Did you ever see the story of the guy who traded a paperclip for a house?
He did a series of 14 trades starting with a red paperclip.
According to Wikipedia, here were the trades:
- On July 14, 2005, he went to Vancouver and traded the paperclip for a fish-shaped pen.
- He then traded the pen the same day for a hand-sculpted doorknob from Seattle, Washington.
- On July 25, 2005, he travelled to Amherst, Massachusetts, with a friend to trade the doorknob for a Coleman camp stove (with fuel).
- On September 24, 2005, he went to California, and traded the camp stove for a Honda generator.
- On November 16, 2005, he traveled to Maspeth, Queens and traded the generator for an “instant party”: an empty keg, an IOU for filling the keg with the beer of the bearer’s choice, and a neon Budweiser sign. This was his second attempt to make the trade; his first resulted in the generator being temporarily confiscated by the New York City Fire Department.
- On December 8, 2005, he traded the “instant party” to Quebec comedian and radio personality Michel Barrette for a Ski-Doo snowmobile.
- Within a week of that, he traded the snowmobile for a two-person trip to Yahk, British Columbia, scheduled for February 2006.
- On or about January 7, 2006, he traded the second spot on the Yahk trip for a box truck.
- On or about February 22, 2006, he traded the box truck for a recording contract with Metalworks in Mississauga, Ontario.
- On or about April 11, 2006, he traded the contract to Jody Gnant for a year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona.
- On or about April 26, 2006, he traded the year’s rent in Phoenix for one afternoon with Alice Cooper.
- On or about May 26, 2006, he traded the afternoon with Cooper for a KISS motorized snow globe.
- On or about June 2, 2006, he traded the snow globe to Corbin Bernsen for a role in the film Donna on Demand.
- On or about July 5, 2006, he traded the movie role for a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.
He started with something slightly unusual – a RED paperclip – and traded up for unique items.
It was a hand-sculpted doorknob.
An “instant party”.
A recording contract.
If he had said “trade me $5 for $20” this would have been a failure. But because both sides valued the other thing more, it worked.
How can you make your offer more valuable than the price tag you put on it?
