Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, link building, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
I was just wondering what you guys and gals thought is the more effective approach of cold calling? Walk-ins, or phone calls? On the one hand, I think that walk-ins give the person a face to think of and is a more personal approach, but some places hate soliciting. On the other hand I can reach many more people on the phone in a day but it might just be viewed as telemarketing, and nobody likes a telemarketer. I have gone out cold calling to market my screen printing and embroidery services several times ( I only take off one day a week right now to market my business. The other days I work for my family's business.), and have gotten a few sales while seeing at the most about 20 businesses in a day, but if I made phone calls I could call dozens of different businesses in a day.
What do you think that customers prefer?
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Hard labor kills, make t-shirts instead.
If it's the "lesser of two evils", I think most customers would prefer a phone call because they can just hang up on you.
That's the thing about cold calling though...it's not so much about what the customer wants, but what is most (cost) effective for the marketer.
The customer would probably prefer to find new business/vendors by word of mouth, or to have them easily found when they are out searching (YellowPages, local google/yahoo searches, etc)
If you are truly concerned with what the customer prefers, you might try a "warm" call and start with a postcard mailing or even sample printed shirt and then follow up with a phone call if they don't contact you first.
I'd argue that it really comes down to your approach. If there is place you want to physically walk into to sell your services, make sure your approach is perfect and not too "commercialized". Act like a freind first and at least leave them with a positive impression of yourself.
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Wear the styles...not the other way around.
Phone...Because there are so many telephone solicitors out there, I wouldnt bother. If you were to call me, Id hang up, you wouldnt get time to say what you want to say
Cold Calling....I can see you! Even if Im not interested, you can leave your literature, and I will very likely look at it later before I throw it out.
Cold calling is about the only thing that has consistently worked for us. We do not give a schpeel or do any hard selling. We pop in, tell them who we are, and say "We just want to leave you our brochure and business card, if you need any of our services, please give us a call." Then we head out towards the door....then tell them to have a nice day.
........every single time, when we looked back once we got to the door, they were looking at our literature. Many times, they have rushed to stop us before we actually leave, and have had orders and checks in hand by the time they were done with us. Other times, several months later one of the folks we dropped in on still had our card, and she wanted new signs for her store. (She remembered us)
Cold Calling is more time consuming, but in my opinion, a better bang for your (buck) so to speak.
I agree, I 'm more successful with the face to face approach. I have used the phone too. I think the best approach is like Robin said' introduction and leave literature. I wear alot of embroidery embellished clothing too( this allows me to show off my work). Good luck ...... JB
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I think the best approach is like Robin said' introduction and leave literature.
Cold call in person and ask for an appointment. Let the store know you value their time and yours; introduce yourself and immediately let them know you are not expecting them to stop and engage in a sales call. Ask for an appointment and if you don't receive one, ask for a good time to call and follow up after they have a chance to look at your brochures.
Last edited by Solmu; June 19th, 2007 at 12:05 AM.
Reason: fixed quoting
Cold call in person and ask for an appointment. Let the store know you value their time and yours; introduce yourself and immediately let them know you are not expecting them to stop and engage in a sales call. Ask for an appointment and if you don't receive one, ask for a good time to call and follow up after they have a chance to look at your brochures.
I dont do this....I think its because of all the years in retail, and all the salesmen/women coming into my shop or store trying to sell me something. I get really put off by it, and tend to not want to bother....then get irritated, and tell them no.
I know this works for alot of ppl, but for someone like me who isnt a hard sell type of person, I cant do it.
I dont do this....I think its because of all the years in retail, and all the salesmen/women coming into my shop or store trying to sell me something. I get really put off by it, and tend to not want to bother....then get irritated, and tell them no.
I know this works for a lot of ppl, but for someone like me who isnt a hard sell type of person, I cant do it.
