The Curious Tale of the German Police Officers Uniform!
By: Roy Carter
Tags: Side Hustle, Self Improvement, Entrepreneurship, Make Money From Home, Life Lessons

The Curious Tale of the German Police Officers Uniform!

Are you missing a money making opportunity that is staring you in the face?

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

This little story goes back to when my son, Steven, was about 14 years old, so a good while ago now.

I was sitting at home one Tuesday morning during the school summer holidays and my son Steven came in looking very glum.

I asked him what was with the long face and he explained that all his friends were going on a school skiing trip later in the year but that his Mum had just told him he could only go if he earned half the cost of the trip himself.

‘Quite right. I agree with your Mum’, I said. ‘You find half the money and your Mum and I will make up the other half needed.’

Resigned to the fact now that he was going to have to get off his teenage bum and actually do some work to make this holiday money, Steven gave out one of those long ‘oh woe is me’ teenage sighs and started to think about what he could do to make some money.

‘Well, I suppose I could go around the neighbors and offer to mow their lawns for a fiver a go’ he said.

I told him, yes, he could do that, but instead of just rushing in, why not give the situation a bit of thought first and he may find a way to use his brain instead of his brawn.

‘What do you mean Dad’, ‘what else can I do to earn some money then?’

‘Well’, I said, ‘you could find something to buy low and sell for a profit. Let’s have a look in the local paper’s classified ad section of things for sale.’

To cut a long story a bit shorter, I explained that it was a good idea to look for things that were a bit quirky and that didn’t have a standard value as such. Or something that could be ‘done up’ a bit, made to look better and therefore could sell for a profit.

After a bit of browsing through the classifieds we spotted someone selling a German police officers uniform for £25.

‘How about that?’ I said.

‘Dad!’, said Steve, ‘Who the heck is going to want to buy a German police officers uniform?’

‘Well, let’s think outside the box a bit about that’ I said.

After a bit of thought, Steve came up with the idea that a fancy dress hire shop might be interested, so after calling the seller to make sure the uniform was still for sale, we gave a few fancy dress hire shops a call and they were only prepared to pay the same price as it was on sale for i.e. £25

After a little more brainstorming we came up with the idea of offering it to a theatrical costumiers. So we rang a few that we found in the yellow pages (yes, the internet was only a very new kid on the block at that time — Can you believe that only 20 odd years ago virtually nobody was on this new-fangled internet thingy?).

Anyway, the third theatrical costumier we called said that he would give no more than £65 for it and only if it was in very good condition. We said we’d call him back.

So we then drive across town to buy the uniform (the guy had already told us it was in good condition) and after a bit of haggling we got it for £15. Also, the seller had already had it dry-cleaned and it was in the clear cellophane cover straight from the dry-cleaners.

We then drive 3 blocks to the theatrical costumiers place and the guy is very pleased with the uniform and pays us the agreed £65.

So a spoonful of gas for the car was all that was needed to pop across town to pick up the uniform, plus the cost of 4 or 5 telephone calls. Call it probably £5 costs, plus the cost of the uniform, £15 = total cost £20.

Sold at £65 and a swift £45 profit was made in about 2 hours from looking through the paper to trousering the profit.

The seller was happy, the theatrical costumier was happy and Steve was delighted to have made a good chunk of money towards the cost of his school trip, without having to sweat and toil pushing a lawnmower around for hours!

Job done! Everyone’s a winner.

Now, if you think about this, the seller of the uniform actually lived only a few blocks away from the theatrical costumiers, but he hadn’t thought like an entrepreneur. He was happy to make £15 for it when he could have made £65 with just a little bit of thinking outside the box for a while.

The moral of this story is of course that if you just dash in without first thinking things through a bit and try to think outside the box, you will often miss an opportunity that’s staring you in the face.

The upshot of this is that Steven, now a grown man, with children of his own, has done this as a lucrative ‘hobby’ ever since and he loves nothing more than looking through the classified ads with a cup of coffee in hand to see where this weeks ‘profit potentials’ are hidden away in his local paper.

If you give it a little thought, you will realize that there can be a great deal of money to be made by being the ‘middleman’.

Deals worth thousands and even millions in profit have been achieved by being the ‘middleman’ and thinking outside the box a bit.

If you want to learn things like how you can be the middleman and make some serious coin in so many different ways, and some great ‘thinking outside the box’ ideas you can check out my …

‘Letters From A Small island!’ monthly newsletter via the link below.

www.LettersFromASmallisland.com

(Hint:)- You’ll also often discover inside how you can just outsource different types of ideas and get someone else to do it all for you!

Which is nice. :-)