Trade shows are interesting. You pay for the opportunity to set out your stall and market your wares to a generic, gender or interest demographic. It’s a game of hope and pitch, with a lot of waiting and rejection in between. For every person who buys something another ten walk past—unmoved and uncaring. Clearly not the right people.

And yet, as marketers we spend the majority of our time, energy and resources working out how to convince the ones who walked away, instead of putting all of our effort into obsessing over what resonated with the 1% who bought into the story.

It’s far easier to tell a story to people who want to listen.

Of course the Internet is a trade show on steroids.
The same rule applies wherever your story is told.

Image by Kevin Dooley.