savashatz

Hi everyone!

I have a question for you. Ok, assume that you are starting now in the mobile business. You sign up with a SMS provider, but do not want to pay white label fees or set up fees etc. so you simply sign up as a normal customer to start your business with no costs.

You find a few clients and you ARE READY to provide the SMS service.

You want to manage the service by yourself, and not give control to the client at this stage.

Here is the hard part. How do you convince the client(s) to provide you the mobile numbers to upload them to your system and start the service?
Clearly, if you do it from their location they will see who you are using, so what stopping them to go directly.

Any ideas you would like to share? I hope my rationale is not totally wrong..

beeswarn

Why don't you just ask them?

NewParadigm

Many accountants openly use quickbooks for their clients. I think you should be able to add value to your customer beyond hiding some SMS program.

Customers will pick up on any hesitancy you have. Don't ask them for their list sheepishly. Tell them that is what you need to make them more money. Isn't that what they want? If they don't give you the list, you have some credibility to build w/ the customer.

savashatz

I agree with your comments above, and thanks. People say that I am a good marketer/salesperson and beeing shy or unsure is not my thing.

Credibility and trust is something you earn and build. I have never seen in my career trust to be given for free after two appointments - because that's all it took, two appointments to sell them mobile services.

I got paid upfront, they signed the documents and when everything was set I asked for the list. Then they said that they cannot give me the list. It needs to be done from their office, otherwise its a no go. And we are talking about hair salons!

I am also working in another non similar business as a marketing consultant. When I proposed to clear their database by outsourcing it to an external company they denied and said that their list is not "leaving the building"

Probably I am going to tell them that there is no other way to work and make them money, as NewParadigm mentioned, unless I get the list. Maybe I give them a nondisclosure paper to sign.

NewParadigm

What did you talk about in your earlier meetings? How are you going to do mobile marketing w/out their list? Did they not understand or weren't you clear?

So what if you need to do the list onsite? My comment about quickbooks is accountants openly use that program in front of and with their customers. Are you really afraid a salon is going to look at your screen and do it themselves? If that is the case you are chasing the wrong customers or they'll have to find out the hard way that it might not be so easy.

Try it w/ the customer a couple times and if that is the case, pony up for a white label/prvt label deal.

everge

You can't simple upload mobile numbers as it is spamming. Mobile clients need to opt into the service to allow you to market to them.
Which also gives them the option to opt out if needed. Current clients have not given permission to market to them so you need to build a campaign around them opting in for the service.

Your clients could promote a VIP club or something of that nature by texting a short code or keyword to the number you supply which then builds a list of users that have opted in for the service. You can then market to them without an issue.

Biz1media

Everge is right, you have to utilize a pull campaign for mobile marketing. Which means you and the business owner have to strategize on how to build their opt in list. Look into EZ texting's platform, you can set up a basic site and integrate their API into your own site.

WillR

No offense but this is not a problem at all. There are a ton of free website builders and website templates available on the Internet nowadays but people still pay thousands of dollars to have custom websites built.

The value you offer your client should go well above and beyond adding a few numbers into a program. Besides, most of these business owners do not have the time or desire to sit around learning this stuff. Sure, they might be able to save a few bucks by doing things themselves but they would lose out in the long-run because of the time they have to invest in learning and maintaining the system. It's much easier for them to just pay someone like you to do the work for them.

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HypeText

If they trust you enough to manage their accounts then this sounds like much ado about nothing at all...

Just ask them...

Second, It's always a good idea to let you client have Access to their Account, even if you are managing it. It creates transparency and builds trust.