Be Creative in Prospecting

Here’s another reminder for Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening readers. This one is from a section starting on page 94 of the book in which Art Freedman is using his family’s store as an example:
     “Be creative in building that Top-of-Mind Awareness. Do you go over to your competition, not just to walk through the stores regularly, but also to drive through the parking lot? Write down the names and phone numbers of the businesses that are in your competition’s parking lots. Then come back to your store and have your outside sales person, you yourself, or somebody else contact those people to say, ‘Hey, you know what? You’ve got to come down here to our store. We have an excellent trade program. We’re a smaller store. We carry only 28,000 items in the store, but we can get you 100,000 items. Would you be offended if I send you some information in the mail?’
     “Do you know what people say when you ask, ‘Would you be offended if I send you information in the mail?’ They say no, I would not be offended. So you say, ‘Okay, cool, I’ll call you back in a week, after you get it.’ And go beyond doing it in the parking lots of your competitors. Do it in your own parking lot, too, because a lot of those people who are shopping are business-to-business shoppers, but you don’t know that because they don’t yet have an account with you. They have an account or accounts somewhere else. They’re coming into your store to pick up one or two items, and then they’re leaving. Get their business names from their trucks or cars in your parking lot. Look up the phone numbers, get in contact with them, and build those relationships.”