In the hit film ” The Last Samurai” starring Tom Cruise, an emotionally wounded Captain Nathan Algrun accepts an offer to train Japanese soldiers in American warfare as a means of suppressing the samurai rebellion. In the face off against the samurai, Algrun’s soldiers are defeated and he’s injured and captured as a prisoner of war.

While recovering, Captain Algrun finds himself a prisoner in an environment he’s unfamiliar with and among people he doesn’t understand. One day after waking up from a bout with one of the samurai where Algrun was knocked unconscious, he meets Katsumoto, the leader of the samurai who is curious about his American prisoner.

During the conversation, Algrun find himself frustrated with the exchange of dialog and screams,

What do you want from me!?

What the hell am I doing here!?

Katsumoto replies,

What do you want for yourself?

The snows will melt in May, and the passages will open, and the events of the world will unfold. Until that time you are here.

Although the story is fiction, there is wisdom in the last words.

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In this post I lay out three tips on how to survive as a bazaar vendor. But before I do, let me give you some context first.

If you go to any Muslim convention, you can count on one hand the categories 80% of the vendors fall into. It’s either traditional clothing, t-shirts, books/education, charity organization seeking money or decorative art. The vendors in these categories are all identical to each other, making business that much harder to acquire for anyone operating in that space in a similar fashion. Read on to learn how to succeed despite this reality.

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In the past I had been a door-to-door salesman selling Verizon FiOS in New Jersey. One elderly individual I sold a triple play bundle to told me that he had been a salesman for most of his career. After he signed off on the deal, I asked if he had some advice he could send my way.

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