Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Many rich people are successful in unexpected ways. One of them is Gary Dahl.
He became a billionaire because of stones. Yes, selling stones actually made him rich.
How could that be?
Quote New York Times, it started in the 1970s. Gary Dahl was originally drinking in the Northern California town of Los Gatos, where he lived for many years.
Initially, he was alone copywriter free. He lives in a small cabin where he is described as a school dropout.
In a dialogue with fellow bar patrons, they suddenly started talking about pets. How the master must be responsible for feeding, walking, and cleaning up after them.
Dahl himself said he had pets but never bothered them. Quoting the Bible, he said his pet was a rock.
From there, he had an idea. How about selling rocks.
“People are so bored, tired of all their problems,” he told People magazine in 1975.
“This takes them on a fantasy journey, you could say we pack a sense of humor,” he said of his product.
He then recruited two of his colleagues as investors. He visited a hardware store and bought a lot of fine Mexican beach stone for about a penny apiece.
He then “conjured” the stones into “pet rocks” aka pet stones. And, the genius begins with the packaging.
Dahl does not sell these stones carelessly. He packed the “pet rock” in a cardboard tote bag, complete with air holes, placed gently on a raised bed.
 Photo: Batu Pet Rock (Facebook)Pet Rock (Facebook) |
“If, when you take the rock out of the box, it seems animated, place it in some old newspaper,” the manual says.
Pet Rock itself was sold on the market in 1975. Somehow, the product was featured on one of the favorite US shows “The Tonight Show” and in many newspaper articles.
Within seconds it was reported that 1.5 million stones were sold. Just by selling it for US$ 4 (in 1975), Gahl is known to have made a profit of up to US$ 15 million and had a customer base of 1 million in the same year.
“I had ‘one phone in each ear,'” Mr. Dahl recalled in a 2011 interview.
“I taught my PR staff to impersonate me so he could also answer my calls,” he added.
This success ultimately changed Dahl’s life. He was able to buy a Mercedes and move into a house with a swimming pool that was bigger than his previous cabin.
Thanks to this, Dahl is also described as a marketing genius. This is also what makes the stone of the man who died in 2015 at the age of 78 years sell well.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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