I know a guy that has a school.
It is a special school. He has four sessions a year. Each session is for two weeks. His students come from all over the country. His only advertisement is in a trade magazine and word of mouth. That is all the advertising that he does. His father is a partner in the business. His father is in semi-retirement and only teaches at the school.
The school got the chance to make a television commercial. The cost of the commercial was substantial. The benefits of the commercial were not clear. Even though the students came from all over the country, there is no way that the school could afford a national television presence.
His father told him to make the commercial anyway. His father said that the money was substantial but there is probably something that would come out of taking this risk of making a commercial with no apparent value.
They did run the commercial once on local TV. Nothing came of the commercial running on local TV. A year later the risk of making a commercial came to fruition. The commercial was picked up by a TV show called “Commercials you may not have seen.”
The television show plays funny commercials and the commercial for the school was played several times on national television. Word spread and the inquiries for the school increased 100%.
The commercial turned out to be a great investment. Even though the school knew of no apparent benefit, they took a chance and reaped the benefits of taking a chance.
Now the school teaches a class on taking a chance with your business. Years have gone by since the school had the commercial filmed. Their funny commercial still gets played on national television about once a year. The school couldn’t afford this kind of publicity if it wasn’t for this commercial that seemed to drop out of nowhere.
The whole point of this story is to take a chance. Sometimes things come before you that don’t make good financial sense. That might be the thing that you need to do anyway.
That chance could be financial or maybe just going to something different. It might be making a trip or visiting someone. Answering a phone call or maybe writing a letter could make all the difference.
You never know whether the chance that comes before you will be of any benefit, but we regret the chances we don’t take a lot more than the chances we do take.
Take a chance.
