Re: Advertising suggestions sought, or stratagies

[Jim <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

On Oct 16, 11:47=A0am, Spellcheck Patrol <alarminst...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Well Rodney it wasn't Mark who first said you were here years ago
> posting the same question. It was me.
> Mark doesn't fear entrepreneurs. He just fears having to go outside
> and meet people. =A0For the most part everyone here is an entrepreneur
> so don't think you are some new and exciting species to hit our little
> world.
>
> My first piece of advice is spell the word strategy properly if you
> want to be taken seriously.
>
> My second piece of advice is to hire a sales rep or a marketing rep.
> It's safe to say you have little to no skill in those areas because if
> you did you wouldn't be here many years later asking how to market
> customers in a town that only has 3 or 4 providers.
> If you can't afford to hire someone than hire a service like City
> Search to generate interest in your business.
> Rodney the questions you are asking are ones that I would expect to
> hear from someone thinking about starting in the business rather than
> someone who has actually been in the business.
>
> You are talking about how the newsgroup hasn't changed, and I agree.
> We are still the same people who witnessed CowboyChip, MarcAntony, and
> many other sockos. We lived through Kathy and George. We watched as
> you time after time tried to convince people you were someone to be
> taken seriously, only to follow up with some ridiculous stunt. We
> watched and wondered about your mental stability when you used the
> newsgroup as your primary avenue of contact with your brother.
>
> It's also a newsgroup that helped me build my business to what it is
> today. The participants of this newsgroup have helped me tremendously
> and didn't even realize they were doing it. Truth be told a few of
> these old coots would have smoked my ass in business had the resources
> I have today been available to them back in the day. Jim (Alarminex)
> would probably own a huge company if he had the same resources I have
> back when he still had the desire to grow a business.
> So shut the pie trap about how the group hasn't changed. Use the group
> for what it is.

Ya know?   I was just saying that to someone the other day.

Back in the 70's I got this great idea..... I went to the library as
often as I could over a period of a few weeks. I went through the
Cole's directory. This was (is?) a cross reference book containing
names of people, addresses, telephone numbers, zip codes .... etc.
Since the book weighed about 10/15 pounds it couldn't fit on the copy
machine so I had to hand copy the information that I needed. I knew
where all the well-to-do areas were, picked the zip codes, got the
names and telephone numbers and started /////// ***** Telemarketing
*****\\\\\\\

Ya gotta realize ..... this was long before the word telemaketing was
invented. Who ever heard of calling people in the evening and asking
for an appointment to provide them with no obligation information
about a security system for their home and offer to give them a gift
of a small fire extinguisher, even if they didn't purchase a system?
I was closing about one out of 5 calls for an appointment and maybe
one out of two or three for a system. Not too shabby for an beginner.
But ..... I did spend a lot of time on the phone explaining
technicalities that today's telemarketers are not capable of doing.
Today, they just sell the appointments. I almost had the system sold
over the telephone before I even got there.

Another thing I did was .... volunteered doing free seminars on
securtity systems at the local library. They'd put up a notice on the
monthly news letter and in the library about the seminar and 10 to
twenty people would sign up for it. The library didn't want me to sell
systems so I just did demos with equipment that I set up explained how
alarm systems worked and what to expect during installatio  and used
the guise of showing them what to look for when salesmen from "other "
companies would do their sales presentations. Of course I always
handed out business cards and told them to call me when "other " sales
people would come to their homes, if they had questions .... but ....
guess who they called .... anyway? Worked out pretty good .... at
least one install from every seminar and sometimes two, three or
four.

I did a lot of direct cold calling to small businesses in strip stores
also. Other companys would do that too but my "gimmick" was to keep
records of names, addresses telephone numbers and dates and when they
said they might be ready to get a system and when I should come
back .  Most/all of the other alarm companys would just stop in and if
they made a sale .... they made a sale .... but they didn't come back.
They just kept going from one shopping center to the next taking pot
luck. When the business owners saw me come back and that I was good
enough to be persistant and do good follow  up  ..... they'd go with
me. That was the process I used at the very beginning. From all those
little commercial accounts I eventually grew my present mostly
residental account base.

Of course now I don't even have to sell against competition. Now
everything is by referral. I was saying to this person that I was
telling all this about, that I've lost/forgotten a lot of my sales
techniques.

You know...                 it's the ..... don't use it / lose it
syndrome.


>
> Rodney, you have a great desire to make a mark in this industry, and
> for that I applaud you. Keep trying. One day you just might catch
> lightning in a bottle. Unfortunately the mark you've made so far is
> one of a flighty goofball. =A0The good news is you have only made that
> mark here in this insignificant newsgroup. Rodney, you are so hell
> bent on trying to impress this group that it ends up harming your
> business.
> Just use the group and stop trying to impress everyone.
>
> Better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool than to open your
> mouth and remove all doubt.-