One smart cookie

I decided to kayak in Alaska this summer. I threw it out on our club’s web site, in case others were interested. I always do that with “exotic” trips, but response is typically low. Not so in this case. Alaska must hold some magic for the group.

In fact, I found that I’d have to boil the responders down to a manageable number, so I asked for those who were very serious about this so we could have a meeting and make key decisions about the trip. That whittled the number down to 17 and I’d guess that will barely be in double digits by the time we shove off. In preparation for the meeting, I gave them the web site of the outfitter we would be using.

I anticipated a number of questions that would come up at the meeting, including the first one. How did I pick that outfitter?

It is a bit of a challenge and something I blogged about previously. One thing you have to keep in mind is that most of them are outdoors people, more so than businesspeople, communicators, etc.

I selected this one mainly because he appears to be smart. How do I know? I told the group that many of the outfitters offered quantity discounts, based upon how many people you had in the group. This one added a qualifier.

To earn the discount, you not only had to have at least X number of participants in your group, but one of you has to function as the group leader. The leader would collect all the money, ensure that everyone understood (or even read) instructions, made the right travel and lodging arrangements, etc. The outfitter would simply deal with the leader. In short, if he was going to give up some revenue, he was going to unload the crap work and get his money’s worth.

Not a stupid guy.