WHO IS THIS GUY TODD??

July 6, 2009

Ah Ha!!!    Now you’re curious …you might want to know more ….. and why wouldn’t you, there’s nothing wrong with that!!! …… I mean come on … who wouldn’t … you’re thinking … who is this guy? … hmmm … not bad… he doesn’t really look scary or creepy …. in fact he could be mistaken for dashingly handsome in a dark bar after a few drinks ….  looks like he has lots of cool friends …. and does lots of fun things ………. always surrounded by beautiful women …….. in these pics he is always tastefully dressed and has an impeccable haircut … hmmmm… now I think I see it ….  look closely …. right there ….. at that seductively devilish grin … starting to make sense now….…. ohhhhaaa ….. read his posts …. ha ha ha ha  … he is incredibly clever …. mmmmm ……look at all these pictures he takes of his friends doing cool things!!!! ….. WOW his friends look like they could be B-tier celebrities from these pictures …… ……I think that I want to be in his pictures too ….. ok that’s it… thats all I need to see!!

I’m sold!!! … This Todd guy will make the most perfect addition to my friends list!!!

*ADD FRIEND*

That was fun ….. but now …. weird … I really am oddly curious to learn more … the dude is certainly genius at marketing himself, no question there….

who is this guy Todd … where’s he from … what’s he doing???

Who……me? …… MEEEeee you ask? …… Well the details of my life are quite inconsequential ………. and I honestly don’t like to talk about myself …. but …. well …. if you insist …. here goes …….

1475 words about me!! (more then 2000 words qualifies as a manifesto and would be in poor taste for a FB note)

THE EARLY YEARS:

The saga begins ……… I grew up on the fringes of Amish horse and buggy farm villages: Payne, Ohio, population: 1166, in constant pursuit of adventure beyond what our community offered .

By age 10, influenced by role models like The A Team, Magnum PI and the Six Million Dollar Man, I dreamed of becoming an action hero …….. I obviously aced the marksmanship, improvised explosives, and car chase sections of the entrance exams…. however the action hero judges denied my application, citing: “lethargic hand speed and tortoise-like reflexes in multi-ninja ambush situations”, one judge added an observation of: “unacceptably clumsy and lumbering” in rooftop foot chases.

By age 13 it seemed wiser to get in touch with my artistic side and pursue a career as a rock star (which revealed that I couldn’t dance, lip-sync or command my fingers to reliably operate most musical instruments ….. and turns out …  that even I …….of all people!!!!! … scored under the rock star minimums in the extroversion, narcissism, and addictive behavior requisites).

HIGH SCHOOL:

At age 15 a fateful intervention uncovered that I might be better suited for journalism then music …. the unexpected product of a plea agreement with my school principal over an alleged “distribution of bootleg wine to minors on school grounds” charge.

The principal paraphrased the standard “idle time is the devil’s plaything” lecture as he issued my penance ….   donating my idle time to the high school newspaper.

Which as you might expect, quickly progressed into my friends and I starting our own version of the student newspaper … an uncensored, underground, Mad magazine meets High Times variation of a school newspaper: “The Scene”.

Weekly circulation grew magically into the thousands (well …….OK maybe more like 650 -2100 copies …… which in salesman’s math is THOUSANDS!!!!), astonishing us and the world with a devoted fan-base and a few hundred bucks a week in profits. The newspaper theme revolved around stories about our friends and the comedy of their everyday adventures, which taught me the underlying principals that drive Facebook, Reality TV and those wacky celebrity tabloids ………. It turns out that … the people you write about, good or bad, will buy your newspaper …. Apparently, we all love to read (or some of us: write) articles about ourselves …..especially some wicked gossip or swashbuckling tales of adventure that paint us in even the slightest favorable light.

The staff of “The Scene” quickly learned two very important life-changing lessons from the experience:

1. POWER: ALL people fear those who control the press including police, politicians and teachers
2. FAME: Even miniscule measure of fame will yield willing groupies.

