In yesterday’s links roundup, I shared the story of Joe Ades, the gentleman grafter. Ades sells vegetable peelers on the streets of New York City by day, but goes home at night to a three-bedroom Park Avenue apartment. According to a 2006 Vanity Fair profile:
Then it’s out again for an early dinner in a style unheard of in London Labour. Six nights a week, accompanied by [his wife], he hits some of the biggest-name restaurants in town…He never has trouble getting a table.
GRS-reader Chris wrote, “I really enjoyed the piece about the “Gentleman Grafter” selling potato peelers. I always like hearing about interesting ways people have made a lot of money outside of the usual mainstream routes.” I do too.
Chris went further, though, and dug up a video of Ades on YouTube, and I found myself watching all the footage I could locate. (It’s amazing how many people have uploaded video of this guy.) I love his patter, which is exactly the same every single time. Ades has his pitch down to a science.
This four-minute video is my favorite because it shows people buying the peelers at the end of his spiel:
How can he make money selling vegetable peelers for five bucks a piece? He sells a lot of them. Ades may be the best salesman in the world. Who needs a $5 peeler? Yet he manages to convince several people every time he makes his pitch, and because of that, he earns a good living. (From this very small sample size of one, I’d guess Ades is making about $200/hour.)
Note: I never would have heard of this guy except that Jason Kottke posted about him yesterday.
GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.
This article is about Career, Funny Money, Odds and Ends
Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.
Discover is a paid advertiser of this site. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. See the Discover online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and rewards.
SEARCH FOR RECENT ARTICLES
Does he pay taxes? Hmmm…
loading....
Ades seems to mastered the 14 tips outlined as the Rainmaker’s Credo in Jeffrey J. Fox’s How to Become a Rainmaker:
1. Cherish customers at all times.
2. Treat customers as you would your best friend.
3. Listen to customers and decipher their needs.
4. Make (or give) customers what they need.
5. Price your product to its dollarized value.
6. Show customers the dollarized value of what they will get.
7. Teach customers to want what they need.
8. Make your product the way customers want it.
9. Get your product to your customers when they want it.
10. Give your customers a little extra, more than they expect.
11. Remind customers of the dollarized value they received.
12. Thank each customer sincerely and often.
13. Help customers pay you, so they won’t be embarrassed and go elsewhere.
14. Ask to do it again.
I discuss these point and all of Fox’s others in his excellent book as it applies to blogging at http://shanelyang.com/2008/08/24/fbo-how-to-be-a-great-salesperson-or-blogger/
loading....
All he does is sit and peel vegetables all day long. He talks about the types of peeling you can do, mentions that he was in Vanity Fair, wears a suit, and always gathers a crowd. Even people who have seen it a million times go and watch him. And because he is entertaining (not in that flashy ‘look at me way’ but in the ‘look at how useful this thing actually is’), people who own his product come and watch. And then they mention that they own it, love it, and convince other people to buy it. He’s not pushy – he’s just very effective at what he does.
And, again, it is seriously a nice peeler. You all should buy one.
loading....
Wow! I live in England, but we have one of those peelers and it really is the best peeler ever made.
loading....
Are the peelers available anywhere else for those of us who don’t live close by?
loading....
“That was Polski!”
loading....
I didn’t get NoBoB’s reference. Fortunately, Google is my friend:
“That was Polski!” (A television commercial for Holiday Inn.)
loading....
Who needs a $5 peeler?
Certainly not me. I can go into my local pound shop (think Dollar Store) and get one of them for a fair bit less than this guy sells them for.
I think it’s great what this guy is doing, I just think that you’re paying to hear someone talk about potato peelers. That’s not really high on my list of “Things to do with my money”, LOL. That’s the only real difference between buying one from a shop, and buying one from this guy.
loading....
