Joining the Spartan Street Team

I hate selling things.

When I was a Girl Scout, I pretty much flat refused to go door-to-door selling things. I had no problem manning the booths outside of stores and stacking boxes while others tried to get people to buy, but anything that required me to directly approach others for the purpose of selling - not gonna happen. When Older Boy started kindergarten this year, the school gave us the option of participating in fundraisers or writing a check.

I wrote the check.

So last Thursday, when Travis from Spartan Race put out a call for people to join the Street Team and help market the Spartan Race at the Thunder Road Expo in Charlotte, I was understandably hesitant. Give up 4 hours on my day off to try and sell a bunch of strangers on the Spartan Race? As much I love the Spartan Race, memories of school fundraisers and Girl Scout cookie sales assaulted me. And yet, for some reason, with much trepidation, I signed up for a 4-hour stint at the Expo. That Friday morning, I almost talked myself out of showing up, but I spartaned up, got in my car, and drove into Charlotte.

And had the best time.

Sure, initially when I showed up at the booth, I felt uncomfortable and a little out of place. Intimidated even. The first half-hour, I probably talked to maybe 4 people who walked by the booth. But after a while, I really got into it. There I was, surrounded by marathoners and half-marathoners, and yet I - the girl picked close to last in gym class - was the one who had accomplished something most of them had not: a Spartan Race. A Spartan Trifecta.

And I wanted to share my love of OCRs with all of them.

After a while, it got easy. I started chatting guys and gals up right and left. The most fun was shooting down the excuses I heard from people as to why they couldn't do a Spartan. As someone who did not start running until July 2011 and then did her first Spartan in March 2012, I found that I had a story to tell: I did this and you can do this too. I was upfront with people: I'm not the fastest, I'm not the strongest, but I finished all the same. Four hours flew by quickly, and before I knew it, my shift was up and it was time for me to leave to get Older Boy from school.

As I was leaving, I mentioned to Travis that manning the booth and selling the Spartan Race ended up being easier and a lot more fun than I expected. He responded that selling from the heart is the easiest and best way to market.

And he's right. In a lot of ways, I never believed that the school fundraising or selling cookies really mattered - the school or scout troop received so little in return for each unit sold. But you can't get the benefit of an OCR - the addiction, the desire to get into shape, the desire to push yourself - unless something gets you to sign up first. What I was doing really mattered - I really could have gotten someone to sign up for their first OCR that day.

And, that, my friends, is what made it so fun and easy.

Earning a free Spartan race didn't hurt either ;).

Arooo!