These last few weeks, I was so interested with a small stall near my residence in Jakarta, Indonesia. That small stall (kios, we say in Indonesian) is always crowded with so many people, starting from 3 oclock on -- all the way to almost midnight!

What are they selling? Fried bananas!

Yup only fried bananas.

After finally tasting the famous fried bananas and reviewing the taste, my husband and I were discussing about reasons why that small stall named Pontia shop can be so successful. And from those conclusions we made, I wrote the following article, on Making Your Ordinary Business, Extraordinary!

Here goes ;-)

- Find the uniqueness and peculiarity of every goods or products youre selling.

Fried banana is an ordinary product, right? (Actually it is in Indonesia). But by attaching simple words like: Pontianak original fried banana or the only 7 laths fried banana in town will add zest to it! May not make them try the first time, but hopefully will think about it more and more.

-- Find some tricky ways to make people curious.

Invite your own friends to try your product for free, but ask them to stand in queue when taking the product youre selling. Hopefully, people who pass your shop may think like this What is that shop selling, making everyone willing to stand in that oh-so-long-queue? At least this tricky way works for my father, who loves going to restaurants with fully loaded parking area or with long queue customers.

-- Be very friendly to your customer ;-)

I was surprised when the owner of a very famous burger stall greeted me with a smile and a nodded head; Mam... he said when I was trapped on a very long queue waiting for my burger.

That gesture works and made me feel acquainted and come back for more ;-) My husband also experienced that kind of moment when he was in a hip-hop shop. The owner of the shop came to my husband and greet him, Hi bro, whats up? What about

The situation led them to chit chat and finally exchanged their name card to each other, whereas they do not know each other previously. So, this friendly way could be an effective one to make the customers feel close to you and your product.

-- Pack it differently.

Usually, fried banana is packed into ordinary plastic bag, right? Do something different, instead of the bag, pack it into a simple but uniquely designed box!

-- Provide gifts/surprises for your customers.

This simple idea comes from Quickly this bubble drink producer was not using any gimmick or promotion on their first establishment because they were a big hit. After competitors starts to show up, they have to do something. Quickly published a small card to be stamped each time customers buy a drink. When all the stamps are full, the customer will get one free drink!

You can make a gift for your customer, for example: the 100th customer standing in queue gets five fried bananas for free ;-) The main idea here is you have to prepare a special promotion budget, doesnt have to be in a form of a high cost TV commercial right?