Howdy. Hope all is well.
We had an old friend of mine stay with us in September.
Greg and his 3 young daughters stayed for a couple of weeks and had a nice holiday. (Greg is single)
One day Greg and the girls wandered down to a place called Byron Bay - a seaside village about an hour away. They had a swim and ended up in a cafe by the water's edge.
Greg noticed a hairdressing salon beside the cafe - and here the story gets interesting.
Caught the bus together everyday for 10 years
You see, 21 years ago Greg was a boy of 16 living 3,000km away from Byron Bay. He caught the bus to his local school every day since he was 6. And for every one of those days he sat next to the same girl.
He told me later he had a crush on her, but never got up the courage to ask her out (us men, for all our bravado, are generally very slow).
Anyway, the girl moved away at age 16 to Byron Bay. Greg heard she started hairdressing, but he never heard from her again. And that was the end of that....................
Greg finished his coffee that day in September of last year in Byron Bay. He had a hunch. He walked into the hairdressing salon and said something along the lines of:
"I know it's probably a silly question, but an old friend of mine moved up here about 20 years ago and I'm pretty sure she is a hairdresser. You don't happen to know of a Mary-Ellen Price?"
There are 40 hairdressing salons in Byron Bay. Mary-Ellen owned the one Greg walked into.
But Mary-Ellen only worked 1 day a week in the business.
And she was standing about 10 feet from Greg.
By the time he walked out an hour later Greg was in love. And so was Mary-Ellen. Luckily it was with each other! Greg tossed in his career (he was a policeman) a few weeks later and moved up to Byron Bay 3 months ago.
And you thought this was a marketing web site - sounding like a Mills and Boon!
Last night, Mel and I met some old friends (Pete and Sarah) for dinner from Tasmania (3,000 km away) who were up for a wedding. We hadn't seen each other for 2 years and had a good old chat.
At one stage during the night I told Pete and Sarah the story of my mate Greg. I got to the bit about catching the bus every day with this girl and Sarah suddenly says "Mary-Ellen Price!"
I hadn't told Sarah the story before. It turns out that she was a good friend of Mary-Ellen's and had already heard the story from a friend of Mary-Ellen's!
Small world really.
Sarah loved the story. My wife gets teary just thinking about the story.
But it is a good story. Good enough to be told in the same way by 2 people who don't know each other. Good enough to make it onto this highly advanced blog!
People love telling stories. Have a listen tomorrow and you'll see that it's a big part of the way we communicate. And as silly as it sounds, the love story of Greg and Mary-Ellen is a fantastic example of marketing.
People talk about great things. And people talk about bad things.
Do something incredible in your business. Something amazing. Something completely unexpected. It will get people talking about your business. And that's the strongest, most effective way I can suggest you market.
Have a great weekend.
Brendon
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