One of the most therapeutic things I do is go for a walk around a local park near my private gym after a massive leg day.
Clears my head, loosens up the legs, gets me thinking.
Recently, I was doing my usual loop around the park on a hot day here in Chino Hills…
…when I spotted this little girl (maybe seven or eight years old) sitting behind a table on a folding chair with a hand-painted sign that says,“ICE COLD LEMONADE $2.”
Now, like any good salesman, I walked right up to her and started asking questions:
“How long you been in business out here?”
“How many cups you sold?”
“Who’s your supplier?”
(Her mom, standing about ten feet away, was cracking up at this point).
The girl looks at me, dead serious, and goes, “A lot. It’s really hot today.”
And dude…she was right. That’s literally ALL that mattered.
I didn’t need to hear the best pitch, see her Yelp reviews, or a fancy logo on the cup.
I NEEDED that lemonade.
It was hot as hell, I was dying out there, and she was standing exactly where I was going to be when I needed it most.
So I bought a cup and left her a $20 for the A+ service.
Honestly, if this kid plays her cards right, she’s got a $100 million business on her hands…
I share this with you because that little girl understood something that most entrepreneurs with six-figure marketing budgets still don’t get.
She went where the customers already were.
She didn’t set up in her driveway, hoping people would magically show up.
She got uncomfortable, packed up her little table, and planted herself right at the entrance of the park trail where every single jogger, dog walker, overheated dad pushing a stroller, and one big a$$ gorilla-back Armenian man was walking by.
She figured out where the thirsty, overheated people would be on a Saturday morning, set up shop right there, and let the environment do the selling for her.
And most of you are doing the exact opposite.
You’re sitting in your metaphorical driveway with the best product, the best service, the best coaching program, the best whatever…
…wondering why nobody’s buying.
And the answer is so stupid-simple it’s going to make you mad.
You’re not where your customers are.
Look, I don’t care how good your product is.
I don’t care how many hours you spent perfecting your sales page or tweaking your logo or getting the font just right on your business cards.
None of that matters if you set up shop where nobody’s walking.
So let me break it down for you the way I do with my 1:1 clients and Scale Syndicate members:
- GET CLEAR ON YOUR IDEAL AVATAR
Where do they hang out? What apps are they on? What events do they go to? What podcasts do they listen to while they’re stuck in traffic? What Facebook groups are they lurking in at midnight when they can’t sleep because their business is stressing them out?
My companies are constantly interviewing our customers, getting feedback, asking who they are and what they actually want.
If you can’t answer those questions with specifics, you don’t know your customer. You’re guessing. And guessing is expensive.
- DON’T WAIT FOR THEM TO FIND YOU
That lemonade girl didn’t take out a billboard. She didn’t run Facebook ads. She went to the park entrance with a table and some cups because she knew that’s where the thirsty people would be.
For you, that might mean showing up in the DMs of people who just posted about the exact problem you solve. It might mean getting on stages where your ideal clients are sitting in the audience. It might mean creating content on the one platform where your people actually spend time instead of trying to be everywhere and being effective nowhere.
Speed of implementation, fellas. Pick the spot. Show up. Sell.
- LET THE ENVIRONMENT SELL FOR YOU
The best sales happen when the customer already wants what you have BEFORE you open your mouth. That girl didn’t convince me I was thirsty – I was already dying out there. She just made it easy for me to say yes.
Your job isn’t to create demand out of thin air. Your job is to find the people who are already in pain, already searching for a solution, already sweating in the heat…
…and be the ice cold lemonade sitting right in front of them.
That’s it. That’s the whole game.
Find the park.
Set up the table.
Sell the lemonade.
Talk soon,
Bedros Keuilian
P.S. If you’re an entrepreneur and you know deep down that you’ve been grinding in the wrong spot, that you’ve got the product but you’re just not getting it in front of the right people, that’s exactly what we work on inside Scale Syndicate.
It’s my 6-month group where we dig into who your customer is, where they are, and how to show up there so the selling gets a whole lot easier.
We rip apart your strategy and rebuild it…all while meeting some incredible entrepreneurs.
Apply here: apply.bedroskeuilian.com/scale-syndicate