Smart Breaking to NOLA

It’s cold. Very very cold. It has been miserably cold but yet so beautiful outside. Finland around this time of year usually brings some, not so nice weather, it would snow then melt then freeze and so on. Today it is -24 Celsius outside and I assure you it is frigid.

The one thing that makes this cold kind of tolerable is the sun. Yes, the sun! It looks amazing outside with the sun shining and no wind. My daughter, who is four now, a couple of years ago was really excited one winter when she saw the sun in January shining so bright and thought it was OK to go outside in a dress. Silly child, it was -28 Celsius that day and she was only 2 years old, not happening. This weather is really nice until it is not. I am really not looking forward to the melting period of all this snow. But hopefully I will be missing some of that cold wind and slush roads due to Smart Break attending some trade shows in warmer locations.

Last week I was approached by a company called Fibion, who invited the Smart Break team to join them in London in few weeks. Yes this is a little bit a last moment decision, and it may be a bit warmer and lets hope for no rain! This is a great opportunity for me to sharpen my sales teeth. Yes, I am the only person from my team going and it will be the first expo I will be attending. But no worries I will be wearing my big boy pants and will do great, said in a confident and anxious voice. I am sure I will do fine in talking with hopeful clients but what if I don’t know the answer to the questions? What should I do? It’s not like I can just say “just because”. Well luckily the product can answer the questions for me, simplicity is on my side when selling and promoting this product.

Link to Fibion’s homepage

www.fibion.com 

As for Fibion, we will be sharing the booth and I will be well read on what they are providing so I can be as some use for them as well. Double agent Lawrence, has a nice ring to it. When all else fails i’m sure I can just show some of the well put together videos Smart Break has been pumping out. They have been fun to make but I feel like we are lacking a behind the scenes video.

What people might not know is that the guy behind the camera is named Tuomo. The interactions between Tuomo and I can only be described as a pure lost in translation comedy. I wish we had a big brother camera around the office to catch us trying to communicate while conjuring up this videos. You see, Tuomo speaks Finnish and no English, and doesn’t really understand English or at least my English. I can understand Finnish to a certain degree but can’t speak any of it. So this has made our interactions kind of comical. We use a lot of google translate. It has been a pleasure using the translate and then just giggling for ten minutes or so on what we are actually trying to say to each other. Tuomo has been awesome! The videos he makes and directs have been great and i’m sure he will be sought after by other companies for sure.

Anyways, we have more videos on the way and I assure you I will try and make one about football, because naturally I want people to know I still got it at age 33. I am very humble 😉. After the London trip we are headed to New Orleans for Collision! Yes, finally I will be headed to NOLA to present Smart Break along with some of my colleagues. To say I am excited is an understatement. Not for the reason that I get a week away from Finland, I am excited that I can actually be put in a pressure situation. Like a soccer game almost, I like the feeling of being under pressure and not knowing what could happen. In my head, it is going to go great and Smart Break will kill it! Only time will tell and a lot of things have been going on this week so far and growth is inevitable.

Well Tuomo just came to my desk and dropped off a video script in Finnish for me 😐😁. Looks like I have some translating to do. I wonder how I translate “Lawrence näyttää komealta tänään kameralta” 😜. Big things are coming and remember to take Smart Breaks! Have a great Wednesday!