It appears the business meeting is nearly dead - marketing input please

[BusiMum]

Starting out a new business (a retail one at that), my biggest hurdle to date is getting meetings with people. My sales guy wants me to set up meetings for him to show the products. Every answer I get is email me the info and we'll get back to you. Following them up still has not produced results, from me at least. Strangly enough the most success we have had on face-to-face meetings is a cold call an hour before arriving, then just rocking up and gaining an audience with managers etc.

Our product is a whole new concept to people and those that have seen it either love it or hate it. Those that have bought it for their stores have all been people we have had face-to-face meetings with. It seems people need to see our
product to grasp it's quirkyness and importance.

How do you get your products in people's faces? (Not talking social media here.)

BTW : www.plugmate.com.au is the product I am referring to. Just so you understand where I am coming from.

Advice and suggestions welcomed.

Fiona

[JakeThomas]

Have you tried a multiple pronged approach? Not all people are comfortable with the same method of contact and some quite genuinely could be too busy.

How about set up a campaign:
- Letter to introduce you and your product.
- Emailing following up.
- Phone call to the client to see if they are interested in purchasing / or you "dropping in" a few free samples.

- Jake

[BusiMum]

Letters are a large expense when trying to cover alot of ground in a short time.
Emails mostly get treated as spam, although a few do get through.
We have sent samples to a select few.

It seems the personal touch is the greatest success. People are genuinely pleased to see our sales guy and the product, it's just getting him through the door. Which is why cold calling an hour before and dropping in for an 'informal visit' has given us the greatest number of sales. I just feel we are missing out on a large part of the pie. Unless I can afford to put on 20 sales reps........

Frustrating! Feels like I am hitting my head against a brick wall.

[Newleaf Exchange]

Hi Fiona,
I have been sending emails which has had mixed success. I found I had to tailor my emails to show that I had taken the time to understand their business. These were sometimes followed up with a phone call. If I got through it was fine but if I had to leave a message it did not go far.

It's not easy. I would be interested to hear how it goes long term....

[Burgo]

I have always found the cold call, the personal face to face was possibly the best method to sell unique products.

Divide the area up into 4..then days /weeks /months and have the rep concentrate on each area for a week once a month

This then give 12 visits on a regular basis every year. The more the customer sees his/her face the more inclined they are to trust and buy. Yes it comes down to trust. Some of us also call it reliability.

Once the area has been established, you put another rep on in another city to do the same.

Consider also doing a TV ad once you have a territory partly established. The ad can be run once a week at a time your targeted consumer is watching and list the stockists. You will be amased just how many retailers will want to stock your product.

[BusiMum]

Thanks for the advice Burgo. I will try to target my rep more. With such a small window of opportunity with our product, before some rat tries to copy it, we have been trying to get to as many places as possible.

[sweetbeats]

Hello - I'm assumgin you can patent it?

[JakeThomas]

Thats actually not a bad idea - have you considered patenting it?

[sweetbeats]

My Dad was a patent attorney so I can ask him about it if you want - this is absolutely the sort of thing you must patent.

This is my cousin's site btw - he is also a patent attorney. You can give him a call over the phone most likely?

http://patentsandtrademarks.com.au/

[v2Media]

You might be able to patent the form, but not the concept. Plug pin protectors have been around for donkey years. Dell would be the most hi profile brand using them. Some new products ship with pin protectors.