I Did It!

What did I do?  Four hours of calling, that's what!  About 2/3 follow up, 1/3 cold calls.  I guess I've really become inured; the time went fast and it wasn't bad at all.

I've decided that that's the single best way to get customers and 10 calls a day simply isn't going to cut it.  Right now I'm working my way through the college "green" list and the ICBA member list.  I start at 9 with the east coast stores, then at 10 I move to the central time stores, at 11 the mountain time folks, and finally at noon I get to the west coast.  Cross-country touring, every day.

Had some decent interest from the cold calls, regenerated some dead or dying leads, and got some definitive no's that I can now take off my list.  Not, however, from my friend Josh who is apparently going to make me call him every few weeks for the rest of my life.  Which I will do!

The loneliness of the long distance cold caller

I've moved from being scared to make calls to being mightily bored by it.  It is very tedious to say the same things, hear the same questions/answers, ask the same questions/give the same answers, time after time, while remaining polite, upbeat, and interested.

Just finished making all my bookstore follow up calls.  No one to whom I'd sent a catalog last week has had a chance to look at it, so that means another round of calls in a few days.  I'd almost rather get a "no" than a "later" or a "maybe."

Worst of all, no yeses so far so nothing to keep me motivated.

This afternoon, going to pick up the ones who were out, busy, etc., as well as follow up with those in more western time zones.  I need to make significant progress on my "green" school list.  I can't believe it's past mid-July already!

Marketing Plan

I think I'm finally understanding how to use the marketing plan I got from the Get Clients Now workshop I attended several months ago.  Although there are peripheral marketing activities that I can and should engage in - networking, for example - the number one thing I need to do is make phone calls.  It's paying off beautifully for my wine bottle bags and there's no reason to think it won't work as well for the other products.

So now my first 3 marketing activities are all around calling - first, follow up all outstanding calls; second, make 10 new cold calls; and third, research new stores to call the following day.  Since they're on a list, it's pretty certain I'll do them.

Of course, I really need to up my cold calls.  I started with 5/day, then 6, now 10.  But I just did 10 calls and it only took 13 minutes, not really enough time.  It's getting toward noon now which tends to be busy for wine stores, but I need to make a bunch of afternoon follow up calls so I'll tack on another 10 cold calls at that time.

Right now, however, I need to fill my order from Mac's Beer & Wine, received yesterday.  I think that makes 7 stores now!

Wine Store Results So Far

Whew!  Made it through my whole list of 37 stores and here's the tally:

2 appointments
2 corporate applications (covering 4 stores on the list)
1 is a beer place (!)
3 are closed
9 don't carry accessories
4 found the price too high
13 require more follow-up

So, of the original 37 stores only 19 can be considered prospects for cold-calling.  Getting 2 appointments (so far) represents an 11% success rate.  I'm not sure but I don't think that's too bad a hit rate.  Of course, 13 are still possibilities so hopefully that rate will go up.  And the bottom line is how many actually purchase.

Next week - on to Athens, Savannah, and Augusta.

Wine Stores

I think I've done all I can do with Whole Foods for the moment, including 3 follow-up emails and phone calls this morning.

So I'm moving on to wine stores.  I've developed a list of 38 in the Atlanta area and I'm going to start dialing for dollars, as Arden always said, to see who wants to take a closer look.  Can't put all my (organic free range) eggs in one basket, right?