Gee…thanks, JD. Now I’ve got a serious case of the wanting, but I don’t see a trip from my home in Phoenix to NYC anytime soon. I’m such a sucker for multitasking kitchen gadgets!
loading....
having navigated the crowd around him before, i would say that he has his audience pegged. (and if i wasn’t usually trying to get 2 under 5s to go in the same direction, i would be in the audience myself, so i’m not belittleling them/us). people who go to union square to buy their fruit and veg are very interested in “the best” and also in the human story. that’s why they’re buying apples from the farmer not freshdirect. (even though the farmer has a deal with freshdirect…) …my two cents
loading....
the problem with many of these street salesmen is that the first customer (or few) are plants…all made to encourage others to go in. for these guys the secret is to get the first person to buy…the rest will follow like lemmings. it’s a common strategy employed all around the world. people will buy these things if they need them or not.
loading....
I see this guy all the time in union square. I am buying a peeler next time.
loading....
seriously, they’re really great peelers.
loading....
An excellent micro-example of the synergy between a good product and good salesmanship. Thanks for sharing!
loading....
That man deserves every penny he makes. It would take guts to start doing that on a busy street corner, and it would take some serious stamina and hard work to keep doing it every day. Amazing.
loading....
Certainly not me. I can go into my local pound shop (think Dollar Store) and get one of them for a fair bit less than this guy sells them for.
I’ve bought those one dollar peelers, and they stink. $5 is not a lot to pay for a high quality product.
loading....
Haha, yeah, I’ve seen him at Union Square as well. It’s funny because the routine is the same, but there’s always a crowd.
loading....
I literally saw this guy today at Union Square. Had quite the crowd around him. I agree with whoever said above that he’s chosen his spot well–people come to the greenmarket willing to spend a little more for higher quality and looking to feel part of a community.
loading....
Thank you for mentioning how he makes his money, that is, one $5 peeler at a time.
As you state, small amounts in large volume add up very quickly. It means you can make $200 an hour selling potato peelers, or start an emergency fund on two dollars a day, as I describe in this post:
http://www.btgnow.net/2008/08/consistency-good-for-your-health-and-your-money/
What matters is consistency. Mr. Ades clearly has it, and we all need it if we’re to retire comfortably. Consistency is therefore, how to get rich slowly!
loading....
This is very funny, because last week I was at the Eastern Market Farmer’s Market here in DC. There is a guy there that sells this veggie peeler there (or one very similar). I overheard his pitch to a woman and while it was convincing, it was nowhere near what this guys is. He was also selling it for 8 bucks. Seems like everything is more expensive in DC….
Two veggie peeler guys in one week, too much for one person!
loading....
I agree with everyone who says that they’re the best potato peelers. I also wasn’t expecting him to sound English.
loading....
I suspect the author meand ‘grifter’, not grafter… jegan
——————————————–
Grafter \Graft”er\, n.
1. One who inserts scions on other stocks, or propagates
fruit by ingrafting.
2. An instrument by which grafting is facilitated.
3. The original tree from which a scion has been taken for
grafting upon another tree. –Shak.
———————————————
grift (grft) Slang
n.
1. Money made dishonestly, as in a swindle.
2. A swindle or confidence game.
v. grift·ed, grift·ing, grifts
v.intr.
To engage in swindling or cheating.
v.tr.
To obtain by swindling or cheating.
[Perhaps alteration of graft2.]
grifter n.
——————————————–
loading....
John, “grifters” isn’t the right word. Ades is no conman or cheat. “Grafter” is a British term, originally broadly applied to manual labourers rather than street pitchmen. See Grafters by Colin Jones and this current ad for a labourer who calls himself “a decent hard grafter”.
But the word has also been applied to street pitchmen (see this magic forum discusion as well as this one). I’ve also seen it applied to gamblers.
So the term has mutated somewhat: on the one hand, even today, workingmen can brag of being honest grafters, but on the other hand, there’s something pretty slick about the pitchmen known as grafters.
loading....
I bought one from this guy! cool.
loading....
