Tribal Africans Wear Shoes !

A shoe factory owner who was based in USA sent one of this marketing managers to a remote island in Africa to survey the market potential. As soon as the manager reached the island, he found out that nobody on the island wears shoes! When he returned to this hotel, he quickly reported the unusual phenomenon to his boss. He told the boss that there won’t be any market for shoes at the island as everyone has never wear shoes before.

As soon as the boss received the report from his marketing manager, he thought deeply and decided to send another marketing manager there for further assessment of the situation. When this marketing manager found out that the entire population of the island is barefooted, he was overjoyed and quickly reported back to his boss. He told his boss that the market potential for the shoas no shoes is tremendous as everyone has no shoes and immediately requested for 1 million pair of shoes to be send to the island.

Moral behind the story : Perception

Although both marketing managers faced the same situation, they had different perceptions and thus reached different conclusions. In reality, we will lose out on a lot of “Success opportunities” if we only look at things from the negative aspect. On the other hand, if we try to think positively, most probably we will be able to explore various unexpected opportunities. Although we might face crisis, there might be an underlying opportunity beneath the crisis.