A Random Guy Selling Bandaids on a Bus in Uruguay

It’s hard to know where a bus will take you in Montevideo*. Getting lost is part of the adventure but, as you’ll see today, sometimes when you’re in a foreign place, brilliance appears.

We were rolling along Avenida 18 de Julio when he got on. Thick black hair, a tattered backpack, and a buttoned-up shirt tucked into his jeans with a bit of a gut. The man walked past the driver without paying, and took a torn box of bandaids out of the backpack.

“Tirita, TIRITA.” he yelled.

I look at Alison, she looks at me.

We laugh.

Bandaids. Really? Dude, sell chocolate or something like they do in ‘Merica.

Just then a woman waved him over and bought a bandaid. After about 2 minutes, he had sold a single bandaid to at least 4 different women. At the next stop, Bulevar General Artigas, bandaid man gets off of the bus, walks across the street to the stop on the other side, and waits for his next batch of customers.

This guy had figured out a way to make a killing selling bandaids one-off, riding a bus for free one stop at a time. But why?

The style for women in Uruguay was to spend a tremendous amount of time on their appearance. This included the wearing of thin heels all day. Que linda. Heels, combined with old fashioned cobblestone walkways everywhere must have resulted in a lot of blisters and sore feet. Que doloroso.

At the end of the day, all that these poor women wanted was a bandaid for their feet. So our hero went to the farmacia, bought a box, opened it, jumped on the bus for free, sold a single bandaid to each woman.

The perfect product was sold in the perfect place to the perfect audience.

What our bandaid seller shows is that in order to sell without barrier you don’t need to market better or even sell a unique product. What you need is to recognize a hungry audience, go to where they are, and provide them the right offer at the right time.

Perhaps it’s time to get to know your audience better?

Read the magazines that they read, go to events that they go to, study the people already successful in that market, and talk (like, on the phone or in person) to as many of them as possible listening not to what they say, but what they don’t say.***

Nobody told bandaid man that they wanted a bandaid but I bet a woman, or multiple women, complained to him about having sore feet and he figured out how to turn that pain into an opportunity.

-Coach Jon

**In 2014 I spent 5 months in Uruguay. After a few weeks in Pocitos, the beach suburb of Montevideo, Alison and I moved to a remote home named Jericho, a 15 minute along the beach from the closest town, the tiny Punta Rubia. After 2 months in complete isolation, we moved to an off-the-grid eco-home in Punta Del Diablo called Via Verde, where I marketed two books and sold a few thousand copies before I held the things in my own hands. When there’s a will, there’s a way. But that’s a story for another day.

**In addition, all streets are named after dates, notable people, and events. So you might be taking a bus along Avenida Italia, which changes into Avenida 18 de Julio. Then, in order to get to your destination, you have to jump off the bus at Bulevar General Artigas. The problem? Most names are too long for street signs, so the name on the map and the name on the street sign are different, and not in English. We got lost a lot.

***This isn’t easy to do. It takes time and dedication and it’s the hidden work that people do that nobody talks about. For example, back in April I called 243 different trainers for a 9 minute fact-finding phone call. I’ve done similar things like that multiple times asking questions, getting to know what fitness professionals actually struggle from and want.

The final call. No joke, call 243 in April, gave me an idea that is turning into our next major project. It took me 242 calls to get one idea. But that one idea will be worth it. That one idea is my equivalent of selling a single bandaid on a bus in Uruguay. This is the work that nobody tells you about. This is the work that most won’t do. This is the work that matters.