The people already buying

A woman in Heliopolis bakes sourdough at home and sells it to the neighbourhood, a few dozen loaves a week. When she thinks about growing, she thinks about strangers: the people who have never heard of her, who buy sliced bread from the supermarket and see no reason to change.

Those people are not listening. Not to her, and not to anyone telling them their bread could be better. They are busy and content, and a pitch about slow fermentation is noise.

Her regulars are a different matter. A retired teacher takes two loaves every Friday, one for himself and one for his daughter's family. A young couple bring friends along when they collect their order, just to show them the crust. These people already believe. The usual advice says she is wasting her breath on them, since they are already sold.

But they are the only road she has to the strangers. Bread like hers does not spread through advertising. It spreads across a family table, when somebody tears off a piece and asks where it came from.

So the work is not persuading people who have no interest. It is helping the ones who already care do what they half want to do anyway. A small extra loaf for the teacher to give away. A card with her number tucked into each bag. A word that any Friday order can be doubled for someone bringing a neighbour along. The people who love it carry it further than she ever could alone.

The old saying treats talking to the converted as wasted effort. If what you make is any good, they are exactly the people worth talking to.