His name was Diop and this was his sales pitch to the volumes of pedestrians crossing his path at the corner of 49th and Broadway in Times Square.

I stood and chatted with Diop while I was drinking my morning coffee and observed his approach along with the great people watching. It was interesting to watch his sales process…which was more about lead generation than sales from what I witnessed as there were no real opportunities among the suspects walking by.

I asked Diop how many sales he made a day and he said it depended but it was clear that sales probably came in waves and it really was a numbers game based on my 15 minute window into his business. He said he loved it as he was able to meet lots of interesting people and most were nice. He has been doing this for 5 years and I wondered why he didn’t do more…and when I asked he said he would but didn’t seem very motivated to change and certainly wasn’t about to abandon his gig without another job.

I could see that he had a system and knew who to focus on. He liked the Canadian tourists, he told me, as they were willing to spend the $59 to ride the city…but he didn’t like the French as they apparently were, in his words, “too cheap” to pay the freight. I found this interesting, since Diop was from Northwest Africa and was French speaking so could connect with both groups in their language. Diop clearly avoided singles and didn’t even try to engage the young tattooed youths that passed by in waves…

I found myself wanting to help him since he was hustling but not seeing any results. I have seen this in B to B sales too…lots of activity but nothing to show for the effort. Maybe he needed to alter his approach, throw up a billboard instead of relying on his wit to create demand. Why not build a web site and capture web demand instead of slugging it out on the corner? Just try something new…

I finished my coffee and it was time to leave so we shook hands and exchanged pleasant goodbyes and we were off to our respective days.

I hope Diop hit his daily quota!

Brick