As a kid we all hated when that bratty brother or sister, cousin or more distant relative or friend, told on us.  Made you want to do bodily harm to the you know what, now didn’t it?  Right now I have one of those here in Costa Rica.  His name is Nik Clayton and he is “blogging on me.”  Thankfully, everything he has said so far has been positive.  I hope to keep it that way.  In fact, it comes to mind that the best way to get royal treatment (which is somewhat of a pun in this case as Nik is decidedly British) is to blog about your experience.  Something about having the quality (or lack thereof) of one’s services aired to the entire blogosphere that makes you stand a little straighter and be as polite and accommodating as possible.  Just kidding with all that.  Of course we welcome the spotlight of Nik’s blog, entitled, Try Before You Buy.  My company designs and manages Costa Rica vacation experiences, and from what Nik has written so far, his is turning out to be one of those memorable ones that we shoot for.  Sometimes we miss the mark a tad, normally due to circumstances outside of our control, but that is rare.  Why?  Because we don’t simply sell travel sitting in a U.S. call center, passing you off to an airline or discounted hotel room in a place we’ve never been, and not really caring what happens after the chi-ching of the sale has been completed.  We love Costa Rica ourselves and get a real kick out of sharing it with others.  Lately, due to economic woes, there just haven’t been enough “others,” but hopefully the tide is beginning to change a bit in that regard.  Costa Rica is indeed a magical place as Nik is finding out first hand.  I encourage you to peruse the diary of his Costa Rica vacation and then book one of those for yourselves…with Package Costa Rica of course!

Try Before You Buy - Nik’s Blog

Have you ever raised, or taken part in raising, a “strong-willed” child?  You know the one that always goes left when you say say right and up when you say down.  Well this morning I am not going to talk about children, but customers (who, frankly, often behave as children)…and it seems that 99.99% of them fit into the “strong-willed” category.  I have heard it said that customers want to buy, but loathe to be sold.  They usually recoil, or rebel, at the attempt.  It seems the easy part about business is matching a need with a product, or a service, that will supply it, but then the hard part is that psychological element of convincing those strong-willed customers that you are the best alternative.  Usually you can’t just tell them that, since (1) they won’t believe you and (2) it probably isn’t true in the first place.  No there is some other element at work here.  I believe that is where “artistry” in business, or in sales, must come into play.  Where building rapport matters, because customers want to buy from someone they feel good buying from, someone they like, someone they trust.  So how do you “pull that off?”  Well get the notion of pulling it off out of your head.  It can’t be done that way.  They will see right through any attempts to manipulate.  I believe it is in giving away your art, something that really they can’t afford to pay for anyway.  Like your wisdom and knowledge borne from years of experience and hard knocks.  With Package Costa Rica, the Costa Rica vacation designer and manager, we often find ourselves in a virtual bidding war with some cut rate travel agency in the U.S., trying to sell Costa Rica hotel rooms at incredibly cheap prices.  If that’s all the customer is looking for, i.e., a cheap room, then we lose.  But if they want something money really can’t buy and something which we joyfully give away, i.e., our deep knowledge and love for this country and heartfelt desire for others to have an incredible experience of it, then maybe we can win.  I guess solving the problem of the strong willed customer comes in knowing your customer first, and then giving away the time and effort to demonstrate that you really care.  And finally delivering on that promise so that they become raving fans.

