

Sophia stared at the hall filled with chaos, swearing and the strong smell of tobacco, and said to Tommy: "This is completely different from the TV advertising companies I saw in California. Are you sure it's here?"

"It's certainly different from California. It's more direct and not fake at all," Tommy said, looking around the hall.

Finally, a middle-aged man hung up the phone and walked over to the two of them. He looked at them and said, "We don't need interns here, unless you don't want to be paid and just need our letters of recommendation."

"See, that's what I said. It's not hypocritical." Tommy first smiled at Sophia and then explained to her:

"I called Actor Software, a company from California. They want to place TV ads here, and appointed Bob Costa, a partner of your company, to help us sell them within the program."

"Bob! There are fans of yours!" After hearing Tommy's words, the middle-aged man turned around and roared hard into the hall.

Soon, a brown-haired white young man about 24 or 25 years old came over from the corner, looked at Tommy and the two of them in confusion, and then looked at his companions with inquiring eyes.

The middle-aged man said to him: "They want to advertise, saying that they called before and they are from California and they hope to appoint you to help..."

"Tommy, Tommy Hawke, right?" After hearing the other party's words, the young man named Bob Costa smiled, took the initiative to reach out to Tommy, and said with a smile: "I'm Bob, we talked on the phone before .”

"This is my legal advisor Sophia." Tommy introduced, then looked around at the noisy surroundings: "Can we change places to chat? Or would you like us to each have a loudspeaker and talk face to face."

…

Under an umbrella next to an RV, Tommy and Sophia were sitting on a lounge chair. Bob took out a few cans of Coke from the refrigerator in the RV and placed them on the table next to them. After doing this, he sat down and said with a smile:

"I guess it should be clean enough here. The environment here is good."

Tommy took the Coke, opened it and took a sip: "It's really good. Let's make a long story short, because I hope to discuss the advertising issue in three hours, then go to the airport and fly back to California."

"I've thought about it carefully, Mr. Hawke..." Bob Costa crossed his arms, leaned forward, and closed the distance with Tommy before speaking.

Tommy interrupted him, smiled and reminded this advertising host, who can be called the originator of the world's product anchors and made one billion US dollars by selling products, "Just call me Tommy, Bob."

The reason why he came to Florida was because he saw the information about the Florida Home Shopping Club TV advertising company that Holly gave him, and found Bob Costa's photo and name from it. Although this was a company established last year, Bob Costa is a well-known business figure who gave a speech at a business school in his previous life.

This guy graduated from high school and became a talk show actor. He told various jokes in bars for a living. As a result, he almost starved to death. Then he went to work as a talk show host on a radio station. Since he started hosting a late-night talk show, the number of taxi collision accidents has been higher than before. Nearly ten percent, because the driver was tired of listening to his jokes.

Because he was constantly humiliated by the audience, who said that listening to him speak commercials was funnier than telling jokes, so he simply tried to be a TV commercial host. It turned out that this guy was born to be a TV salesman, using various jokes to introduce Products are easy to understand. 70% of housewives in the United States have bought the products he promoted in TV commercials. Later, he even created a rule of not charging advertising fees and directly sharing the profits, that is, promoting products in his advertising programs. Advertising fees are charged, but every time he sells a piece, he will take a commission.

"Okay, Tommy, I've probably sold over seventy items on TV sales shows, and as long as the other person pays us, we'll sell anything, including cheating Rubik's cubes, because a lot of parents here can't play with their kids. Therefore, its sales are very good. Parents buy it and use it to maintain their dignity in parent-child games, and to trick men into growing chest muscles without exercising. In fact, it is also sold to women, and some small sizes are sold. For women, tell them frankly that they can enlarge breasts... But to be honest, I think your software is the most difficult, because the people watching TV are viewers with low incomes, most of them are housewives, and they hope to buy something practical and cheap. Things, I can guarantee that 80% of the audience does not have a computer at home." Bob Costa said to Tommy:

"Of course I am willing to do your business, but I am just afraid that you will complain about the unsatisfactory sales volume later, so I will make it clear to you first. I know that software is very expensive, and it is about the same price as buying a computer. Do you think those women will Buy?"

