We recently had the opportunity to meet and help a young student from the University of Utah MBA program. His task: see what he could get for trade, starting with a paper clip. What he ended up with was this pre-owned Chrysler vehicle from our store!
"Travis Sorenson is an MBA student at the University of Utah. He said one of his business teachers gave the class an assignment on Sept. 8 to “see whatever you can get” after trading with a paper clip.
“He gave us the paper clip and he’s like, ‘So the assignment is to build value in whatever you have,’ ” Sorenson said. “It was interesting because he mentioned the most anyone had ever gotten was a car and so naturally I wanted to do that.”
Sorenson said he traded the paper clip to his wife’s friend for a pack of unopened gum. He said the gum was a new flavor that his wife had wanted to try so he traded her the gum for a bag of Lindt chocolates.
When Sorenson went to work the next day, he said he was telling his co-workers of the assignment. Sorenson’s boss traded him the chocolates in exchange for a plastic skull replica. He said another one of his co-workers traded him an older HP color printer for the skull.
“At that point, I thought, ‘OK, I have some value here,’ ” Sorenson said. “But after surveying the market and looking at some things, I realized that printers are kind of a dime a dozen.”
Sorenson decided to continue reaching for his goal and he began calling several local car dealerships to see if anyone was interested in trading. He said he contacted Larry H. Miller Ford in Sandy and after talking to the “right people,” they struck a deal on Sept. 12.
“I happened to get on the phone with the right person up at Larry H. Miller,” Sorenson said. “I said, ‘Obviously, you will get a printer out of the deal which is awesome, but more importantly, I have a network of people that I can chat with and do word-of-mouth advertising. Chatting with the right people was very helpful.”
General manager of Larry H. Miller Sandy Ford, Phil Pecoraro, gave Sorenson a 2001 Chrysler Concorde in exchange for the color printer. He said the car was worth about $300 and he felt the printer was of equal value.
“It was really fun to work with someone who was thinking outside the box and trying to do something different,” Pecoraro said.
Sorenson said he was happy to reach his goal and that other students in the class also did well, ending up another car, a motorcycle and several TV's. Sorenson said the assignment really opened up his eyes to the possibilities in the business world.
“It taught me some confidence,” he said. “And it throws out some notions that you need certain things and certain conditions need to be met for you to be successful in business or in life in general.”"
-Faith Heaton Jolley KSL.com
