A couple weeks ago, we touched on the fact that no matter how accomplished
you are at whatever it is you do for a living, that the most important part
of any new startup company is marketing as well as sales. We also mentioned
that although they certainly compliment each other and go hand in hand,
they are not the same thing. I’ve met a lot of great salesman who knew
nothing about marketing and a lot of great marketers who are clueless when
it came to sales. You could be the most accomplished
Columbus t-shirt printing company in the entire city, but if people don’t
know about you, you’re probably not going to get very many bid
opportunities. It’s not farfetched that you would soon be closing your
doors for good.
We also touched on the fact that it’s so much easier to
deal with someone you’ve dealt with prior. We seize the value and
advantages when dealing with someone we’ve dealt with before. It’s such a
soft and easy sale. You have already won their confidence, and your ability
to get there order done on time and processed with excellence so therefore
you don’t have to sell them on yourself or your ability any longer. It’s
simply a matter of calling them up on the phone and saying something to the
effect of: “Hey this is Mike, do you think you guys are going to end up
needing any new digital t-shirt printing or custom screen printing in the
near future and if so, when?” They are usually delighted to hear from you
but that being said, they don’t necessarily need any screen printing at
this very moment. Therefore, you need to create a good database of when
they say to follow up and be faithful to do that.
We also talked about
giving them something extra that they never even ordered in order to make
them glad they called you, over any of the other Columbus competitors.
What do I mean by this? Well for example, let’s say they ordered 72 new
hooded sweatshirts with pockets. In addition to that, throw in a free
jacket. Normally their first reaction is, I didn’t order this. Your
response would be something to the effect of, I realize that. You could
have given the job to anyone but you gave it to us and rather than just say
thanks, we wanted to throw in this free jacket in order to show our
appreciation.