"The price is 49.99. We promise that after purchasing, you only need to study hard for eight days to master it, and then you can read the high-paying advertisements for clerks in large companies in the newspaper. By the way, there is also free training. We have cooperated with many universities The student organizations cooperated and held free training courses. Of course, they are also available here in Florida, so you only need to buy the software, and you don’t even need to buy a computer yourself. We provide computers for free training, and then you can get a job with a minimum salary of 200 per week. Waiting for you, there are travel agencies all over Florida. Those travel agencies need clerks to help enter passenger information. Let them find out and see how much people who help travel agencies enter information earn per week. After buying our software, she and Like those people, have a decent income." Tommy took out his cigarettes, lit one, and said to Bob.

Bob's eyes widened: "49.99 yuan? Our company bought a second-hand computer for 300 yuan. We also wanted to make some spreadsheets to make ourselves look more upscale. But when they heard that we were a company, the other party directly reported 1295 The price is enough for us to buy four computers. I mean, what if it’s really 49.99? Unlimited? It’s not a lie? And there’s really free training?”

"Of course." Tommy nodded affirmatively: "We won't lie. We are college students. We just want to do charity activities to help women and earn a small profit to ensure expenses."

"If the price is this, I think you can give it a try. Many women here can only do odd part-time jobs and stay at home most of the time. Otherwise, they wouldn't watch such advertising programs every day to kill time." Bob was somewhat moved. , His biggest concern before was that the price of software was too high. If a group of housewives spent hundreds of dollars to buy software, they would not take out the money, but now they can buy software for less than fifty dollars. The most important thing is that after buying a stable and high-paying job, many people should be tempted.

Tommy looked at Bob and asked doubtfully: "Just giving it a try?"

"Yes, because I have never sold this thing, I can only try..." Bob explained to Tommy.

Tommy suddenly changed the subject: "How many pieces have you sold of that bra that falsely claims it can automatically grow breast muscles?"

"There are more than 90,000 pieces, but it is very cheap. The price is only 9.9. Even if you don't grow chest muscles and just wear it as an ordinary vest, the audience can accept it." Bob thought for a while and said to Tommy.

"How much money can you make if I put in four weeks?"

"If you buy the best time period, it will cost about 20,000 yuan a month. I personally only have 10% of the shares in this company, so it will cost about 2,000 yuan?"

"We can work together in another way."

"In what way?"

"I will pay the advertising fee, but I plan to pay it after it is broadcast. I can sign a sales agreement with you privately. As for how you explain it to your company partners, that is your business. The content of the agreement is that every time you Sell ​​a piece of software and I'll pay you $14.99."

"..." Bob looked at Tommy with his eyes widened.

Not only him, but Sophia next to him was instantly petrified!

She had seen Tommy Hawke's stinginess before. He said he would pay her a part-time salary of eighty yuan a week, but she has never seen it until now. But now she actually offered this to this TV salesman named Bob. How beneficial?

This guy is gay! Faced with a beautiful woman like herself, she would only exploit her again and again. But faced with a man, she would take the initiative to raise her price?

Tommy stared into Bob's eyes: "I don't need you to sell 90,000 units, but if you can help me sell 10,000 units in Florida, which has a permanent population of 9.7 million, you can get it." One hundred and forty-nine thousand nine hundred dollars.”

"Selling one set, I can get fifteen yuan? Fifteen yuan?" Bob took a few deep breaths before asking Tommy uncertainly.

Tommy said with certainty: "That's right, so I hope you will carefully design your advertising words. In addition to tricking them into taking out money, you must also add that the original intention of the Actor company was to help the poor change their destiny and promote women Employment, etc., win the favor of women and the poor, and the Actor company is under tremendous pressure to do the right thing, because some software vendors do not want to see poor people acquiring knowledge like them. The specific information is after signing the contract. , Sophia will give it to you."

"I believe in Actor's original intention without looking at the information." Bob calmed down his excitement and said.

Tommy asked with a smile. "Why?"

Bob also laughed: "Because first of all you are willing to give me a high price and help me, a poor man, change my destiny. This is the closest I have ever been to earning one hundred thousand yuan since I was born."

"Then seize this opportunity."

Second update