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Introduction
Occasionally, while surfing the net
and browsing compuserve forums, I come across a gem.
The following was posted byRon
Tucker,76106.2164@compuserve.com
and is reproduced with permission.
Mike Choroszewski. (editor)
AMCHO Computer Services Ltd.
http://www.amcho.com
Somewhere around 1981-82, I decided to take a sabbatical from business for a couple of years, went up to North Carolina and bought some property, built me a nice cabin 14 miles back from the nearest power line, went down to Mother Earth News outside of Hendersonville, N.C., got a set of prints on how to build a water wheel for electrical power, put one together and ran what I needed, i.e., refrigerator, etc., from that source, sat back and did something that I had not had time to do for some time, paint.
My art has sold well over the years and I am considered a fairly good artist. After painting for a while I decided to go into Waynesville, N.C., the closest town of any size to me, and find a place that I could put up some of my art and sell a few items if possible, if not, just mingle with humanity again for some company.
The only location that attracted a lot of visitors in the area was a large flea market. So I went in, talked to a guy who was painting old saw blades with very rustic scenes from the mountains, about using some of his space and helping him to pay for the area in order to set up some of my paintings and maybe so some portraits for people, etc..
End result was that I could not give away any of my paintings but he could not paint the saw blades fast enough. Keep in mind that his work was basically equal to what you might see a kid in elementary school do. However, he was getting $75 a piece and, although, some of the strollers stopped and looked at my work, I sold none.
Also keep in mind that a lot of these visitors were persons, primarily from the East Coast of Florida who could afford basically anything that they wanted to purchase, that were purchasing these saw blades.
It finally occurred to me that they could purchase good paintings at home but they had a cabin here in the mountains, or a second home, and they wanted something rustic to put in it, not what would be considered gallery quality art.
I took all of my paintings back to the cabin, sent some to an agent that works with me in Atlanta, who sold most them in a few weeks, and decided that I could sell something at that flea market.
So I gathered drift wood, cleaned it up, gathered pretty flint rocks, cleaned them up and sorted them according to size, took them back to the flea market, rented some space from the same guy again and put my rocks on the table and labelled them "GENUINE NORTH CAROLINA PAPER WEIGHTS", priced from 50 cents to $5.00, depending on size. Do I need to tell you that I sold all of them before the day was out, even though the visitors walked over thousands of rocks to get into the flea market?
Oh, what did I do with the drift wood?!!! I set up a route to florists to provide them the drift wood in various sizes so that they could use them in their floral designs, had to hire a guy to run the route after just a short time and finally sold the business to him.
What am I saying? Only, that the obvious is not the way that works some of the time. I owned an advertising and marketing company for 19 years as well as other businesses that I have developed, consequently, I thought that I knew marketing but that old fellow painting those saws taught me a lesson.
Ron Tucker,76106.2164@compuserve.com
The above is true story and one that I learned a lesson from myself. Things such as that happening over the years have proved to me beyond any question that we need to start with the basics in any given situation to make things work. As you build you can add different variations, discard those that do not work and continue on with those that do.
I have been an Adverse Finance Consultant for over 35 years, following those exact guidelines have worked in solving my clients needs during that time 85% of the time. I work in those areas that the average bank and lending source does not want to go i.e., start up situations, new products, new inventions, individuals, companies, corporations etc., that have made considerable money in the past but are now floundering and just short of filing bankruptcy or re-organization and I usually have very limited time in order to make things work for my clients else they are out of business and I do not get paid.
Although I have to invent new ways of doing the obvious, the same truth holds steady, start with the basics and direct it toward a need with ability to perform, works in a difficult situation 85% of the time, which, incidentally, is higher that the average percentage of "good situations" working.
Ron
Tucker,76106.2164@compuserve.com
President/CEO Feasible Concepts, Inc.
The National Flea Market Association of Owners & Managers
UNITED, INC. Charlotte, North Carolina
"Our mission at UNITED, INC. is to be a catalyst for promoting the existing flea market industry nation wide".