How To Hustle 13 Steps With Pictures

Candy, cigarettes, bottles of water, towels, white t-shirts, and even CDs or books are all common hustles, depending on where and who you want to sell to. Find a good place to sell. Street fairs? Outside ball games? Outside concert venues? On busy streets on a Friday night? Depending on what you want to sell, find a good place full of people who want to buy it. Big event coming to your town? Scrounge up as many tickets as you can, then hold on to them until the day of the big event. When people are desperate for a seat, they’ll be much more willing to pay a higher price.

Food items, like fresh juice, tacos or tamales, grilled cheese sandwiches, lemonade, or barbecue are all good street-side hustles. People have to eat. [3] X Research source Make something creative, like drawings or caricatures, or play music. Baskets, knitted hats, and jewelry are also commonly sold on the street.

The great thing about carnivals is that people expect the hot dogs to be pretty overpriced, and expect to pay more than usual, because they’re at a carnival and it’s fun. It’s a good situation to be in for a hustler. Carnival games work because the operators never fully explain the rules ahead of time, because there really are no rules. Nobody wins those giant stuffed animals at the game without negotiating, or spending enough money to buy one outright.

Alternatively, some hustles exist that involve lots of different people. You can work a group hustle, in which you pretend to not know your friend, and work to set up shots for each other throughout the game. This is much more difficult to detect. The catch to this hustle is that you have to be really good at pool. Good enough to look like you can play poorly, and then ratchet up the skills when it’s absolutely necessary. Most pool halls won’t let you actually play for money, so it’s important to do this quietly, under the table. In general, pool hustles can be pretty dangerous. [6] X Research source

Try to get a look in the person’s wallet to see what you’ve got, then fudge your math: “Right, so I gave you the five, but all I needs the ten so give me back those two tens and the twenty. " There are lots of different change hustles, and the change hustle is kind of a gray area, somewhere between straight-up thieving somebody and panhandling. Be extremely careful if you try to get someone to give you more money than they intended.

College students Quiet types Young guys with their girlfriends Older people Middle class (avoid rich-looking folks)

Be persistent, but know when to lay off. If somebody says, “I don’t need any tickets,” you can’t just give up. Keep pushing them to Try to make the sale: “But look at what a beautiful day it is today outside to spend watching this ballgame. And this pretty girl you’re with, she wants to go to the game, I bet. Great seats, too. "

Be well-groomed and smile broadly when you approach someone. Talk to them as if you’ve known them for years: “Looking good today sir. Like that hat. If I may be so bold, you look like the kind of guy who appreciates a good sound-system, am I right? What kind of a music you listen to?” Let the mark feel confident by building up their confidence. Each one will be different. If you’re running a pool hustle, you can’t do it in one game. You’ve got to play a couple of competitive games that you lose, and buy the mark a few beers to get his confidence up before you go in for the kill.

The rules of the interaction should always be a little unclear for the mark. At a carnival, you’re never quite sure what you’re actually going to win if you do win, and sometimes you’re not even actually sure how you win. Make it up as you go along. Make every reason for everything you say as convoluted as possible: Talk about how your mom’s stuck in a car across town with your pregnant wife’s sister who’s really sick with glaucoma and you have to catch the bus over to your friend’s house so you can get the gas can, but he’s not home, so you gotta catch another bus, and that’s why you need change for a $5 to work the jukebox.

If you’re selling a sandwich that cost a total of . 15 to make in the first place, cutting the price from $6 to $4 is still making out pretty well on your part. Price accordingly. Once you’ve got them on the line, take what you can and get out of there as quickly as possible. It’s important to take what you can get and not worry about negotiating too much, or trying to get more out of someone. If you got some money.

Move around regularly, too. A town can quickly get played out, making it important that you hit the road regularly if you want to make a hustle your lifestyle.

Get in touch with the Chamber of Commerce in the town that you live in, and be honest with them about what you’re selling, and what you hope to do. If you’re trying to run a pool hustle, remember that it’s illegal to gamble and to bet on games.