I’m Fixing to Buy One and Get One Free

I’m fixing to buy one and get one free.

My Uncle Curvin taught me a long time ago about how to get people to buy stuff. Later on in life I learned that what he taught me were sales and marketing techniques.

One Saturday morning he had left me on the town square with a big load of watermelons on the back of his truck. Back then everybody came to town on Saturday’s to buy groceries, get a haircut or to get some truck or tractor parts.

I don’t know where he went, bet it was the same as always, he disappeared for an hour or so, and as usual came back in a real good mood.

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But I wasn’t in a good mood when he got back because I hadn’t sold a single melon. After I greeted him with my glum news he shocked me when he told me that maybe we ought to give them away.

“You crazy, Uncle Curvin?” I asked him. “How we gonna make any money giving melons away?”

“What we’ll do is give one away if somebody will buy one.”

“But that would cut our profit in half!” I told him.

“No, it won’t,” he replied. “What we’ll do is raise the price of a melon from fifty cents to a dollar, so we’ll still be getting fifty cents a melon, and double our sales at the same time.”

It didn’t take me long to figure that out. “That sounds great!” I told him. “I bet we’ll sell this whole truck load if we do that!”

But then another problem became obvious to me. “How we gonna let folks know they can get one free if they buy one?”

That’s when he introduced me to “advertising,” an integral part of sales and marketing. “You got to make yourself a sign,” he said.

After I had scavenged a big piece of cardboard and found a fat carpenter’s pencil in the floor board of my uncle’s truck I told him I was going to write “Watermelons for one dollar” across the top and add “get second one free” at the bottom.

That’s when he introduced me to what’s called “The hook.”

“No, no. son,” he said. “Write ‘Free Watermelons’ in big letters across the top and add the details in small letters at the bottom.”

After I finished I propped that sign up I displaced it with two big watermelons on the top of the cab of the truck. That’s called “Collateral Material,” which are eye-catching displays to get people’s attention.

My uncle disappeared again and by the time he got back the bed of the truck was empty except for one melon.

“Why didn’t you sell that one?” he asked.

“Cause I didn’t have one to give away with it,” I answered.

I was astounded when he told me I should have put up another sign saying I was having a going-out-of-business sale.

Later on I realized that it had only been in their own minds that anybody was fixing to get one free with one.