Panhandling or Guerilla Marketing

I'm not homeless like I was a few years ago.  But I'm not making a good living yet, either.  Why shoot a photo like this?  It's funny.  In today's social media world, funny can go a long way.  This photo will get a few shares.  Heck, it might wind up getting a lot of shares.  If it brings some people to my blog, this piece of cardboard with hand lettering has done its job.  If it makes you chuckle, then it has really done its job.

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I actually used this sign back in 2012.  At the time, I didn't have a PayPal account.  I just thought it was funny.  I really like this sign, because it shows just how much, and how fast our world is changing these days.  If you go back to this post, you'll see there is a panhandler in Michigan who actually has a website and accepts credit cards on his phone with Square.  Or at least he did until his phone got stolen.  This may seem like a big joke, but on today's world, this is the kind of thinking it takes to get your life back on track if you're really down and out.  Homeless people just can't walk into a factory, fill out a paper application, and interview for a job like they once did.  These days our resume's are digital, the job scans keywords, and it's difficult to even talk to the person doing the hiring in many cases.  If they do interview you, what do they check next?  Your background, probably your credit report, and your social media.  These changes in the hiring process make it much, much more difficult for a homeless person to get hired for the job that may eventually pull them out of their financial quagmire.  If you haven't been homeless, or chronically unemployed, these ideas may never have crossed your mind.  But they're a reality in today's world.  And that's what this blog is about.  On my journey to get my life back on track, I'm dealing with many of the issues that 30 million other people are dealing with in today's rapidly changing working world.  Just because you can do the job, doesn't mean you can get the job.  Even if you do get the job, it might not pay enough to get on top of things financially.

I've been near the bottom.  I've lived on the streets and panhandled to survive, despite my reasonably high I.Q., my willingness to work hard, and my background of working long hours.  It still wasn't enough.  If you can relate to any of that, you'll probably find some interesting posts on this blog.  Good luck on your  journey through these issues. 

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OK, this sign came out of frustration.  Here in North Carolina, A LOT of people think that talking about Jesus to a panhandler is helpful.  I hate to burst your bubble, but it's not.  Nothing against Jesus himself, but every panhandler I ever met already knew who Jesus was.  Telling a homeless person that Jesus loves them doesn't help the immediate situation.  Sure, it's a nice sentiment, but when you drive away, that person is still homeless, pretty broke, and likely hungry.  Here's an idea, DO SOMETHING to actually help the situation.  Give them a dollar, a slice of the pizza you're taking home (that has actually happened to me), or just yell, "Hang in there, man!" 

The thing about The South is that a lot of people grew up thinking that some people actually deserve to be homeless.  Even worse, these Bible thumping Christians talk to homeless people in a completely condescending way.  The Christians I met while on the streets completely turned me off to organized religion.  I still believed in God, but I didn't want to go to church ever again because I was so sick of religious people talking down to me.  It was a long time before I started going to church again.  The point here?  Telling a down and out person about Jesus doesn't put them to work.  You may actually turn someone completely off to religion by "witnessing" to them.  If helping the homeless isn't your thing, fine, leave them alone.  If you do want to help, a little food, or a simple "Hi" is a good place to start.  See if you can help their immediate situation.  THEN invite them to your church.

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The top sign here was an idea that I got from the internet.  But I had to add my own twist to it, so I wrote the second slogan on the back of the sign.  If someone laughed at the first side, I'd flip it over.  This sign got a lot of laughs.  Many times, the money was so bad panhandling, that I'd do it mostly just for the entertainment.  If that sounds dumb, think up a slogan of a few words and see if you can make a complete stranger laugh with it.  Ask any stand-up comic, getting laughs consistently is a hard thing to do.  I literally thought of myself as a roadside comic when I was using the funny signs.  It's really cool to see someone pull up with a sour look on their face, see my sign, and burst out laughing.  It's awesome.  If they gave me a buck or two, even better.

It got to the point that I actually had fans.  Yes, a panhandler with fans.  Delivery drivers and people who drove the same way every day would stop and tell me that they actually looked forward to my signs every day.  Think about that.  There aren't many panhandlers in the world that can say that. 

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This idea, like many ideas, came to me while I was out panhandling.  One of the weird things about panhandling is that I usually seemed to be in a better mood than all the people driving by me.  Someone shouted something at me one day, I don't remember exactly what, but my response was to yell back, "Hey, at least I'm not related to you."  They drove off, and I thought, "hey, that'd be a pretty funny sign." 

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This is one I thought up.  Personally, I thought this was one of my better signs.  It didn't get as many laughs as the Lexus sign, but pretty close.  I also had quite a few people take pics of this one. 

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This sign was usually good for a few laughs.  Other people just thought it was dumb.  Dumb people, they thought it was dumb.  Lighten up people, it's only homelessness.  If I really had a Lamborghini that needed brakes, I'd be selling the kids on Craigslist to pay for it.

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This sign was one I thought was funny.  But in North Carolina it just confused people.  A couple seemed to think we were still fighting this war.  C'mon people, Google it.

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If you live in the South, you know there's a fast food joint called Chick-Fil-A.  Their commercials have these amazing cows who have signs that say Eat Mor Chikn.  Or something like that.  The cows and rappel, parachute, and do all these crazy things, but somehow they can't spell.  So this was my funny take on that slogan.  This sign was AMAZINGLY popular with rednecks.  A couple yelled out of their trucks at me claiming that they'd actually eaten 'possum.  Luckily for me, none of them offered to share any.

Funny Panhandling Sign 1

To explain why this blog is called "Bum to Bankroll," I have to first admit to being a bum.  I'm not talking about a guy who sits on the couch and doesn't take showers for three days.  OK, I'm that kind of bum, too. Sometimes.  But in late 2007, I could no longer afford to keep driving a taxi in Orange County, California.  I walked away for both financial and health reasons.  For almost a year, I lived on the streets of Southern California, panhandling to survive.  The streets sound cool in gangsta rap songs.  But they are far from cool in reality.  How did I wind up homeless?  By working 80 to 100 hours a week as a taxi driver.  No booze.  No drugs.  Well, a lot of caffeine to work them crazy hours, but that was it.  I became completely homeless by working more hours a week than most people ever will.  The industry was dying, and I just couldn't scrape up enough money to escape. 

My panhandling sign usually read "Homeless and Hungry."  Simple, to the point, and effective.  But after a while I started putting funny slogans on the back of my signs.  If nobody responded to the front of the sign, I'd show the funny slogan.  It worked a fair amount of the time.  This is one of the slogans I actually used when I was a panhandler.