I asked you early on in the series to think about the answer to this question:
“Why did you get into business in the first place?”
I promised I’d tell you a story about how I learned the hard way that my answer to this very question, turned out to be the key that unlocked my digital marketing success.
It was the mid 1990’s. A house full of backpackers (international working holiday makers) had moved into a house down the street from my first property in the inner city of Sydney, Australia. I had just returned home from three years’ travelling myself, I was drawn to knowing them.
We were all part of a traveller tribe that exceeded international borders.
The house they were living in was no bigger than my first investment property. It was filthy. They were living like animals. The house had 12 people living in it. 3 people per bedroom (4 rooms), each paying $80 per week rent.
That’s over $1000 a week for a rental property worth $270. Nearly 4 times the average rental return on similar properties in our area, needless to say light bulbs went off in my entrepreneurial brain.
I spent time picking their brains...
I soon learned the qualities they valued in how they lived had nothing to do with how I perceived they should be. It wasn’t about hygiene, space, privacy or price per square meter.
It was about a unique experience with like-minded peers from around the world, living in a unique shared living community. They knew they would never experience this again. The negatives were something they happily endured because the upside was so darn good.
Not for Want of Trying
What did surprise me was to learn that housemates were always trialling new cleaning systems. They implemented rules to minimize the negative aspects of what was otherwise, a perfect party lifestyle.
You see, when you share a room in a share house designed for 4 people, with 12, you have no privacy, everything and everybody became one.
A living organism "per-se".
The group dynamic means individuals become co dependant on one and other for the mood of the entire house. Negativity spreads like a cancer and will eventually kill a positive group dynamic that these people had become addicted to.
They all seemed cognisant of the fact that a code of ethics was required to dilute the negatives, for prolonged highs.
Problems only surfaced when someone repeatedly broke this unspoken code of ethics. When it did happen it was hard for anyone who was part of the group to arbitrate, judge, or enforce a change in another member’s behavior.
What would happen is they would all be thinking the same thing. The “one thing” that needed to be said. But no one would say it. Because when someone did, some would turn on them, others would take sides and hang them out to dry.
This was "my hook".
These guys acknowledged that for this lifestyle to be better, it would require someone within the house to sacrifice their persona to play a role as 3rd party police enforcer.
To do the houses dirty work for them.
This could not work unless the enforcer was from the same tribe (with a traveller mind-set),
...but not one of this households tribe.
The house cop couldn’t be anyone who didn’t understand what drew these people to want to live the way they were living.
I seized this opportunity and within weeks, had invited the group to live in my place.
I moved out.
They moved in.
I bought new furniture and made my property the "Taj Mahal" compared to the dump where they were living.
My selling point was that my house had rules, I would enforce them (the third party who did not live with them).
It Was a Counter Intuitive Hook Only an Insider Could have Uncovered, but Worth Millions...
I would also have lodgers’ agreements, collect deposits and rents individually, so none of them had to do it. Another known sticking point.
I made it clear that anyone breaking their agreed terms would be asked to leave.
To Be Continued:
($)leeping With the Enemy...
Be Interested. Not Interesting!
Simon U Ford
Engage Smarter!
P.S. Humbled beginnings quickly grew into an 8 figure business. I’ll tell you why in my next post.
P.S.S. The lesson I learned by reflecting on what got me into business in the first instance (that changed my online business fortunes) is build into this story, continued over the next 3 [SMARTER] eMails.