Several years ago, I believe it was early 2001, I attended a seminar by the master of motivation, Anthony Robbins. The seminar was called “Date with Destiny.” I have to admit it was a very impactful experience and in many ways marked a change in the course of my life that continues to this day. The one thing that had the strongest lasting impact was my development of a “statement of purpose” for my life. It was supposed to be a constitution of sorts that would guide all my life’s goals. In the same way that the Congress can never make laws that contravene the constitution, I could never set goals that would take me in a different direction than what my life’s purpose demanded. Since that time I have set and re-set goals for my life many times over. However, I have never changed that statement and it remains a guiding force in my life. I have always kept it in a very personal place and have been reluctant to divulge its contents to anyone other than those that have my complete trust. After all it is important to me and I don’t desire to subject it to criticism or ridicule…..it is my personal statement developed at a time when I was highly emotionally charged to write it to have profound meaning for me. However, since I have divulged so much information in this blog, which in many ways has served as a catharsis for me, I will take the bold step of presenting it here in this post. So here goes…..the purpose of my life is to be a vessel overflowing with abundant life and to pour it out so that others might be fulfilled. In the past couple years I began to look at that statement and question exactly what I meant by “abundant life.” Was it life in some religious sense, or in the secular realm, or a combination of both? So I came up with the following statement of what the term “abundant life” means to me. Abundant life is a life constrained only by a sincere desire to be and to do good and to have a positive influence on this world. These statements are meant to form a signal, or road sign if you will, that constantly directs me towards a pre-determined course. The overriding goal is to finally reach the end of that course (and we all know what that means….cuz we’re all going to reach that end some day) and be able to look back and say, yea, even though there were many detours along the way, I did stay consistent with that general direction. I am proud that my statement is not all about me. Because our lives should not be all about us. There is a world out there that we were put here to have an influence on. And as Robbins often says, that influence can either be as an example, or as a warning. I guess it could also be a little bit of both, as mine certainly has been. At the age of 48 and considering that longevity fortunately has “run in the family,” I am a little more than half-way through the journey. The post of a few days ago (Mired in Mediocrity) may have given the signal that I am woefully dissatisfied with my life. Matías, one of my employees here at Package Costa Rica, read that post and commented that he thought I was being way too hard on myself. I guess he’s right. The idea that my life is at this point “mediocre” had much to do with feelings about materiality. That “materially” I am not where I would like to be. But my purpose statement really has nothing at all to do with material, now does it? I could die completely destitute and still have fulfilled it. In fact, the whole idea that “he who dies with the most toys wins” is completely contrary to my statement of purpose. It is more about giving than taking. So I guess I will “take” back what I said in that post about my life being “mired in mediocrity.” It was just me throwing a little personal pity party. There are so many non-material things that I have right now that I should be thankful for. I am also grateful to have a statement of purpose that inspires me in good times, as well as those not so “good.” What’s your purpose? Do you know? Shouldn’t you know?

One question that I frequently get asked is….so, Scott, how did you end up in Costa Rica?  What’s your story?  I usually respond by asking them how much time they have.  Since I don’t believe I have addressed that question in this blog, here goes…..caution: I don’t recommend that anyone else out there follow the same route…..

I was practicing law back in the late 90’s in Charlotte, North Carolina when I got the idea that I wasn’t really cut out for the legal profession. I decided to get involved with a golf-related travel company in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That didn’t last too long, however, and I found myself in the non-enviable position of being jobless after having recently changed careers. After much soul-searching I came up with the idea of starting a company that would help small business owners with exit strategies. That company was called Live Oak Capital Advisors. Over the ensuing years I served as advisor to companies of all types from technology to manufacturing. One day, as fate would have it, I stumbled upon a deal with a privately-owned university in San Jose, Costa Rica (a referral I received from an attorney in Greensboro, North Carolina of all places). That was in 2001 and this deal brought me to Costa Rica for the first time. For some reason, the owner of the university (known at that time as Universidad Interamericana) took a liking to me and ended up hiring my small firm to help him find a buyer. Two years later the deal closed and Universidad Interamericana, with campuses in Heredia, Costa Rica and Panama City, Panama, became the property of Laureate Education (formerly Sylvan) of Baltimore, Maryland, a publicly-traded education company with campuses around the world. Since then Laureate has gone on to make several more acquisitions in Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras and as a consequence has become the major player in private education in this region.

During the course of the ups and downs in that deal many things happened to me both on personal and professional levels. On a professional level during the time spent here I began to notice that Costa Rica had the potential of becoming a tourism juggernaut in this region of the world. Therefore, I got the idea of launching a travel company which I still own and operate, Package Costa Rica. On a personal level I found myself, as a consequence of poor decisions on my part, divorced and homeless. So I moved to Costa Rica permanently to pursue life and love.  And the rest, as they say, is history. I began Package Costa Rica in 2004 and since then we have brought well over 1,000 tourists to this country. I continue to remain wildly optimistic that we have barely seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of tourism growth in this country. Following the explosive tourism growth we have also experienced a real estate boom. That has been both good and bad. Good in the sense that it has brought much foreign capital to a country that needs it. Bad in the sense that uncontrolled growth, and some of it has indeed been “uncontrolled,” threatens the very reasons that so many people are drawn to this country to begin with. That is, its unrivaled natural beauty and overwhelming biological diversity. I am now tapping my past experience in business, tourism, marketing, law and deal-making to assist those who would like to develop here, or transition to Costa Rican life.  However, in my role as consultant I will seek to work only with those that possess a “sustainable” mindset in terms of their Costa Rica objectives. That is, “sustainable” in terms of sustaining the resources that make Costa Rica so special, its natural splendor and its people, so that generations to come will be able to enjoy this country in the way that I have had the privilege to enjoy it.  You see, I may have come here in 2001 with nothing in common with the ticos (Costa Ricans).  However, now I consider myself (as we like to say here) “mas tico que gallo pinto.”  That is, more Costa Rican than the typical meal known as gallo pinto that is served at almost every breakfast.

So there you have it, my Costa Rica story.  This story appears in relatively the same form on my Costa Rica Guy site, a site I am in the process of revising.  Stay tuned for more!