Maybe They Know More Than You Think

After several hours, I finally tracked down Gordy. “Where are all the posters?” I demanded.

Gordy’s response was to hand me back 40 of the 50 posters I gave him. “I only needed 10,” he replied.

“Great!” I said sarcastically. I only needed six hundred people to break even. That’s only 60 per poster. Unlikely.

Well, the show came and went and I made about $2,000 and, since Gordy manned the door, all Dave and I had to do was hang out with the bands and enjoy the music.

After the show, I sat down with Gordy. “Where did all these people come from and how the hell did they hear about it?” I asked. Gordy came back with this:

“I put the posters in the places where the kids would see them when they were with their friends so they could talk about the show.” That meant putting posters on telephone poles on the way to keg parties mainly.

In addition, Gordy enlisted members of his “tribe” (in Seth Godin jargon) to spread the word, and make sure that there were no parties or anything else to compete with our show.

I wouldn’t have put up the posters in places like that. Where I would have, the kids wouldn’t have seen them or, if they did, they wouldn’t have talked about it. And there’s no way I could have squashed any potential competition.

So much for knowing everything.

Ouch, I just got cut.

You can read more of my ramblings at the bleedingEDGE or on twitter at @variable_edge. And if that's not enough check out my personal blog, “On the Road to Your Perfect World.”