Business Acumen
Opportunity occasionally comes knocking for most of us. Trouble with us South Enders, we don’t often answer the door. You take Wild Bill, the South End String Band’s former bass player. He and a couple of buddies started up their own advertising agency down in San Francisco back in the heydays of the Grateful Dead, rented themselves an office and hired a girl Friday. The boys came back from lunch one fine California day and their secretary Shelly said there’d been a guy in to see them, Steve somebody or other, who was starting his own company and wanted to sit down and talk publicity, promotion, advertising, just what Wild Bill and his cohorts were in business to do.
Hot damn, a client!! They told Shelly to make an appointment to meet them at Bill’s apartment that night. There was a ’49ers game on Monday Night Football and they figured they’d mix a little pleasure with business. Their new client, no doubt, would get a kick out of drinking some beer and rooting for his home team, and maybe at half time they could kick around some advertising strategies before the second half kickoff. Steve came by and the boys put a beer in his hand, told him to have a seat, kick back and enjoy the game. Well, quite a few beers later, the game being close and all, they never really got much strategizing in. Steve sipped at his beer, mostly to be friendly, but obviously he wasn’t much of a drinker and worse, he didn’t seem much interested in who won the football game or maybe he didn’t even understand the damn game. Odd guy, real quiet, sober as a judge. Finally the boys pretty much ignored him completely and by the 3rd quarter Steve excused himself, thanked them for the beer and said he probably should get on home, he had work to do.
Haw haw, work to do?? On a Monday Night Football night? With San Francisco playing?? The boys just shook their heads when he’d gone. Probably some poor gomer with a sure-to-fail business and they were probably lucky not to waste time on a losing bet. They popped a few more brewskis and settled in for the 4th quarter.
Next day Shelly asked the bedraggled football fans how the meeting went with Steve. Okay, they said, odd guy. Great game, though, the ’49ers pulled it out in the last quarter. “You want me to call Mr. Jobs back and make another appointment?” Shelly asked. Naw, the boys said, Steve’s on his own and good luck to him. Haw haw.
Last time I looked Apple was the biggest company in the world, Steve did okay without the boys and Wild Bill ended up in the South End String Band. Nobody knows what happened to Shelly.
Hits: 194
It could have been worse. Wild Bill might have had a bowl of apples on his coffee table. During one of the commercial breaks Steve might have turned to him and asked “what kind of apples you have there?”
“Macintosh dude, they’re the best.”
Then, Wild Bill would not only have passed up the account, but provided crucial marketing strategy – – for free.
OK, OK, even that couldn’t possibly have made it any worse.
I asked Bill at the time he told this story if he ever looked back at it as a lost opportunity. He said no, that fork in the road led down another where he met his wife. Good answer, I figured, since I don’t like to look back and second guess decisions. The quantum kids propose a theory in physics where all possibilities exist. Sure, fine, but that’s like reincarnation to me. I’m preoccupied with the existence I got right now, not one somewhere else or in the past that I don’t recall.
He and the boys did all right with the ad agency. If they hadn’t, that episode with Steve Jobs might have loomed a little darker in the rear view.