There comes a point in any baseball game I attend when I lose all track of the score and become obsessed with the guy selling hot dogs.
A baseball game is the place to be when you’re a guy who sells hot dogs.
You don’t have to worry about whether anyone wants a hot dog.
You don’t need a hot dog strategy.
You don’t have to cross your fingers and hope people like hot dogs.
There are 20,000 people singing a song about buying snacks.
It’s a safe bet many of them will want a hot dog.
All you have to do is show up.
Watching hot dogs fly over my head is my second-favorite thing about going to baseball games. My favorite thing is just sitting there. I love this about baseball games. I can go somewhere and just sit there, and that is an acceptable thing to do.
How do you catch the low-flying hot dogs for business?
There are many ways, but here is one of them.
Say you write an article for a major online publication in your industry—a publication read by your best prospects at their hungriest. Maybe they like this article, so they ask you to keep writing for them regularly. Now, all you need to do is keep showing up with fresh, hot articles. People who want seconds can visit your website. They’re already big fans of your work.
This is just one baseball game. It’s a big one, yes, but don’t forget about minor leagues and little leagues. Think how many more opportunities are waiting to be uncovered.
Real baseball games have regulations on who can show up. But the real world is surprisingly accessible.
Places where you might find a baseball game in progress:
(Remember, you’re just one hot dog vendor in an ocean of hungry people)
- LinkedIn Groups (or create your own)
- Private forums
- Facebook Groups
- Twitter keywords (used judiciously)
- Biznik, Meetups, and other local events
- Online publications your people read
- Online publications the people your people hire before they hire you read
- Blogs that fit the above criteria. Show up in the comments and be interested.
If the thought of looking for baseball games makes you want to circle the parking lot until an easy, 5-step strategy comes along and taps you on the shoulder, just imagine how your people feel.
They’re hungry and you’re nowhere in sight. (Tip: There are people called assistants who love to research these things. You can find them and hire them to do this for you. I know a few—and can introduce you if you send me an email.)
While those other hot dog vendors are sitting in front of a head shop in North Beach hoping for the best, you can be at a baseball game. Just remember to bring good hot dogs (not the store-bought kind). And throw the hot dogs around a bit so they fly over everyone’s heads. People love that.
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7 Comments
And once you’re dealing in low-flying hot dogs, I can only imagine how easy it is to creatively set yourself apart from the pack. (ha!)
Reading this, I could immediately hear the sing-song chant of one very memorable lemonade vendor. (At a college football game in Tucson, where the low-hanging fruit is less bovine and more ice-cold.)
There was no way you could ignore this lunatic vendor chanting maniacally Fresh-Squeezed Limonata! at the top of his lungs. I don’t know if he was the best, or the most insane, although when you’re trying to grab the attention of drunk college students, maybe those are one and the same. Anyway, I was rapt.
Briana´s last blog ..A trick for staring down your inner Voldemort
I like the hotdog analogy.
That’s the beauty of the interwebs. There’s always a baseball game in progress somewhere.
Our stadium has a nachos-n-cheese guy too. I’m not sure what to do with him, but he does carry around an impressive bag of nachos.
I love hot dogs. And corn dogs. I have the taste buds of an eight year old.
Your baseball strategy makes me think of my strategy at a live-music-performance-I-don’t-want-to-be-at: look for the person rocking out the hardest and watch them. Like her.
Megan Lubaszka´s last blog ..How to Make a Healthy Lunch Your Kid Will WANT to Eat
Brilliant! Love this analogy. Pardon me while I step away. I need to go and catch some low-flying hot dogs.
Melanie
Melanie´s last blog ..Competitions Are Not My Thing
/me eats a hot dog.
Delicious. But oh man the hot dogs at MLB stadiums are just superior anyway. Flippin’ smothered with grilled, sauteed onions? Get some ketchup on there… and you know it’s usually the kosher beer kind… idk. I just don’t get a complete hot dog experience elsewhere.
Good thing we all have different favorite foods and that there are so many different venues in which to explore them!
(Gotta take that right turn back into “relevant comment” territory…
Michelle´s last blog ..Youth Culture Killed My Puppy
Michelle, you have a permanent and irrevocable pass to leave irrelevant comments on any of my blog posts for perpetuity. Please, knock yourself out. Hot dogs on me.
Kelly Parkinson´s last blog ..Show’s over- Jem A resignation letter from Synergy
Okay, if you say so. Wake me up later, though. Maybe with an icepack.
/Thunk./