When I was 12 years old, my life was limited to attending school, watching TV, and playing video games. My older brother was not so different; he mentored me in everything.
Someone somewhere told us that the next great thing was playing games on a PC (Personal Computer) and not video game Consoles anymore. Since then, my goal has been to convince my parents to buy a PC.
The mission was difficult because I had few good arguments that I could use in my favor and the financial investment was pretty expensive.
The Partnership
My brother was 15 years old, someone I relied on, and he had much more experience convincing our parents to buy things, so I decided to partner with him. I would ask for the PC to use at school, he would support me, and we would not ask for anything else as a gift for that year alone.
The plan was set, but I did not realize that my partner would give up in the first “NO.” It was frustrating because the cost of a PC at that time (90’s) was higher than I could even imagine.
“Partnership is like a marriage; without a high level of commitment doesn’t work.”
The Intercessor
After losing my partner, I started to search for an alternative, and my mother came to the scene. She was my intercessor in many things, so why not in this new plan? Once I started to tell her all the benefits I could have using a PC in school activities (writing in word instead paper, presenting things in PowerPoint, and using the internet for searching and learning different subjects), I learned at that time a big lesson:
“Good Arguments are not enough to justify an investment.”
Marketing
Selling things is a valuable skill for everyone’s life. Unfortunately, we are judged in the first seconds we meet someone, we decide emotionally for expensive items (like buying a house), and we believe/buy things that have a pleasant and attractive look, even if it is not needed. That is all that Marketing is about; if you know how to advertise, you will always be ahead of others.
My situation was not different when I decided to ask for a PC to my parents. My Marketing skills needed improvement, but naturally, I found a way out.
Starting studying the topic (PCs in general), I returned to my parents with much more information, technical specifications like CPU, Memory, Hard Disk, Motherboard, and other skill that I could learn during the process, such as how to mount a PC from the scratch piece by piece. Another piece that I added to these was the Job Market; we always hear (every year) that the IT (Information Technology) market is full of great opportunities, so I also summed up this information in my dossier, and it was done. I felt prepared to present my case, but it was missing a crucial thing I could not hide from my parents: The Truth.
“A storm of information can work if it is a familiar audience, but the better is to simplify, be concise and tell the truth.”
The Judgement
Once I had collected all the needed information and arguments that I could, I came back to my Mom and Dad to present the case.
Without a partner, and almost like an entrepreneur presenting to the Shark Tank programs, there I was, ready to receive the verdict. But, the first thing I told them (I thought they did not know) was that I would like a PC to play video games and do all the other stuff I had prepared to use as arguments to make that purchase. To my surprise, my Dad decided to give me that gift and said that they would monitor my development since then to see if I deserved it or not.
In the end, I have learned many more lessons than I could remember with the entire process, including the importance of being sincere with those you care about.
After all, I had only one missing point in my plan:
How to convince my parents to buy new expensive games for my new PC if the most substantial arguments for purchasing a PC were related to school and Job careers?
That is the subject of another story…
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