One Little Hitch

Long before Zipcar and BlaBlaCar, the world had a cruder form of car-sharing called hitchhiking. During my college years, my thumb was often my vehicle.

Having hitched many a mile, I knew something about the dos and don’ts. Yet now and then a driver dropped me in a place where it proved difficult to get the next ride.

I’d been stuck at one highway interchange for well over an hour, unable to get another lift. My spirits lifted when a truck pulled over, until I realized that the driver’s purpose was to drop off a passenger rather than offer me a ride.

A young woman jumped down from the truck and bounced over to me. One of the most outgoing and enthusiastic people I’ve ever met, she stretched out her hand to shake. “Hi, I’m Tigger,” she said, “That’s not my real name, but everybody calls me Tigger.” She laughed. “Because it fits!”

It’s pertinent to the story to mention that Tigger was strikingly good-looking from head to toe.

She asked how long I’d been there, and frowned when she heard my answer.

“Your technique is all wrong,” she opined. “It’s all in your attitude. You need to project a persona that makes people want to give you a ride. Where are you going? Bath? I’m going there, too. Here, I’m going to show you how it’s done. Stand back over there.”

Tigger positioned herself confidently, her thumb high in the air, hips angling her hippie chick jeans just so. Within a minute, a truck came screeching to a halt beside her. She spoke to the man at the wheel, and came back for me. With a rather smug expression, she said softly, “Like I told you, it’s all in your attitude.”

Just One Little Hitch

Granted, Tigger radiated energy and charisma, and I had room to improve. But there was something else going on in her hitchhiking success formula, an element impossible to copy and add to my own technique. At first, I presumed that she knew it and was just teasing me. But it became apparent that she was sincerely, blissfully unaware that she hailed that ride so quickly for a reason or two beyond her positive attitude.

Why Copy When You Can Adapt?

Some things you can’t copy, but others you can imitate and adapt to make them your own. I like to keep an eye out for ideas and practices that might be adaptable to Marketwerks or our clients’ businesses. Of late those ideas and practices tend to fall into three categories:

1. Being distinctive in the What—bringing a unique service or product to the marketplace

2. Being distinctive in the Who—differentiating based on what’s uniquely you and your team

3. Being distinctive in the Message—differentiating based on how you communicate about the challenge your customers face and how your firm addresses that challenge.

Click here to discover how you can revolutionize your business by being distinctive in the what, who, and message.