1. An Unfamiliar Art Form

Passing out fliers on a street corner is an art form.

I am the Sponsorship Director of Dance Marathon at the University of Oregon and Yogurt Extreme hosted a percentage night for us Week 1 of winter term. Customers presented a custom made flier to the Extreme cashier and Dance Marathon received 25% of that purchase from 7pm-11pm. Sounds easy, right? Well, Yogurt Extreme restricted the passing out of fliers directly on 13th Street because they wanted us to recruit in folk rather than give every customer a flier. I had to get creative so I passed out fliers at our bake sale table earlier that day, dropped them off in Greek houses, left them in bathrooms, and on the corner of 13th and Kincaid during the 7pm-11pm slot.

Dropping fliers off in Greek houses and bathrooms earlier in the day was the easy part. The real challenge came when I stood on that corner in Eugene's twenty degree weather trying to convince people that frozen yogurt was exactly what they wanted that near freezing winter evening.

I learned something very powerful in those two hours I stood on the corner: knowing your audience and reading people are very important for the success of a cause or business. At first, I kept my standard speech consistent for all types of passerby's, periodically checking my phone to see how long I had been standing in the cold. However, I learned very quickly that each person, or group of people, had a different demeanor. Not all people cared what organization the money was being raised for, what my position was, or what I had to say. Some people had selective hearing and assumed the "twenty-five percent" meant they got a discount. I had to judge what kind of person I was dealing with before I even opened my mouth.

I quickly came to the realization that in order for me to get people to buy into what I was "selling" I had to read them and generate a pitch specific to my view of their personality. In other words, I had to subliminally market myself to cater to their particular personality. My flier pitch towards a group of fraternity men who just got out of a basketball game was different than that of an old couple walking out of a nice dinner. Passing out fliers turned into a game with tactful technique rather than just a thoughtless activity.

In the two hours that I stood on the corner I was probably appreciated, hated, annoyed, and/or enjoyed by an array of people. No matter the cause, if you pass out fliers with confidence, a pitch specific to the receiver, and swag, your chance of success is increased. Read your victim an strike accordingly.