How to focus your best marketing on your most qualified prospects 🔎

When I was 19 I was a street musician for a year. I hitchhiked across North America, surviving off the kindness of strangers.

(I tell this story in my book, Marketing Yourself. I’ll tell you a bit more about how this story relates to marketing in this article.)

I would roll into a new town, play music on a street corner for a few hours, put my hat on the ground with a few coins in it. People passing by would pay me enough money for tacos and cigarettes for the day. The money was nice, but what I was really looking for was couches.

During that year that I wandered across America, it was easy for me to sleep on the beach, or a highway underpass, or the backyard of a church, but once or twice a week I could convince a complete stranger to let me crash on their couch. And I slept better on those nights.

But I had to go to places where people were curious about a strange musician they found interesting. Sitting on a soapbox at the train station was great for volume, because there were lots of people walking by. But I rarely had a good leisurely chat that built a relationship like I did in small beach towns.

Tourist towns were great, because on the boardwalk, there were always people wandering around in search of something interesting. They weren’t on a commute, they were curious and relaxed. That was my target market. Locals with leisure time.