Hate Cold Calling or Cold Walk-ins? I'm hoping this works for me....

I hate cold calling and even cold walk-ins. In fact, I was speaking to a chiropractor friend of mine and she says she hates when people cold call her and walk in randomly as well. So my goal is to end that madness in 2012.

What I do like, however, is networking and building relationships with others.

And here's a story about that which just happened.

I was at a networking meeting a couple of weeks ago and I met an advertising sales rep for a local magazine. It's one of those free magazines you can pick up at a supermarket or read in a doctor's office. It has local stories and includes advertisements from local businesses.

After talking for a few minutes, I set up an appointment with her to talk about working together. My goal was to have her sell QR Codes to her current advertisers, and pay me to create the codes and whatever webpages they go to.

Well I had that meeting today and here's how it went. (As a side note, my business creates mobile websites, regular websites, SEO, online videos, etc.)

During our meeting I told her that most of the advertisers in her magazine don't use QR codes, and the ones that do simply go to their non-mobile websites. I then did a dog and pony show by showing her some mobile sites, some mobile squeeze pages, and talked about all the possibilities her advertisers would have by simply adding a QR code to their current ads.

She loved it, but said that it will be difficult to get any more money from her advertisers to pay me to create the codes and build whatever page or site the code goes to. She even admited that a lot of them are lowering their print advertising budget and spending it more on social media, websites, etc.

I thought that was going to be the end of our meeting....and then started thinking about how I'd have to go back and make more cold calls again.

But then it hit me.

Sitting in front of me was someone who already has the business contacts that I wanted.

So I asked her..."What if I created QR codes for her advertisers that go to their own custom one page site (squeeze page or coupon or something) for FREE? The only thing I would want is to be able to market my other services to the business owners once I'm in there. The magazine could offer a new free sevice (QR Codes) to their advertisers and I'd get my foot in the door and build my own relationships with these advertisers."

She really liked that idea and is going to discuss it with the actual magazine owner. She also said I may be able to get my own ad in the magazine for free as well.

I'll be following up with her in a few days and will most likely meet with the magazine owner as well. And if this works out, it will put me in front of a lot of local business owners without having to make any cold calls.

So if you're tired of cold calling, cold walk-ins, or sending out hundreds of emails, then try to belly up with someone who already works with the business owners (like a local magazine publisher) and try to do some sort of joint venture with them instead.

Mike