The Pumpkin Problem

Posted: November 19th, 2010 under Motivation & Acceleration.

Okay, watch this video and leave a comment below.

Let me know what the HECK I should do with this pumpkin!

27 Comments »

I suggest video taping this as it drops from a large height as the kickoff to a Squash your negative thoughts campaign. This would tie into my needs as a brand new carpet cleaning company. There are so many ideas that you have taught us that it is overwhelming to know where to start when just starting. A What would you do in the first 3-6 months program with a schedule.

This would help me from getting overwhelmed and start thinking negative about wether I can do this. There is still time to save me, please help.

Comment by Mark — November 19, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
Donate to a bakery and have the bakery donate(baked goods) to a food shelter!!! Funny thing, I just cut up a pumpkin and we’ll be using that for the holidays to make deserts!!

Comment by Art — November 19, 2010 @ 6:22 pm
Throw it off the roof!!! or maybe into Tempe town lake!!

Comment by jim schafer — November 19, 2010 @ 6:22 pm
You should totally eat it! Nothing safer than eating 2 week old pumpkin. xD

Comment by Dr. Pumpkin — November 19, 2010 @ 6:23 pm
What I think you should do with the pumpkin is cut off the top and get all of the seeds inside and roast them and snack on them at the office. Now I think this would make a great thing to do at the office together. Then I think you should take out the pulp and make a huge pot of pumpkin soup with the pulp. Pumpkin soup is delicious. I have a great recipe if you do not have one. With the outer case of the pumpkin I think you can compost it right away or let it continue to decorate your office until it no longer looks nice and then compost it. The soil will love this. Thats all for now. I do not have a cleaning business but I am a fan !! Joanie

Comment by Joanie — November 19, 2010 @ 6:26 pm
Make a bunch of pumpkin pies and bread and donate to a local homeless shelter. Roast the seeds and eat them in the office!! Grind up the left over casing and give to any employee who plants veggies to use as mulch in their garden. Everything used!!!
I’d like to know the best list source to use for a local email or snail mail program to market to companies for carpet cleaning.

Comment by Steve Stagg — November 19, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qtO9hu97g

Comment by Danno — November 19, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
Hey Joe;

It’s thanksgiving. Give it to a baker and have him/her bake some pumpkin pies for a homeless shelter or other worthy charity.

Call it the “Cleaners Care” donation

Comment by Roderick Cole — November 19, 2010 @ 6:34 pm
Danno, that video very hilarious lol

“We’ve not blown up a pumpkin with a firearm yet…and that’s one of the requirements for living here.”

Comment by @Danno — November 19, 2010 @ 6:46 pm
Build a GIANT catapult and enter http://www.punkinchunkin.com pumpkin catapult contest.

Comment by GinaDeLong — November 19, 2010 @ 6:57 pm
Put the Pumpkin on Ebay. Auction it off. The winner of the auction gets the pumpkin plus a ticket to the next Joe Polish event including dinner with him afterwards. The opportunity here would be priceless as the information that could be obtained would help to create endless ability to further the competitive edge and Squash the competition! The proceeds from the auction would be added to the initial $500 MAW donation.

Comment by Carolynn — November 19, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
This could also be done by selling tickets that give the buyer an opportunity to guess the weight. The person who comes closest to the weight wins the admission and dinner!

Comment by Carolynn — November 19, 2010 @ 11:40 pm
Place a red cap with white fur on top of the pumpkin. Decorate pumpkin’s face with eyes that twinkle, merry dimples, cheeks like roses and a nose like a cherry. Add a droll little mouth, and a white beard… as white as snow. There you have it…. Santa Pumpkin…. a great way to decorate the office for the holidays! I’m surprised you needed my help with this one Joe… You need to learn how to think outside of the box!

One way you can help most carpet cleaners is to share one of the easiest strategies to implement what would result in increased sales. Most folks, myself included…. just fail to implement. Getting folks to follow just one good idea and seeing the results may motivate them to both want to learn more and to implement what they learn.

Comment by Paul — November 19, 2010 @ 11:49 pm
Since I’m not too sure the pumpkin is edible … this is what I’d do. I’d do a live simulcast of dropping off of the room of the Hilton hotel. We can have anyone who wants to watch give a $10 donation to Make-a-Wish (or the local food bank for the holidays) – and make it a virtual fundraiser, and have Interlink Supply sponsor the equipment to clean it up with a pressure washer.

There can be other pumpkins filled with different “stuff” that anyone who donates $100 gets to have dropped on their behalf. The one filled with green jello that gets revealed when it drops wins a BIG prize to be decided on.

So – it’s entertainment (we all like to see things explode), it’s a fundraiser for a good cause, and one lucky $100 donor gets to win a cool prize so it’s a raffle.

Maybe $200 gets them a watermelon… =) Just don’t drop a blood sausage… that would be wrong. Let’s keep the event Vegan. LOL…

Lisa

Comment by Lisa — November 20, 2010 @ 12:12 am
That’s supposed to be ROOF of the Hilton… not room…

=)

Comment by Lisa — November 20, 2010 @ 12:13 am
Don’t keep it around very long, it may spoil and you won’t be able to do anything with it at all.

