I’m still the new kid at Roundpeg. So while Jay and Taylor know most of Lorraine’s stories by heart, it’s all new to me. So as I was watching Lorraine’s new video, I was expecting the moral to be something very different from “stop and listen to the music.”

While that’s a great message, I took away a more business-focused moral: even if you have the best product in the world, if you’re selling it in the wrong place no one’s going to buy it.

Watching the immensely talented Joshua Bell passed by again and again by subway commuters is heartbreaking for them, as Lorraine pointed out, but also for Joshua. Because he is great, he deserves to be heard. But he’s simply playing in the wrong forum. Joshua was selling his music where people weren’t looking to buy. They just wanted to get to their destination.

What if Joshua had set up shop outside the National Gallery, or on one of DC’s many college campuses? Even the subway station idea has possibilities: what if it was just the wrong time at the wrong metro station? If he had played at the Foggy Bottom metro station, next to the Kennedy Center, before or after a show, he might have found a more receptive audience.

Where are you selling your business? Are you actively seeking out crowds that need and want your product, or are you pitching to any old crowd just because it’s there? You deserve to be heard, but if you’re focusing your marketing and sales in the wrong directions, you’ll just be another whisper on the breeze.