Market Like a Dealer

When I worked as a substance abuse counselor right out of college, I used to tell my clients:
“You’d be a brilliant business owner if you just picked a legal product.”

And to this day that’s a hill I will absolutely die on.

Here’s the deal: regardless of how you feel about drug dealers, they understand the fundamentals of business better than most small business owners I’ve met.
They just sell the wrong product.

But if you strip away the legality, you’ll find a masterclass in marketing (keep scrolling & hear me out)

Let me break it down for you and no, I’m not telling you to become a queenpin. But I am telling you to take notes:

1. They Know Their People Inside and Out

A good dealer doesn’t guess who their market is. They know exactly who they’re serving.

Take, for example, the coke dealer who caters to high-income, stressed-out white-collar men. These clients don’t care about cost. They care about discretion, experience, and reliability. This target market has different desires and buying behaviors than others.

Marketing takeaway:
How well do you know your people? Not just their demographics, but what they’re craving, what they’re afraid of, and what they value most?

2. They Know What Makes Them Different

Some get the rep for having the best quality. Others are the cheapest. Some deliver (literal door service), and some are simply the most consistent.

Every client knows exactly why they buy from their dealer over someone else.

Marketing takeaway:
What’s your edge? What’s the one thing that makes someone say, “I need to work with them”?

3. Their Messaging? On. Point.

Drug dealers might not be studying buyer psychology or writing swipe files, but they get messaging. They know how to talk to their audience, use language that resonates, and hit on emotional triggers that move people to action.

Manipulative? It can be when used inappropriately.
Effective? Absolutely.

Marketing takeaway:
You cannot sell anything to anyone if you’re speaking in generic marketing language that your audience doesn’t care about.

4. They Know How to SELL and RETAIN

Let’s be real: a lot of dealers are literally selling for their lives, so they hustle accordingly.

They:

• Offer samples

• Follow up regularly

• Incentivize "referrals"

• Offer “bulk” or “wholesale” deals

• Are highly responsive

• Build loyalty and consistency

Sound familiar? It’s basically the client retention strategy most online businesses don’t have.

Marketing takeaway:
Are you making it easy and irresistible for clients to buy, refer, and stick with you?

Before you go calling the cops...

No, I’m not glorifying drug dealing. But as someone who’s worked with addicts and dealers in counseling and now, in marketing, I’m telling you, they understand strategy. Imagine what you can do with a legal product and an actual content calendar 😉

Want to market like the expert you actually are?
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