Don’t ask me how I found this post by Paul Overton of DudeCraft (it’s not that I wouldn’t tell you, I just haven’t a clue), but once I did, I had to share the story his lessons in postage stamps. See, he didn’t want to spend the extra money on putting postage on the postcards they were giving away at their festival (they were already 5K in the hole), but she did. And she was gonna do it, regardless of what he said. This is what happened:

Then, day one of the camp hits. People register, they get their packets, and that’s when I heard a girl say this: “Cool, free postcard. No way, it’s already got a stamp on it! Nice!”. I was furious. Furious in the way you are when you know that you’re learning a valuable lesson against your will. It didn’t stop there though. It became like my own personal nightmare. Everywhere I went people were either talking about the damned postcard or stopping me to thank me for including the stamp. At the first lunch, everybody was sitting on the lawn, and probably half of them were writing on postcards. Sharon was as right as she had ever been about a business decision and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It’s funny because Sharon claims that she knows nothing about marketing, branding, or business really. I disagree, but I let her keep her Bohemian front because I think it’s cute. Whatever the case, she taught me one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned during that festival. Give extra, and when your back is against the wall, give more.

I love not only the lesson learned, but the way he writes it. And I love all the letting writing/postcard sending that went on.