One of the most respectable Moves I’ve ever witnessed was at a small convenience store in Seattle called the Eastlake Market.
It was fairly crumby and benefited from being one of the only stores in the general area – and the only one that sold beer and wine until 2 a.m. – which is the only time I ever saw people in there.
Since the Market knew that their main customer base was drunkards, they would stock the store with all kinds of ridiculous items that drunk people would be drawn to – dart guns, hand-buzzers, Batman masks, life-sized cardboard cutouts of Row Lowe, whatever. I suspect this is how they made the bulk of their profits.
I don’t know how common the tactic of stocking your store primarily with regrettable impulse-buys is, but this store took it entirely to a new level, because – featured prominently in the center of the store, sitting on podium of Bud Light cases was this:
The price? $999.99
These people were geniuses. They would simply plop this thing down in the middle of the store, drastically mark up the price, and then wait for some drunken fool to purchase it. Who knows how long it sat there, but I guarantee that some manic-depressive eventually bought it, at which point the store’s owners would sit another one there before anyone noticed.
Genius.
Forget Powerball – the day that bike sold was the day that the Korean owners of that store won the lottery.
So, there is a lesson to be learned from this.
Let’s say you buy a used car for $5000. I would immediately put a For Sale sign in it for approximately $50,000. You might drive around for a year without a call, maybe even ten years.
But eventually, whether some Persian Sheik’s 19 year-old son without a strong command of the currency is going to want to buy a car to blow up with illegal fireworks outside of Vegas, or just some old guy who really likes 1989 Volvos wants to relive his youth – someone will eventually give you your asking price.
Let’s say you’re in the dating game. Take out an ad that states the following:
5’8″ male. 230 pounds. $400 in bank account. Chronically depressed. Seeking 21-28 year-old swimsuit model with no visible scars. Must have appeared on the cover of at least one top-tier magazine.
If you blast this out to every dating website, every newspaper – in the world – I guarantee you’ll get at least one valid response, at which point you should strongly consider parking your forklift and moving to Rio.
Extrapolate this to whatever avenue in life you desire – but you can only have one of these ventures going at any given time, otherwise people won’t take you seriously. You’ll just be that weird guy with a bunch of shit in his yard that people are afraid of.
Swing for the fences my friends!