I’ve always believed that the majority is usually wrong, so whatever everyone else is doing, I instinctively do the opposite. This has served me very well in business.
When I started a legal services company in the early ’80s, the profession was a closed shop that moved at a snail’s pace. I began advertising a same-day service at a reasonable price, and employing kids from the wrong side of the tracks, with accents the like of which had never been heard in the hallowed halls of the Four Courts.
You know what they say: there's only one thing worse than being talked about, and that's not being talked about, and believe me, we were the talk of the town. Solicitors flocked to us in droves, and before long, I had the biggest legal services company in the country.
Later, when my brother and I ran holiday apartments in Amsterdam, we applied the same principle: give more for less than anyone else, and it worked like a dream. We climbed to number one on TripAdvisor, beating all of the five-star hotels, and for several years, until the authorities shut us down, we had 100% occupancy.
One of our apartments was opposite the Anne Frank House. It was an attic apartment, cheap and basic, so naturally we called it The Anne Frank Apartment, with the tagline “Live like Anne Frank.” This was back before the world lost its sense of humour, and you could still poke fun at sacred cows without offending all and sundry. Few noticed, and anybody who did had a chuckle.
But then a Jewish website got wind of it and branded us disgraceful and antisemitic. Others followed suit, each linking back to our website. When The Huffington Postpicked up the story, that one powerful backlink catapulted us to the top of Google’s rankings, without us spending a penny on advertising.
You have to be odd to be number one!
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking 'When has doing the unexpected, unconventional or simply different thing to other people worked in your advantage?'
The images are mine
