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Do you get better results pitching offline clients face to face?

by johninmn
3 replies
I am a newbie here and I see a lot of WSO's-and posts-for offline marketing that say you don't need to meet or even speak with your potential client. Really? I suppose I can see that if you are selling them an ebook for $17. But if you are asking them for $100, $200, $500 or more upfront with a recurring monthly fee I would think most would want to speak with you and many would want to sit down with you. Now I may be biased here because 1. I am an outside sales rep and have dealt face to face with small business owners my whole career and 2. I am from the Midwest where people want to deal with a local person and still do business with a handshake.

The reason I am asking this is because I have been looking to get into local and mobile marketing. I thought that maybe the one thing I had going for me was that I am out calling on small businesses already and a face to face pitch would be better than most other forms of lead generation. I was planning on posting in the "warrior for hire" and "JV" sections of this forum looking to sell services that another warrior could manage. But if most of you believe there is no real benefit to the face to face pitch then maybe I am just wasting my time. Thanks for your feedback.
#clients #face #face to face #offline #pitching #results
  • Profile picture of the author Amir Luis
    There is a lot of value in the face to face pitch.

    Most in the IM world just don't have what it takes to do it. So they justify their fears as, it doesn't work.

    Booooyah it doesn't.....

    I know for a fact that it does. There are several on this forum that agree.

    I have found that prospecting over the phone gets better results than door to door. But that is just for me. The reason why? Because I can hit more doors with a phone in any given day than you can.

    Really if you want to have any sort of success... there should be 5 different marketing streams going at any given time. Doing a marketing blitz will get you success.

    Dominate the search engines.
    Send out a mailer to concentrated area.
    Put out fliers in the same area once or twice..
    Then call the area making appointments
    Then go see them face to face (w/ or w/o appointment)

    By that time they have heard of you.

    My experiences with direct mail tell me that it is only after the 5 round of consistently mailing to the same area and demographic do I start to really see results.

    If I don't sell it over the phone... set the appointment. Then go sell it in person.

    Easy Peasy....
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    • Profile picture of the author johninmn
      Originally Posted by Amir Luis View Post

      There is a lot of value in the face to face pitch.

      Most in the IM world just don't have what it takes to do it. So they justify their fears as, it doesn't work.

      Booooyah it doesn't.....

      I know for a fact that it does. There are several on this forum that agree.

      I have found that prospecting over the phone gets better results than door to door. But that is just for me. The reason why? Because I can hit more doors with a phone in any given day than you can.

      Really if you want to have any sort of success... there should be 5 different marketing streams going at any given time. Doing a marketing blitz will get you success.

      Dominate the search engines.
      Send out a mailer to concentrated area.
      Put out fliers in the same area once or twice..
      Then call the area making appointments
      Then go see them face to face (w/ or w/o appointment)

      By that time they have heard of you.

      My experiences with direct mail tell me that it is only after the 5 round of consistently mailing to the same area and demographic do I start to really see results.

      If I don't sell it over the phone... set the appointment. Then go sell it in person.

      Easy Peasy....
      Thanks Amir, I appreciate you showing your sales process step by step. I am looking to get into mobile/local/offline as a way to supplement my current income and hopefully make it a full time gig (my current sales job has nothing to do IM, LBS, or mobile marketing.) I am looking to get the inital lead and/or sale of someone else's product/service and let them handle the procurement. Because my current job still takes up most of my day I wouldn't have a lot free time to devote to this at first. What I would like to do would be to call on my existing clients and then stop in to the surrounding small businesses and see if I can't get 2 or 5 minutes to pitch the other product/service and leave the owner/manager with a flyer or brochure. I am not planning on a high closing ratio, just doing the numbers game. Do you think this is worth it? Thanks again.
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      mobile mobile mobile mobile etc....

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  • Profile picture of the author myob
    If you are selling high end products or even new technology products that require demonstration then yes I would say pitching face to face gives a higher closing ratio. But we have telemarketers also that can either sell the products to some types of people or get an appointment for outside sales reps. With that said however, any form of marketing has its advantages and disadvantages depending upon your target market and personal ability. Always test.
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