I had the pleasure recently of attending a risk-management symposium in a nearby city.
When I was first asked to speak at the event, and provide a little comic relief during the day-long meeting, that featured a host of very knowledgeable and experienced experts, I was a little reluctant. Not because of the impressive group of speakers, but because it was a risk-management meeting…held at a casino… on Friday, the 13th. It seemed a bit contradictory, but I agreed.
The first speaker was an older gentleman (about my age) that had a couple of degrees and had spent his lifetime in commodities marketing. He had worked at the Chicago Mercantile for many years, had made (and lost, in his own words) several fortunes, and for the past several years owned a very successful marketing firm that assisted farmers in managing their risk as it applies to selling their products.
I was very impressed with both his knowledge and his ability to communicate his ideas to the audience. At the end of his talk, he also spent about twenty minutes taking and answering questions from the attendees.
After his presentation, I had the opportunity to talk with him, one-on-one, at the table where we both sat. I complimented him on his ability to make a very complex subject understandable for someone as thick-headed as myself.
“Over the years, I’ll bet that you have gotten every kind of question imaginable,” I said.
He then related a story about one of his presentations that he had made while speaking to a group of farmers in Iowa a few years ago. He was giving a talk similar to the one he had just given, getting the audience to participate by reciting some real-life scenarios in grain marketing and the audience would respond to his question of when they should sell with, “Pull the trigger!”
According to him, he used a hunting analogy at one point to impress upon the farmers about the correct time to “pull the trigger.”
“Suppose you’re out during deer season and you scan the top of a rise through the scope of your rifle. As you move the weapon from right to left, you first spot a nice-sized doe come into focus, but you’re patient and soon, a six-point buck appears. You’re still patient, though, and a huge, trophy-worthy, 12-point, monster buck enters your sights. What do you do?”
Before the group could answer the conditioned response, one older guy in the back of the room shouted out, “Roll down the window!”
