The Stern Opportunity

As you gear up to go abroad, wandering through classes with your head stuck in Tanzania, India, Japan, or even Monaco, you may want to make sure you keep your business hat on while exploring the wonders of the world. Some of you may even be lucky enough to explore the wonders of the heart.

 Yes, you know what I'm talking about: Spring Break, where the only lesson you have to focus on is "Having Fun 101." Here is some practical, tangible B-school know-how for successfully vetting through what could be deemed as short-term value play.

First, quickly assess the opportunity and position yourself appropriately. For this, I suggest using a few market imperfections to your advantage:

1. Information asymmetry: do your homework by looking up some fun facts of your destination. With this insider information, other explorers will see you as a valuable resource, a person critical to discovering new areas. Those same esoteric Jeopardy! facts which were once viewed as dorky on family trips will make you unique and interesting. For those skeptics, maybe the change of environment will bring about a change of viewpoint. That douche bag (or so you thought) back at school may come to light as not only a decent conversationalist, but someone with an interesting background in safari-going and a plethora of National Geographic episodes under his belt.

2. Externalities: being in a new place, people are a bit more prone to risk-taking and primed for adventure. Use this to your advantage by being spontaneous in expressing your feelings or other random acts of expression (alcohol usually seems to facilitate this, or at least is found to be highly correlated to success in doing so). With only a few days but an almost oppressive amount of time together, my previous trip to Peru featured vacationers who were emotionally open, resulting in me opening up personally and learning more about myself. In an environment where there is pressure to maximize the limited time spent together with a love interest, surprisingly, the vacation even broke down barriers in what I thought was most important in the "type" of guy I like to date. Important lessons I learned: language knows no boundaries, and never underestimate chemistry, despite initial impressions.

Once you've established some ground with a love interest and are ready to "close the deal," you'll need to keep in mind what a business-minded salesperson must identify in order to be successful. If you want to carry over that short-term excitement of a fling into something more meaningful, be sure to familiarize yourself with the players that can stand in the way of building the relationship.

The Players: A. Decision Maker Traditional Definition: This nomenclature is self-explanatory. Action Item: get the decision maker to say yes! Spring Break/Relationship Definition: The girl/guy that is going to either kiss the daylights out of you, or make you cry like a baby with a "Thanks, but no thanks" rejection

B. Gatekeeper Traditional Definition: The person who is in control of access to decision maker and decision influencer. Action item: Do something to make sure that the gatekeeper feels human. Connect with the gatekeeper. Spring Break/Relationship Definition: This may be that gal's BFF who is effectively attached to her hip, or the guy's obnoxious buddy that is annoyingly recounting one inside joke after another. Your mandate: validate the gatekeeper, and make him/her feel appreciated, not ignored.

C. Spoiler Traditional Definition: Someone or something outside of the buying process that has the potential to stop it. Action item: You learn to look around for what could go wrong. Diffuse the surprise of a spoiler: put it all out on the table. Competitive sales person is by definition a spoiler. Spring Break/Relationship Definition: This is the other guy that seems to also have an eye out on your girl, or that pretty little thing that is batting her eyes at your man every time you look her way. Readers may know this as the colloquial "cockblock." Your mandate: at first, just be observant of the interaction between your love interest and your competition. When the timing is right, be ballsy and admit to your target that you know there's competition, but that he/she will be happier exploring [insert destination name here] with you.

What is key to closing the deal (in the short run), and building a relationship strategy (in the long run) is to identify the Important Decision Makers and Decision Influencers. A winning salesperson will bridge that difference better than your competitor. He/she will be great at reading the other person and determining what their style will be. The mandate: Confirm their style. Adapt your own style. Re-confirm their style. Re-adapt your style. As you experience different sights, sounds, and cultures, pay attention to how other people in other parts of the world communicate and relate to one another. Be sensitive to how powerful it can be to truly read the other person.

Spring break/vacation is an opportunity not only to explore different parts of the world, but some unfamiliar parts of more familiar territory, yourself. In just a short time span, you can reap a huge benefit of learning some important previously hidden aspect of yourself. In these few days you'll have a chance to acquire new stamps on your passport, and additionally, a chance to open your mind and heart to new lessons of lust, life and possibly, love.

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