10 Lessons From Selling 30,000 CDs on the Street

I sold 30,000+ copies of my albums hand-to-hand. These are valuable 10 lessons I learned.

I released my first album ‘Commercial Underground’ in 2006 when I was a second year undergraduate student at Oxford University.

Since then, I have released six albums, as well as three EPs (extended plays), all independently.

Between 2006 and 2019, I sold tens of thousands of copies of my albums in the UK. Most were sold as CDs directly to customers, starting on high streets and later transitioning to pop-up shops in malls from 2016 onwards.

In the process of promoting and selling my music, I met hundreds of thousands of people in person, from all walks of life. I learned an enormous amount from this unique experience and today, I’m going to share ten key lessons.

I hope you can learn something from this, especially if you are a creative or entrepreneurial person.

1) You don’t need permission.

Nobody gave me permission to become a rapper and certainly, no one gave me permission to record my own albums, release them, promote them, and sell thousands of copies independently.

Most aspiring musicians, authors, artists, and wannabe entrepreneurs never get off the ground because they’re still sitting around waiting for ‘permission’. They are stuck in a timid mindset that tells them they can’t create or release things unless some ‘gatekeeper’ gives them the green light.

Instead of self-releasing and self-promoting, they wait around for record labels, publishing houses, agents, managers, investors, or other people in the ‘industry’ to back them.

In most cases, of course, this never happens.

I never waited around for anybody to tell me what I could or could not do when it comes to my music. Over the years, I’ve done the same with my merchandise, my podcast, my first book ‘Strong Advice: Zuby’s Guide To Fitness For Everybody’, and many other projects.

Most excuses are invalid, and the biggest hindrance is often yourself. But you can just make things happen when you choose to. Stop waiting to be spoonfed, hand-held, or funded at every step.

You don’t need anybody else’s permission to create, promote, or sell. Just do it.

2) Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet.

As children, most of us were taught to not talk to strangers and for good reason.

However, as adults, that type of black and white thinking will absolutely limit your potential.

When I used to sell my CDs in public, I spent all day talking to strangers. Not all of them were friendly or receptive, but many thousands were. I had hundreds of thousands of pleasant interactions with people from all over the world, and tens of thousands of those led to new fans being made. None of this would have happened if I’d chosen to stay home and shy away from strangers.

Every part of my career, from music, to books, to public speaking, to podcasting, to social media, to coaching, is predicated on talking to ‘strangers’.

Everybody you currently know started out as a stranger. It is strangers who will support you, buy what you’re selling, offer feedback, and more. Some could even become wonderful friends.

So, talk to more strangers but be smart about it. Offline and online. Don’t isolate yourself from humanity and then complain about lack of connections and opportunities.

3) Fear of rejection is worse than the reality.

Even after a decade of selling my music directly, at the beginning of every workday I would still feel some trepidation, especially when visiting a new town or city.

No matter how many albums I’d already sold in the exact same way, I still felt some unease when approaching a new individual or group.

Do you know what?

Of the estimated 400k-500k people I approached over the years, I can only recall about five particularly nasty interactions. And all of those were a reflection of the person I was speaking to, not me.

So many times in life, we don’t take chances because we are afraid of rejection. But every rejection brings you closer to success and in 99.9% of cases, it is nothing like the ‘worst case scenario’ that you’ve imagined in your mind.