Fortunately I got out at of guerilla publishing at the right time, after a year or so of near notoriety and prior to the libel and defamation of character lawsuits that were sure to follow, changes came along for me that reduced my involvement in the newspaper.

What happened next why did you leave the newspaper?

……Seriously? …. don’t  you ever get tired of talking about me?

OK …… if you insist…. well …

At age 16 my career path was rerouted, with the unexpected passing of my father, leading me along an unplanned but rewarding decade-long detour running my family’s grain farm…. (Obviously grain farming= high adventure with legions of adoring groupies).

Hmmmmm …. about now I see how these reflections illuminate the glaring irony at my current attempts to plan life in advance?

 

INTRODUCTION TO THE CAR BUSINESS:

So how in the world did you end up selling cars???

I was able to gradually diversify the grain farm to include auto sales and repair over the next decade, uncovering this persistent obsession for flooding the streets with cars that have my name on the bumper.

So…. then what you ask?……..well ok, skip forward …… after 13 years of grain farming, and 4 years of scheming up strategies to make millions in the automobile business, I turned Benschneider Auto over to my younger brother Chad, sold the farm and relocated to Ft Wayne, Indiana, to start from scratch and apply my clearly superior business philosophy (which hopefully should start yielding the desired results any day now)  on how the car business should operate in a larger market 🙂

More??  You still want more?  Well ….. OK …….

Committed to learning the automotive business from the ground up, I hired in to study the business model of a typical new car franchise at Crumback-Symons Chevrolet, paying my dues from the lube rack forward…… with the strategy to create a deep foundation for building my career upward into dealership management, beginning with a few years as an auto mechanic, while completing an Automotive Technology degree at Ivy Tech State College.

In the years that followed I learned that reputation alone is less effective in a large city of strangers then in was in rural America, so after Ivy Tech I beefed up my resume and arsenal of inside contacts at the General Motors Technical Service College in Detroit, becoming a GM Master Technician in Engine Performance, Electrical Systems and Engine Repair.

Now it doesn’t take a genius to notice that rarely do us tech nerds ascend to the top of the socioeconomic food chain, so I plotted out a second phase of my strategy to conquer the automotive world and followed technical school with coursework towards a degree in Business Administration – Organizational Psychology at Indiana University of Fort Wayne.

Then in 2008 I launched Phase 3 (sales/marketing) of my ingenious plot to take over the world’s automobile business, relocating to Tampa, FL to transition into sales, pursuing a big city market, inexpensive graduate school tuition and year round sunshine.

Nowadays, I’m putting the final touches on Phase 4 of my brilliant plan (profiling and recruiting the top industry talent) while also building a large base of loyal customers …… by providing every customer the same VIP treatment they might expect if they were buying a Mercedes or Ferrari.

Most recently I have shifted from marketing to completing (slowly… very, very slowly) an MBA-specializing in Management here at USF.

 

LOVE LIFE:  

About now you are probably thinking ….. I like this guy Todd …. I should to introduce him to my sister, best friend or daughter …. he seems like quite a catch … but you know …. I bet he probably already has a harem of Victoria’s Secret models … I mean the dude has serious game… OBVIOUSLY ……. I’m sure that he can probably have any two women he wants for threesome and tell one of his super models to run the video camera … he’s a truly skilled major league player … hell, he probably didn’t even need to use spell check when he wrote this!

So you want to know more? What about my love life? … i don’t know … that’s kind of personal …. Hmmm  …. OK then:

Well ….. fortunately my friend ….. I have an eye for talent, a sixth sense for character and a statistically reliable behavioral profiling questionnaire that enabled me to sift through all those celebrities, artists and future world leaders to find the perfect girl for me, because in real life juggling multiple hotties is not nearly as rewarding as spending all your time with the best one …….

……………………………………………….LOVE LIFE UNDER CONSTRUCTION ….. SOON TO BE CONTINUED…..

Aren’t you glad we are FB friends now!!!!!

07/06/09