Actually I cheated. It's a tale of lots of taxis, but that didn't look nearly as good as a headline so I took the liberty of artistic license, forgive me. But you'll really like this story, I promise.

So here's what happened. A few days ago I was at ‘eBay Live', the annual event for eBay sellers, which was held this year in Boston.

On the first day of the event, a Thursday, apparently no one had notified the taxi companies that there would be 8,764 people exiting the conference center simultaneously at 9pm after the keynote speech, and that most of them would need a taxi back to their ridiculously overpriced hotels (that's another story – I paid $350 a night and considered myself lucky to get that rate!).

So imagine the scene, literally thousands of people standing in line for taxis that were nowhere to be seen - just an occasional passing blip on the horizon, far away. Taxis were as rare as a Nintendo Wii in a retail store.

As you know, I think differently to most people, and I avoid the lemmings mentality at all costs. There was no way I was going to stand in line for hours waiting for a taxi that may or may not eventually appear.
What did I do? I'll tell you exactly what I did. I went around the corner of the convention center to the Westin Hotel and discovered a line of taxis with drivers that apparently had been sitting there for several hours, desperately hoping that someone, anyone, would require their service.

Yes, I know - how ironic is that?

In I jumped, and immediately asked the driver to take us past the front of the convention center building to allow me to wave at the ever increasing line of people waiting for a taxi.

I'm not a mean person, I just couldn't help myself.

Actually, I wanted to see if many others would think to do what I had done. Guess? Nope. I counted just three people who strayed from the ‘official' taxi line. And that's where the lesson lies in this story. The situation I encountered is a perfect analogy to describe how eBay is being used today.

You've probably heard me say before that some 95% of sellers follow the crowd and blindly stick together, all sharing the same antiquated, ineffective and costly methods for using eBay. They're standing in line for a taxi that might never come, and somehow they've convinced themselves that that's the best option. Come to think of it, they probably believe it's the ONLY option.

By contrast, there's a much easier way, a fast track to profits, and that's the taxi round the corner, just waiting to whiz you to your destination if you'll only seek it out. That's the key, right there: to benefit from it, you have to step outside your comfort zone, be willing to reject the familiarity and apparent safety of being with the crowd, and be unconventional, a renegade.

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