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After our tour of celebrity homes, we were armed with a GPS full of coordinates, and a belly full of ambition. We bravely drove to the home of famed director Kevin Smith, whom we felt would readily embrace our entrepreneurial spirit -- after all, this is the director who owns his own comic book store.  "Smogma" Kevin Smith lives in an absolutely spectacular mansion in the Hollywood Hills, which does nothing to protect him from his 1.3 million Twitter fans -- anyone can literally walk right up to the door, selling gutter services.  "I assure you, we're open" You better believe we were nervous. Nobody likes door-to-door salesmen, even when they're selling something as useful as celebrity gutter protection. I knocked on the door, and a dog began barking madly. I instinctively backed from the door, preparing to be attacked by a creature that's probably named after a Batman villain. We heard locks turning, and then a middle-aged nanny or housekeeper opened the door. "Can I help you?"  "Laying on the charm" "We're from Celebrity Gutters," I said, "and we're here to offer a complimentary gutter cleaning." "Oh, no thank you," she said. "We've got that taken care of." "Completely clean?" I asked. "Free of debris?" "Yeah," she said, "we have someone who does that." "Okay," I said, "thank you." And then the door closed, and with it our chance to see the inside of Kevin Smith's palatial home. We walked back to the car. "Sales is a numbers game," I reassured Marc. "We've got to expect some rejection, even with a product as fantastic as ours. The secret is to keep knocking on doors." So next we knocked on Lawrence Fishburne's door.  "Hi, Neo!" The star of The Matrix lives in a mansion set on a hill and guarded by a 15-foot stone wall. With the electronic keypad and speaker installed at the front gate, it felt a little bit like trying to enter a prison. Marc would try his hand at selling this one. He rang the buzzer, and there was an interminably long wait.  Ironically, Lawrence Fishburne's home is guarded by a million guys named Agent Smith. Finally an African-American woman's voice came over the speaker, whom we presumed was Fishburne's wife, Firefly actor Gina Torres. "Hello?" "Hi there, my name is Marc Horowitz, and I'm with Celebrity Gutters," he said. "We're offering a free gutter cleaning today!" "We're all good, thank you." "All right, well thank you very much!" Marc said.  "Coffee is for closers" "We need to work on the objection handling," I observed as we walked back to the car. "I feel like I'm in Tommy Boy," he said. "From now on, we won't take no for an answer!" I declared, as we drove up the road to Nicole Richie's house.  "The Not-So-Simple Life" Nicole Richie's home resembles a beautiful ornate treehouse, set up on a hill, but still clearly visible from the street. We went up to the security gate and rang the buzzer. This time I was ready. "Hello?" asked the unmistakable voice of Lionel Richie's daughter. But the moment passed quickly, and no one caught the irony.  "My mind happily in the gutter" "We're from Celebrity Gutters, and we'd like to know if you would like a complimentary gutter cleaning," I said. "No thank you," said Nicole Richie. "We're offering a special today," I said, refusing to take no for an answer. "A complimentary gutter cleaning today, and then we'll do another complimentary gutter cleaning again in six months." "I understand, but thank you, no thank you." "Okay, thanks very much!" said Marc. Back at the car, we reflected on what we were doing wrong. "If we could just give out a free sample, I'm sure we could get celebrities to buy from us in the future." "Like at the food court," Marc agreed. "Chicken on a toothpick." "Exactly. We need to give a celebrity the gutter-cleaning equivalent of chicken on a toothpick." We looked across the street, where Charleze Theron's home was being ripped apart by several dozen contractors. Then it hit us. "Meet me back here in the morning," I said. | |||||||||||||
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