1504. A seminar on outdoor advertising

On July 3, 2013, I attended a seminar on outdoor advertising for realtors. The slides presentation did not excite the small group of around 15 realtors. More images of actual signboard types in Hong Kong and Singapore will have been more interesting. There were the occasional images of signboards advertising new condo projects for sale. The others were illustrations of the height and width permissible by the BCA. Real life signboards will complement the illustrations and make the lecture so much more interesting. My friend could not keep awake but he asked the most questions since the lecturer did not have much queries.

"Why don't you produce a video so that the audience will not fall asleep?" I asked him later.   
"All these slides are approved by the CEA and it takes a long time and many rejections," he explained. "Nothing can be given in the lectures unless approved."

However, this lecturer is an excellent story teller as regards leadership and positive mental attitude. If only he can translate the stories into a video. For example, bungee jumping. He accepted the $100 from his friend who asked whether he was fearless. The next early morning, his friend drove him to a place which was cold. It was a bungee jumping point. His friend had paid for his bungee jumping. Tourists were clapping their hands. Boats were below to catch the bungee jumpers who fall into the fast flowing river.
"You can give me back the $100 but you must go to town and shave your head bald," the friend said.
"Shall I jump Titanic style or roll over?" he stretched out his hands to demonstrate the Titanic style.
It would be shameful in front of the tourist to roll over.
"So I walked along the plank and shouted "1, 2, 3,". The echoes came vibrating into my ears."
We expected him to jump at the count of 3 but he said, "I turned back."
His friend said: "You are to jump."
"What shall I do?" he asked us.
"I decided to ask the bungee man to shove me down when I count up to 3."
We waited for him to continue.
"When I shouted one, the bungee operator pushed me down. My heart was in my mouth. But after a while, I felt free and happy. I was laughing away."
We don't know whether to believe him or not but kept silent.

There was another story on how to stand out from the competitors in producing flyers. He had sat in a coffeeshop from 9 am to 5 pm to observe the behaviour of residents towards flyers in their letterboxes. The flyers were generic boring ones. The residents just discarded them.

One Malay agent asked for his advice on how to succeed in flyer advertisement..
"If you do what I tell you," he asked the agent to bob up his hair in the centre, coloured it yellow. Then he took a picture. He insertsd prison bars such that the agent's hands were holding the bars. On top of the rectangular advert, he put the words "WANTED". Below he wrote the details of the property. The response was overwhelming.    

He asked for two coins from us. I thought he was going to double the number. He placed the coins in his right hand but they disappeared after a few twists and turns of his hand in front of vigilant eyes. Magic always wake up the students.

He asked for a birth date to assess the personality. I volunteered mine. He totalled and it ended in number 4. "Four means die in Cantonese," I said to him.
"No, it means success, a pro-active person, very calm in situations of panic."
That was good news.
For Elvis Presley, his birth date ending in number 9 indicated a short but prosperous life. The number 9 is the last digit from 1-9 and that explained Elvis's fate of being rich and successful but living a short life.

The word ATTITUDE adds up to 100 if A=1 and you add up. A positive attitude is 100 or something to that effect.

At the end of the lecture, I thanked him for his stories. His lecture was good but his story telling was first class.