Comment by Mark Sabre — November 20, 2010 @ 6:59 am
Joe & Lisa,

My suggestion is to make a “publicity donut”. It’s probably not what you think. A publicity “donut” is a video that can be distributed to all of your affiliates, members, subscribers,or whatever that they can then be granted a “license” to modify by placing their local identifying graphics in the “donut holes” left blank for that purpose. In this case, I’d suggest the following scenario:

1. Outdoor wedding party rehearsal ANNOUNCER Voice-Over: “Some carpet disasters can never be predicted.”
2. Great Pumpkin falls from out of clear blue sky, smashes on carpet behind the wedding party (in aisle between empty guest chairs).
3. Dismayed Bride and Groom
4. Honky-tonk/ragtime type piano music starts (i.e. a Scott Joplin tune) Keystone cops type carpet cleaners use a wheeled street cleaner garbage can and shovel to scoop up smashed pumpkin
5. Keystone cop carpet cleaner carefully whisks away an almost invisible speck of “dust” from carpet into a tiny dustpan, camera pulls back to reveal that huge “pumpkin stain” remains, including several large chunks of pumpkin.
6. Silent film style placard, ‘To the rescue’
7. Blank Silent film placard for local branding
8. Keystone style speeded motion, but professionally clad, uniformed carpet cleaners make the pumpkin stain disappear in seconds.
9. Bride and Groom kiss. Iris out to black screen.
10. Silent movie placard, “Happy Endings Every Time”
11. Silent movie placard of [insert] Local business name. ANNOUNCER Voice-over: “WE can guarantee your happy ending, every time.”
12. Telephone rings: Squeaky-unintelligible voice, then ANNOUNCER: “Divorce insurance? I’m sorry, we only do carpet cleaning and disaster recovery.” More Squeaky-voice, then ANNOUNCER: (volume fading out) “Well, yes that would be a disaster all right, but that’s just not the kind of ….”

Okay, it’s not Spielberg, but with the right casting it could be a Sedelmaier.

Sincerely,
Stafford “Doc” Williamson

p.s. One can distribute such a video for free by password protecting it as a private video on any of various online video sites. HD resolution is recommended for use on broadcast and cable channels.

Comment by Stafford "Doc" Williamson — November 20, 2010 @ 5:21 pm
Well thank you all for the serious and the funny comments and the video was…pretty funny!

This gives me some great ideas, I’ll keep you posted on what I decide to do this week!

Thanks,

JOE

PS and I’ll post a video that will be really valuable to making money and implementing soon!

Comment by Joe Polish — November 21, 2010 @ 2:38 am
What to do with a big a—pumpkin? You could collect the seeds from the inside and bake them in the oven then put salt on them to eat since they are really healthy for you. Only if there are no dangerous fertilizers that have been used on it. Typically in North Carolina when we have a pumpkin grown that big it is entered in the State Fair to win a ribbon for the largest grown pumpkin that can’t be eaten.

Ok so for my final answer I suggest that you cut out the bottom center in a circle then carve out a face put it on your head and wear it…..Just kidding…

I will try to be more serious this time….Send it to a client you are trying to close(or get a genius network with) letting them know that you decided to hand grow them this gift instead of getting them a dollar store puppet since they are a lot bigger and better than the average size pumpkin to you… Or you could say call me and I will gladly teach you how to grow excessively larger than average pumpkins in your life.

I feel sure that it will work!!!Ha, Ha, Ha!!!

Javita

Comment by Javita — November 22, 2010 @ 11:30 am
Partner up with a wonderful local bakery…have them make as many pumpkin pies and or bread as possible. Together with them, deliver to the Fire Stations, Ambulance Services and Police Departments in Phx. Not only will this make them all warm and fuzzy inside, for you thinking about them at this “giving” time, but hell, maybe it will get you out of a speeding ticket:)

Comment by Denise — November 22, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
Roast the seeds, auction seeds off for charity and take the gutted shell out to the desert and shoot at it until there’s nothing left! I heard huge pumpkins aren’t good for cooking.

Comment by Shelly — November 22, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
Joe, as we’re approaching Pantomime season here in the UK,why not put it in your parking bay and wait for it to turn into a coach & horses. You never know, Cinderella may just take you to the Ball.

Comment by Martyn — November 23, 2010 @ 11:05 am
Have people guess the weight or seeds in and give the winner a prize. The put it in the road and run it over.

Comment by Brad gouveia — November 23, 2010 @ 11:08 pm
Joe:

First thing: In the opening of this video, when you were straddling the pumkin, I’m really glad you were not wearing the kilt that you wore to the burning man event. That would have been ugly. Good fashion choice on your part.

You should take the seeds from that enormous pumkin and replant them so that you have 5 or 6 gigantic pumkins to deal with next year.

Hope all is well. The newsletter is working for my biz.
christhecleaner@gmail.com

Comment by Chris Weiler — November 24, 2010 @ 5:11 pm
Re-Gift!

Comment by Bettina Clifton — November 25, 2010 @ 10:20 am
…or sell the seeds. People pay good money for giant pumpkin seeds.

Comment by Bettina Clifton — November 25, 2010 @ 10:20 am
Joe,I just got the email for this blog and the Pumpkin “problem” I have created for you. You are hysterical! If the pumpkin has become a little rank and you decide not to eat it, throw it off a building, blow it up, or turn it into the office mascot….I will come to your office and pick it up. It will meet its demise in the back of one of our Newway garbage trucks. For good measure, I will kick in $500.00 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation too. I will bring the check to your office next week after I get back in town…and say my last goodbyes to my exceptionally large, orange friend.

Comment by Natalie McLaughlin — November 25, 2010 @ 8:57 pm