The thing about visiting a store (You can call it cold calling) is the person who manages the business actually sees the person who they would be dealing with.. Now me I have a charming personality.. LOL But what I do is have a very nice slick 4 x 6 business card with pictures of the product I am selling and I simply say my name and that I was in the area and thought I would drop this off for your consideration. If your business sells the type of product that I produce maybe we can sit down and discuss this in the future when you have time or if you can give me a few minutes of your time I would love to show you samples. This is not a yes or no question. I usually get "Well I don't have time now but maybe if you give me a call later maybe I will consider it" or "No I actually have a distributor for the products I carry, so sorry" Or Looking at the card. "These look nice why don't you show me what you have.." Now what is really important is that you not be nervous.. you should know your product info and what terms you can offer. The biggest mistake a person makes in trying to sell something is not trying at all. When I got a new product in to our operation I would have a meeting with my employees and tell them to read the box because it has all the info on it and they should know the product. marketing your company and product is essential in building a business. I have signs on my car that work and I also make signs. On Thursday I delivered magnetic signs and placed a sign on the back of a truck for a new handyman service. I left him with I hope this works for you as well as it has it worked for me. (he actually saw may SUV, that's how I got the business) he called me on Saturday to tell me he had over 30 calls. I almost fainted. My wife heard me talking out load down the hall and i kept saying "Your lying to me" when he was telling me this.. she thought I was being disrespectful to someone.. I told her, no we were both excited for him.. I thought he was pulling my leg. well I got an additiona 6 lawn signs and a large metal sign for the back of his trailer. Lou
Lou!! I love the 4x6 card!!!! I just love it!!! ......something else to add to my to-do list lol We have brochures we hand out with our cards, but with so much new work lately, the brochures are becoming outdated (but we still have about 1500 of them) Thanks Lou!!!!!
Ok here is my 2 cents, the old fashion way of marketing is wearing out shoe leather, it has worked forever, and it is the approach I would take, walk into the prospects store, look around get familiar with what they sell, don't act like you want to sell them something, this will give you time to see if your items will live in their store or not, ask questions (non-selling), 9 out of 10 times the owner or buyer is not in or to busy to talk, do not bother with a pitch to a sales person, its non productive, rather ask who makes the buying decisions, get the card or contact name, leave it at that, follow up with mailing brochure, buz card and a hand written note, not typed but hand written, this is very important, it tells the buyer that its not a form letter and gives the I really care and personal touch, explain in the note that you will give him or her a call in a few days to set an appointment, make that call , don't forget, after the appointment, hand write a thank you letter, hand write do not type and do not use email, you can use email after you close the deal, do not use a canned sales pitch, but rather look around the office see if there is something in common you see for chit chat, this will break ice and a personal trust, remember people dont buy products the buy products from people they like and trust, this is a long sales cycle but you want them as a partner not just a customer, partnerships take time to cultivate so take your time but always ask for the sale, test close,over and over, but always ask.
This is a question I've pondered many times. I am in a relatively small market area with no direct competition in town, but very large volume printers in neighboring towns to the north and south. My business hasbeen developed almost entirely on word of mouth and the Yellow Pages. When I do make a sales call I make sure I have a new product or idea that I would like to "demonstrate" and not necessarily push for a sale. So far this approach has served me well for 16 years.
I currently use both approaches. Usually I call them first and schedule a visit, which works pretty good. Somtimes we may go out and just go from business to business with our material and see what happens. sometimes we do very well and sometimes we don't.
If your business sells the type of product that I produce maybe we can sit down and discuss this in the future when you have time or if you can give me a few minutes of your time I would love to show you samples. This is not a yes or no question.
That's a nugget of gold. Don't ask a yes or no question to start. People will say "No" without even thinking about it.
If you use the phone, there is no reason why you can't be professional and let your personality come through. A business calling another business during business hours, is not the same thing as a telemarketer calling your home during dinner.
Not everybody buys, but so what? If you call someone and they don't want the call, just be polite, apologize for interrupting their day, and move on. If they want to blast you for calling (and some will), they are the ones with a problem not you - just be polite and move on.
As long as you are not trying to "hard sell" ('you must buy today, today, today...'), the telephone is a great way to open-up business relationships. Ask the same questions you would if you were sitting there with them, and if they want to see your stuff, send it to them or take it over to them - and don't forget - ask for the sale!
I have not posted here before, but I will say I have gotten a lot of good information from this site. Anyway, this thread is close to home for me, since my wife and I are about to move our home based embroidery business out into the "real world". We have added a DTG printer (which is beginning to pay off) and will add digital color, digital b/w and large format color. I said all of that to say this, my approach to growing this business will be all of the above mentioned techniques, appointment selling, telephone call, mailing and cold calling. If selling was easy, everyone would want to do it. The key is to sell consistantly. Week in, week out. We will be fully operational in August, so I will let you know what I find is most effective.
Cold Calling 
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