Stan has a Van

If you are reading on a smartphone, use landscape / hold phone sideways. 

On our way to see the kids yesterday, driving up from New Jersey, we hit a little traffic in Stamford. For some reason, there is always a little traffic in Stamford. Too many people getting on and off the highway, in too short a span. Mostly, it is from people in the left lane, who need to get over to the right lane, at the last minute. Even people who live in the area find themselves having to get over a lane or two, or they will miss their exit. 

So, we hit some traffic. 

Ah yes, the (now famous) Stamford traffic. 

Right in front of us was a little pick up truck, hauling what looked to be an Ice Cream push cart. The wording on the tailgate of the pickup caught my eye.

Young Man With a Truck

Trying to Make a Buck

(203) 898-4948

It made me laugh. It made my wife laugh. My wife snapped a picture with her phone. Next thing you know, I said "OK, Google, dial 203-898-4948. 

"This is James"

"Hey, James - are you a Young Man With a Truck?"

And, we're off to the races. Turns out that James is now in the Ice Cream business as well. James has expanded from being a young man with a truck, to a young entrepreneur with trucks (plural) and employees and a great "no job is too big or to small" attitude. Here we are, going SLOW in traffic, but we now have a new FAST friend, James.

I asked James if he had a website, and he said yes but it is down right now.  YoungManWithaTruck.com is indeed down. Our conversation lasted a good ten minutes. My wife marveled at how nice James was, how it felt like we were talking to an old friend. From total stranger to total friend, in minutes. 

This morning I found James here: Facebook.com/YMWAT  I have a few student interns working for me this summer. I am going to see if we can build out a new website for James Clark. We are also doing a ton of business in the Stamford, Connecticut area. We shall see if any of our clients can use the services of A Young Man with a Truck.

Or Ice Cream. We shall see if anyone in Stamford, Connecticut likes Ice Cream. 

I told this story yesterday while sitting on the deck at my son's house in Madison, Connecticut. One of my (new) daughters said "Wow, I could NEVER do that. Calling a stranger like that. That is so...you."

And I guess that is the point of the post. I could not NOT call that number. I mean, it is right in front of me, on the tailgate of the pickup truck right in front of me.  And, it made me laugh. Of course I am going to make that call. I was ready to leave a voice mail, but nope - James Clark himself picked up the phone.

From the looks of the YMWAT Facebook page, James Clark gives back to the community as well. It looks like James Clark (and friends) work hard - and they do good work, and they are paying it forward.

Now play it forward in your own mind: by the end of this summer James Clark has a brand new website, and a marketing strategy to grow his business (in and around) the Stamford, Connecticut area 

Make it so. 

At the end of last year, I got a phone call (out of the blue) from Verizon. As in, Verizon.com. They saw what we were doing with Zoom, and they asked if we would be interested in selling, marketing, promoting and servicing all things BlueJeans, the Verizon service that competes with Zoom. I said sure, set it up.

So we became a Verizon partner. Then, we became a DIRECT partner. And then, we became a Tier 1 partner. And now today, we are a Tier 1 ELITE partner: GetBlueJeans.com. All of this happened with Verizon, very fast. 

All because of a phone call. A random phone call. What if I never took the call? What if it got lost in voicemail? Oh, and now we are going to run BlueJeansAcademy.com for all things BlueJeans. Across all of North America. 

Is there even such a thing as a random phone call? Is there even such a thing as a chance meeting? Maybe everything happens for a reason. Right, James Clark? 

James made his own luck, with the witty saying for his business. A young man with a truck, trying to make a buck. That just made me smile. 

And dial. That witty phrase also made me... dial.