Once upon a time there was a little girl whose parents were hosting a yard sale. This little girl knew from what her parents told her that people were going to visit their home and offer them money in exchange for their items. She thought this was a great idea because she could use money to buy all of her favorite things. But the little girl didn't have anything of her own to sell. The only thing she had was an old box of crayons. She did have many different colors of crayons most of them were broken and missing their labels and would have no value to anyone else.
While the tables for the yard sale were being set up, her parents sat the little girl down at a small table off to the side to keep her out of the way. She had her crayons but no paper because it would have blown away in the wind. She gazed around the yard, looking for something to color and spotted a tan river rock that was a part of the rocks in the driveway. She happily sat at her table in the morning sun coloring away at her rock until the first customers of the yard sale began to show up.
A very nice lady came over to her little table and exclaimed, "Oh how pretty! Are you making a pet rock?" The little girl didn't know what a pet rock was but nodded anyways. "Would you take a quarter for your pet rock?" The little girl nodded vigorously. A quarter would buy her some bubblegum out of the machine at the grocery store. What a deal! The lady handed over a quarter and was the proud new owner of a one of a kind pet rock. The little girl bent down, picked another rock out of the driveway and began to color anew.
Soon an older gentleman stopped at her table, "What do you have there?" "A pet rock!" The little girl chirped. "Oh? Well, I'd give you fifty cents to have my own pet rock. " "Ok!" The little girl smiled. The man paid for his new pet rock and the little girl picked a brand new stone from the driveway. The process repeated itself again and again throughout the morning and by the end of the yard sale the little girl had a pile of quarters and a single colored rock sitting on her table.
The little girl's parents exclaimed, "Where did you get all those quarters from?" "Pet Rocks!" The little girl explained, grinning from ear to ear.
The little girl learned some valuable lessons that day:
Sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time.
Keep your overhead costs low to make the most profit.
Let your customers set their own prices.
And given the right packaging (a cute kindergartner in pigtails) even a crayon colored stone will sell and sell well.
Based on a true story....
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