VietnamJUMP 2011 2nd Entry

So I'm posting today because I've completed my first proper task for the Vietnam JUMP 2011 project. Well I say completed... I mean, y'kno, we're on a 3-day selling quest and today was DAY ONE.

The final target is of course S$5000 and today we made S$400 which is 8% there. (I may look around for some sort of update-able graph I can embed here to save me having to calculate the percentage myself).

Two more days of this and we'd have S$1200 and be .. ermm... 24% to our target, which sounds like a small amount but it would be so epic.

I'll be honest, the journey to even this point has been hard.
The learning starts here.
I thought we'd really start learning about cultures once we got out there but just working together with different backgrounds coming together has been tiring and educative for me.
For example, the Vietnamese in the team are quite passive when it comes to selling. They prefer for you to ask the questions before giving the answers and they also tell me that when selling for charity in Singapore first of all you don't call out to people when they walk passed and 2) you don't haggle on a price.
A price is a price and that's that. Unfortunately, that's not how I've been taught to do things and maybe had I heeded to their words we would have made S$500, or maybe we would've been low on sales and not even made what we did, so I guess what I am saying is, as much as I appreciate the difference of opinion, I'mma do my thing!

It was all in all a really good day. Not easy getting up after going out the night before to La Baroque for some free flow, but, y'kno.. it's for the kids and like I said to all my customers today "somewhere in Vietnam, there is a little child thanking you". I don't do it for the praise though, just to be clear.