What I Learned from Joining a Community Event

I joined a community National Day event as a vendor. Most of the visitors were elderly grandparents 👴🏻👵🏻. As you can imagine, coffee wasn’t exactly a popular choice, although the samples I prepared did all get taken.

Chinese version

Within this group, only a very small number proactively wanted to try coffee ☕. Most people only tasted it because younger family members encouraged them, or simply because “it’s free” and “why not try something new.”

By the end of the event, I didn’t sell any products… but I did take away two important lessons:

A deeper understanding of my target customers

Business is essentially about selling the right product to the right people in the right place. The nature and positioning of a product nearly determine its customer base.

When I first took over the shop, I already knew my target customers were young and middle-aged tourists 👥. This doesn’t mean I ignore locals or returning customers, but the neighborhood is mainly old residential buildings. For many elderly Chinese people 🇨🇳, tea is far more familiar than coffee. There are also few office buildings nearby, and many young people in the area work in service jobs where drinks are provided by their workplaces, so they are unlikely to buy from me.

So, focusing on promoting my products only to my target customers makes selling much easier and more efficient.

To make money, you need to sharpen yourself into a top-tier salesperson

I often say, “Human nature is sales and brokerage.” For an ordinary salesperson, having a normal professional attitude and recommending products based on customers’ preferences is enough. But top-tier salespeople also excel at expanding their target customer base.

One of the community staff told me that I wasn’t good at selling. That’s true. I’m not a top-tier salesperson, nor have I put much effort into people outside my predefined target audience. For me, becoming a gold-level salesperson requires far more effort than what I would gain. My goal is simply to keep the shop running steadily, not to maximize profit at all costs.

But when it comes to earning money, being a strong salesperson 👩‍💼 can indeed create value equal to product development.

Time flies. My little shop has already been open for five months, nearly one-quarter of my planned timeline.

Lastly, wishing everyone a happy National Day!