Panhandling is an art. Sometimes your reaction is: look down/ignore; pretend to be sleeping; fish a quarter or banana from my pocket; or... hey, nice job.
A 30-something guy dressed in a dark gray suit and red tie made his way through the train car trying to sell $15 copies of an inspirational book he wrote about getting out of prison and getting his life together. His strategy was pretty smart: hand out a dozen or so 200-something page, soft-cover books to people who look slightly interested and pitch to them as they look over the book. The man told everyone to buy the book now before he gets on Oprah or some morning show as he shared interesting snippets from the book. On his way back through the train, he collected the books back from people who were not interested and accepted $15 from those who purchased the book. He made $45.
(Note: The same sort of thing happened to me once at Starbucks. A homeless man got around the whole don't-panhandle-in-starbucks rule. He placed pens down on the table of each person as he walked down to the end of the store. The pens had a paper note attached explaining his need and that if you want to help, just put a dollar out on the table and you could keep the pen. Otherwise he will collect back the pens. Minimal interaction and effort.)
No comments:
Post a Comment