Anomalies may not be the correct word to use but I cannot think
of another, more appropriate word.
In 1979 I think it was, my brother and I started the first video
dating service in the UK. It was based in London. It got off to a slow start
and we decided to give it a boost by having a mass get-together of strangers.
We placed an advert in Time Out, telling singles that if they
wished to meet new people then we were throwing a party on such and such a day.
We set everything in place, got lots of food in and really put a huge effort
into presentation.
Nobody turned up. Not a single soul knocked on the door. What to
do?
We placed another advert in Time Out the following week, apologizing for having to turn people away from last week’s event. But to
accommodate all those who had made the effort, and at great expense, we were
going to repeat the event this week and made a special plea for those who had
been to last week’s do, please don’t turn up this week and thereby give others a
chance to join in!
This time we packed the house out and really did have to turn
people away!
Some years ago when the web was in its infancy our website had a
forum for people to air their views. It was not as sophisticated as today’s
forums but worked well enough. It was exceedingly slow to take off.
One day a lady posted a message saying she had been ripped off by
a scam that was going the rounds – I cannot remember what it was. Almost
overnight we were flooded with hundreds of replies to this message about the
same or similar scams. In the end and over the next couple of years we had over
10,000 entries.
Due to the advent of broadband we implemented a new design, a new
messaging system and have had about 2 entries during the past 10 years.
Frustrating or what!! I don’t have a smart answer for this one.
Another thing. We published a magazine called Positive Health and
had a sales staff selling adverts. When an ad was placed you could be sure that
if you made a spelling mistake, or any other kind of error, the ad’s owner
would be on the phone telling you how you were ruining their business and they
would not pay for the advert. We usually placed another advert the following
month, for free.
Today, the adverts are online, for the same publication. Most of
the advertisers never even look at their adverts! They will pay hundreds of
pounds for ads that run all year long but they never go in and check them.
How do I know? Sometime when we speak to them on the phone they
tell us they’d forgotten about it. Or they were so busy they had no time to
check it out. Sometimes as I go through the listings I can see some are out of
date, or the website no longer works because they have changed it, etc. I make
the changes for them but they never seem to know.
Why is it that business people will pay quite substantial sums
for adverts on the internet and never look at them? Unlike the past, and
probably the present day as well, when these adverts are in paper format they
check every word, every comma. It's very strange and must be a feature of the medium. I think!
In the mid sixties I used to hang out at a store that specialized
in selling pool or snooker tables. Because of my past experience with the game
I was still sharp and the owner let me play about on the tables from time to
time.
One day he told me he was going to close the store, as sales were
slow. He had hired a couple of guys to improve his marketing and sales and they
had implemented a large mail-out to the more affluent parts of the city but two
salesmen were unable to get a single sale out of the program. I asked him if I
could make a couple of calls that night. He agreed and I made two calls. And
got two sales.
On the first visit the guy said he liked the product and would call
into the shop sometime and have a more detailed look. Of course, they never did
so no sales were made as a result of a house call. I said we would put a table
into his basement that Friday, for free, and I would call him on Monday. He had
to give me a post-dated check for the Monday. If he wanted to go ahead we would
cash the check, if not we’d collect the table and give him back his check. When I told the shop owner what I'd promised he was unhappy because he thought they would return the tables and he would be out of pocket.
In fact, it worked a treat and I ended up making $1,000 a week in
commission that winter just working in the evenings as I already had a day job.
The following winter he asked me to open a shop in Victoria, on
Vancouver Island. I did that and we had a good winter selling from the shop. In
the spring the idea was to close the shop, as he did in Vancouver every year,
since nobody bought pool tables in the summer.
I had an idea and asked if I could try it out. He said okay so I
went ahead with the following.
I placed an advert in the local paper and said we would swap
anything of value for a pool table. I could have sold all 20 tables the day the
advert came out. In the end I did get rid of the lot, for cars, boats,
furniture and much more. I had a friend who knew about cars and boats and
formed an alliance with a small auction house to view furniture and so on.
It worked on the basis that as long as I got cash to cover the
cost of the table and overheads, I got the other items for free! All the tables
(about 20) were gone within a week but I was not able to get any more since the
owner in Vancouver had shut down the production line at the end of the winter.
I can only recount my own experiences but it shows that sometimes
when all seems to be lost, a slight change can make the difference between
success and failure.
This started off as business anomalies but veered off into
something else. That’s what happens with anomalies!
