We’ve had our house for about three years. Every time I mow the grass, especially the back yard, I think about finally putting in the work to actually make it look good.
Not that it’s awful. More than anything it’s around the fence line…tons of giant weeds and vines and overall ugliness.
I didn’t really expect to tackle this momentous project this year, but one afternoon last week my wife asked me to rake out one of the flower beds in the front of the house…
…and you know what that turned in to.
I expected wrong. We are doing the momentous project this year.
So I began clearing the brush and weeds and nasty. I did this for days…ok, fine…I did this for afternoons.
We piled everything next to the street because Nashville has free (“free”) brush pick up a few times each year.
But here was the problem…the pile was getting giant, at least the size of a Cadillac Escalade, and I found out brush pick up isn’t for another two months.
And so the pile continued to grow.
I’ll spare you a few details and say…ain’t no way that brush pile was going to stay in our yard for two months.
Time to look for someone to haul away our dead mountain of nature.
I get on the internet and find some companies. I call. It’s expensive. I’d go so far as to say very expensive.
There must be a better way. We can’t burn it, we can’t bag it up, we can’t wait for brush pick up.
And then after a couple more hours in the yard I discovered the flip.
Instead starting by looking for someone who could do what I needed, I would start by OFFERING the thing I would GIVE…which was $60.
It looked like this on Craigslist…I will give $60 to whoever will come and take away this huge brush pile.
I put up the offer and in ten minutes I had six people wanting the job. No lie.
I hired Brian and he was at my house first thing the next morning and did a wonderful job.
See…in this context I went first, I made an offer for someone to respond to…as opposed to me responding to brush haul-away companies’ offers I found on the internet.
It’s the slight twist that makes a difference. Going first makes a difference. Starting with what you will give makes a difference. Starting with “Who wants $60” is a different perspective than starting with “I need you to do this for me”.
Feel free to use this Craigslist trick to your benefit…but the real value is in understanding why the idea works stretching it so much further.
p.s. The goal isn’t always about the cheapest price, but in this case I didn’t care about how nice the truck and trailer were and how professional the decal was on the side of it. I needed sticks and leaves to be picked up, and I had $60 to give.
Would I have been able to find someone to do it for $40? Probably. But I guess I’ll never know. That’s not how going first works. When you go first you lay it out there and work with what happens.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com
