Cold Calling To Introduce A New Product Into The Market

Sometimes its hard to wear ALL of the hats! Maybe you need to advertise for Reps and cut a deal with them. Offer them percentages of sales, I really don't understand the payment side of what you are doing, but I do believe you have a great product but need to get a sales team working for you.

You have to show the dog walkers HOW your product will bring them more business.

When you can make that connection for them - they'll buy.

You don't need great selling skills or a great script, IF you can show them the money.

Solve the "more customers" problem and you'll have a winner.

Ron

If you read Spin Selling you will remember that problem questions are more likely to lead to a sale in small ticket offers, from what i have read in that book get them talking about their problem and make that problem big enough to the point where they will want to take action on what you are offering....

Reread Spin Selling

Great that you called and got some feedback.

{I read Ron's post after writing this one, and you'll see how it echoes and expands on what he said.} I think a "My name is Callan, and I help dogwalking companies get and keep more customers" starter will do better than a technical "show up and throw up." The beginning in the current script assumes a few things that the listener probably isn't ready to hear and react to just yet.

A company in my area uses a similar app for customers to see when their dog was walked.

In talking to the owner of this company a year or so ago (she wanted a TV commercial made), we discovered her margins were pretty thin. Especially when she subbed out to a worker bee dogwalker. She had diamond dreams but a wafer-thin budget. For us, it wasn't a fit.

Same possibility for you, which means while they're interested in the technical part of it, they don't get how this will make & keep them more money. It's too early to be talking technical at the time the current script is doing it. The How is something for you to get to later.

Currently, they hear you saying you have this technical thing, and that's cool, but then their mind goes to the fact that they're not making a ton of profit, which makes them hear this, "And you don't have the extra money for that" warning. Of course, they don't pass that feedback along to you because it is embarrassing.

But if you can begin by talking about getting new and retaining current customers, so each client has a larger lifetime customer value, you'll be likely to get more, "Wait, how do you do that?" responses.

Again, the answer is not to rush into a technical discussion of GPS and android apps (they may not even know what that is. Seriously.)

You have some great pain points here:

1 > Some clients have been burned by walkers who said they took the dog out but actually just drove the pack around in the van, and then dropped them off home again

2 > walkers' business margins are thin so any claim that you can get them more new customers and more money per customer should be greeted with enthusiasm

3 > client retention and loyalty is pretty low, but can be earned and locked in--especially on the higher end, ie. doctors, lawyers, dentists and the like who work all day and leave poor Rover...a valued member of the FAMILY and possibly viewed as their CHILD...alone at home, and feel tremendously guilty about it. These folks can easily afford high ticket walking services, and want to. If you can give these people a loyalty reason and a quick way to check the work was done, that's a huge differentiating factor. From the dog walker side, this is a chance to go upscale and make more profit.

You shouldn't really have objections when this is done right, but the fear-based one I talked about above could be popping up because they think it's going to be expensive. After all, what does a dog walker know about app development?

So, Ms. Dogwalker Biz Owner...

You want more customers and to keep more of your current customers rather than losing them to price-cutting competition? (Yes)

You want to get more higher-end customers like doctors and lawyers, who are working all day and can easily afford to pay more, but need to know you're actually doing the work? (Yes)

OK, NOW you can qualify by technology.


Keep in mind that many dog walking business owners are not pros. I've talked to many who got into the business because they thought it would be easy--only to find they were in isolated rural areas, and potential customers were too few and far between to make anything sustainable out of it. Happens more often than you might think.

This means you're dealing with a nervous, cash-poor, blue collar technician-minded owner most of the time. Not a professional, trained, white collar owner who understands things like growth, cash flow, ROI. Adjust the language accordingly.

IMO SPIN Selling isn't the right approach for this one. A more transactional approach will likely work better.

I also doubt your price supports a sales team.

Here is the flyer...

I love the line...."Have you got a little escape artist?"

Today when I took the photo one response tag was missing.

He, Ozi, I appreciate this naive splash of vivid.

It is cool to see some color an' verve here among the expertin' arteries of the razorsharped.

Thing you gotta figure is from whenceo the enthuso cometh.

I got a Fitbit, an' I am steppin' out, chillin' on gamification of my deedola cos' I am interested to know how many steps I take while I boogie out in my apartment between switches of knickos, an' alla my adventures out an' about in the WhereIAlreadyPersist Vista.

Cool.

I am trackin' on myself for my own warpo purposes, but I figure this is gonna go lame on me, an' mebbe I will drift back to Supermario in my undirected pursuit of shareable emojis.

'Tis my momentary passion, sucko as it may be.

Gotta figure an enthusiastic dog walker gonna wonder about any kinda inchpinchy approach to her deliverable zest.

Sure, what is goin' on here with the app is mebbe some mechanism for fixin on ALLA THE CHEATERS SAY THEY GONNA WALK YOUR DOGS AN' THEN F*CKIN' DO NOT, THE LAZY B*STARDS.

But I say this is a dim view of the world to have.

To drill down on presumption of bad stuff in a way that impinges on the heart gonna do some good.

You gotta suppose enthusiasm an' encourage it.

Deny it, an' you action other verb choices.

(I was gonna jus' leave it at 'verbs', but I figure if I throw in these parentheses, a fewaya will figure on my sense of irony there with my addition of 'choices'.)

Bottom line: should a few takers' walks hit on evryone else's runnin'?

Figure if I wanna go walkin' out with some family's dog, the least they owe me is a presumption of innocence, like I wanna do this 'cos I told them I wanna.

Hey — why else would you actually wanna do stuff?

Diss on wanna, then mebbe people don't play so good.