The Barbers and Hairstylists of the United
States were about to have their national convention. They wanted people
to appreciate their profession and wanted to give Americans a better image of their profession.
They hired a young Public Relations executive
to handle the job and help in packaging the convention.
The young man thought of a very brilliant idea and went to work
immediately. He went down town the city of New York, to the slums, and
picked up a young man who obviously was a street urchin, who was looking so unkempt, with clothes that
were tattered and soiled. His hair was unkempt and his beard dirty.
The
guy listened to the young executive’s offer, and since there was some
money involved, they bargained and the area boy agreed to the conditions given.
The young executive took him first to a photographer’s shop and had
some snaps of him taken the way he was; dirty and unkempt. Then he gave him a
face lift: a steam bath, a shave and a hair cut, and then took him to the
photographer for another round of snapshots. But he was not finished. The
young executive took the man to town and got him professionally made
suits, shirts, ties and shoes. Then he had a third round of photographs
snapped.
On the day the convention started, the young executive positioned
three life-size photographs of his subject in the lobby of the hotel, so
every one who came in saw the transformation that had happened to the
man. And he wrote at the top of those pictures, “See what the Barbers
and Hairstylists of America can do to a man”. And the story immediately
hit the headlines across America.
For effect, the well-suited street urchin was positioned at the hotel
lobby to shake hands with people as they came in for the convention. The
strategy worked. The campaign was a success.
The Manager of the Hotel
was touched; he fell in love with the young man and decided to do
something to help him. He decided to get him a job. He made
some phone calls and it was agreed that the man should start work with
one of the manager’s friends. So he had an agreement with the man to
come back on Monday to resume work.
However, on the agreed Monday, he
expected the man all day but he didn’t show up. The next day, there was
still no sign of him. When the young man didn’t show up after a month
the manager forgot about him.
After some months, they were going through their store, when the
manager saw the picture of the man again and then decided to go down to
the slum to look for the guy. He had the picture of the guy, and he kept
asking but nobody knew the man. Then after one hour it occurred to him
that he was holding the picture of the street urchin after he had been
cleaned up. So he went back to pick the picture he took before he was
cleaned up and within a few minutes the man was located - back in the slums.
The message in the story is this; the Barbers and Hairstylists of
America can change the outside of a person in a few hours but if they
don’t change the person’s inside, that person has not yet changed.
Although the young man was changed outwardly, inwardly he was the same
old street urchin.
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