It’s incredible! The same peelers are sold all around Italy at every country fair! Sellers are very good, a lot of people stop to listen at them at every show, me too!
loading....
Mary is right. In Britain grafting is a synonym for working. Which makes sense because this guy is English.
loading....
The peeler has lasted me a few years and is as sharp as ever. I don’t understand how, it just is. Definitely worth the $5 (I barely ever pay more than $1.99 for little kitchen gadgets, and I currently have about four).
Ades has also has been featured in The Sartorialist blog for his fine custom-tailored suits. So Ades is living the life — maybe not so frugally as many of us here would prefer for ourselves if we made $200/hour.
Grafter, magician, laborer…the point is an honest days’ worth of hard entrepreneurial work, even if it means sitting on a dirty NYC sidewalk, can get you as far as a Veuve Clicquot and an apartment on Park Avenue.
loading....
I would definitely buy one of those peelers, because of his presentation and the quality of the product. I think $5 is nothing for a good kitchen product that you use constantly.
In my opinion, this fellow earns his money. He’s there doing his job day in and day out. He’s not just sitting there behind a table with some peelers spread out on it, half heartedly answering a question here and there. I found his presentation charming and entertaining.
loading....
Mary… Thanks for the clarification. I never meant to imply that Ades was a cheat – nor did he come across that way in the article. In fact, he seemed to be more a typical street-vendor as found in London’s Portobello market. I was looking for the reasoning behind the word ‘grafters’. I lived in England for several years, married a British girl and have a British mother. I’d never encountered the word ‘grafter’. However, in Britain, oftentimes language usage can be popular in one locale and not used 5 miles away in the next town.(And I do admit to encountering new words periodically).
Thanks again….
jegan
loading....
You can buy these on ebay for $3.25 plus shipping — just look under “carrot peeler.”
loading....
@John:
You’re right, it’s no longer a word in common usage in my neck of the woods either. Although I do hear graft occasionally.
loading....
I’ve passed by this guy for years. I just thought he was some street eccentric doing his own version of performance art! I’ll stop next time I see him.
loading....
@SeanC:
Hope there’s free shipping on that!
loading....
The Vanity Fair article is not quite as flattering…he has no license…he is “moved” by the police almost daily…he employs a panhandler as “muscle”…the Park Ave. apt is not his, but his wife’s.
He works a cash business. Somehow I doubt that he pays taxes….
loading....
The Vanity Fair article makes clear that his wife is “of independent means” and that the Park Avenue apartment is hers. The $200/hour ballpark sounds great, but doesn’t account for his overhead. Most significantly, he has to buy the peelers from the manufacturer in Switzerland.
Not to knock the guy–he’s fun to watch and it certainly looks like hard work–but I’d find it hard to believe that he’s getting rich selling peelers.
loading....
I am a balloon artist in Miami, Florida. When I started, I twisted balloon art on the street. I made good money just in tips and was profiled in Reader’s Digest.
And, yes, I pay taxes on all my cash earnings. I saw that first comment that asked about taxes! LOL.
You do have to have a certain personality for this line of work. But if you can do it, it awesome way to raise cash fast.
Now I don’t even work on the street, I mainly work at private and corporate events at $220-300 per hour. But if needed, I still can go and twist balloon art on the street and earn more than I ever earned per hour when I was a PR executive.
Here http://is.gd/2ics I describe in detail how to raise cash on the street.
loading....
I really enjoyed reading this profile and the VF article. Never underestimate who you see and appeareances are not all they seem. Included a linkback in my weekly roundup
loading....
I bought his vegetable peeler while on vacation last week in NYC. It’s a multipurpose tool – it can shred vegetables into tiny slices, peel the skin, make interesting carrot shapes and thin juliened carrot/potato slices. For $5 you don’t necessarily get a food processor but you get several kitchen tools in one. Simple and clutter free.
loading....
How do I get that peeler? I want one….
MAN – that IS a good salesman!
loading....