I graduated college in May, 2004. Started playing pro ball in September, 2005.


In that “gap year,” I worked two jobs: Foot Locker assistant manager, and Bally Total Fitness membership salesperson.


My basketball career (the pro chapter) popped off because, in June 2005, I went to an athlete’s job fair — known as an “exposure camp” — and played well.


Let me share how and why my attendance at that event even happened.


The exposure camp I attended took place over a Saturday and Sunday in Orlando, FL. At this time I was still based in my hometown of Philadelphia, PA and working for Bally.


If you ever worked in retail, you know that NOBODY gets the full weekend off. Everyone has to work at least one — and oftentimes, two — days between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.



To attend this exposure camp, I’d need all three days off. In short, I needed to be granted an exception from the rules.


Steve was the sales manager and my boss at Bally. He’d hired me and I’d become the top salesperson in the gym by the summer of 2005. Bally was a mostly-commission job, and the sales managers were paid based on the sales their staff did.


In other words, Steve’s salary was affected by the gym’s sales volume. And I was his top producer.


The money-focused, selfish thing for Steve would be to NOT grant me a 3-day respite. It would’ve helped his bank account to have me working (by denying my request, or threatening to fire me if I missed 3 days).


I’ll tell you why he gave me that weekend off (in addition to the 21 straight days I worked when I came back).


Steve was aware of my athletic aspirations. He wasn’t a basketball guy, but I could see that he could see I was serious about it. I came to Bally every day — early on work days, and on off days — to use the facility, and sometimes even made sales while off the clock. As I was a consistent producer who had bigger goals than working at Bally, Steve shared something with me.


He had bigger goals too.


He didn’t like the unsteadiness of the Bally system. A sales manager like him — the head person of the facility — could get demoted from month to month just based on his gym’s sales numbers. Bally’s system was cutthroat and fucked up (no small part of why they’re out of business today). Steve didn’t like having his income on a yo-yo in this way.


He wanted to get out of the Bally / retail racket and start his own business. He was into motorcycles.


So, when I told him I needed 3 days off to drive to Orlando and chase my “next thing,” he saw himself in me.


And, 3 months later when that risk paid off and I quit Bally to fly to Kaunas, Lithuania to start that hoops career, he saw himself more.


Today, Steve has a customized motorcycle service business. I looked up his website while writing this.


Here’s the big point.


People engage with you not because you’re the smartest, have the best information, or all the answers to their problems. It’s not because you write the best books or have the magic key to all their problems (though you should at least come close in these areas).


The main reason your audience is your audience is because of Psychographic Alignment.


You’ve heard of demographics. Demographics are all the things you can measure about a person.


Age.
Job.
Number of kids.
Income.
Location.


Psychographics are all the things you CANNOT measure — because they’re psychological.


Beliefs.
Likes and dislikes.
Deep, unspoken desires.
Hidden hatred and annoyances.
What keeps them up at night.
Unrealized dreams.


These are the things that don’t get asked on government forms. But they’re the things that you need to know about your audience — because they're the real reason they come / stick around.


Steve was a generation older than me, white, married, from the suburbs, with a career and a household to take care of.


I was 23, black, single, from the hood, living in my parents’ house and chasing a hoop dream.


(I had come to Bally that Friday morning of the Orlando trip to get my paycheck — and cashed it at the Asian check cashing / pawn shop around the corner — because I needed the money to pay the $250 exposure camp fee at the door.)



Steve and I had little in common, demographically.


But we were eye-to-eye, psychographically.


It’s one of the reasons why I’m here today.


Your ideal people aren't found in the demographics.


They're in the psychographics.


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