Back in 1984

A student mate of mine, who was pretty politically active and one night over several Guinnesses

He said, “do you fancy and all expenses paid trip …”

I don't remember what else he said to me, he had me at “all expenses paid trip..”

None of us had any money as students and a few days away sounded fun

Back in those days student politics was polarized between the left and the right

I think his motivation in asking me to was to get some more “balanced” political views there

As this is LinkedIn, I need to tie in something about B2B sales, so here goes

I had created my flyer and stood at the bottom of the stairs on the day of the election

Handing this out to people, hoping people would vote for me

Everybody smiled and took the leaflet until I had handed them all out

Of course, I made the assumption that if somebody took a leaflet that was a vote

I went upstairs to the student union bar for a pint of Guinness to celebrate

When I reached the top of the stairs, there was a bin full of my leaflets 

What people had done was take a leaflet and then dropped in the first wastebin they found

In the end I won, based on friends and my network

Not by handing out brochures 

People will vote for people they know, like and trust

They won't vote for you off the back of a brochure