Simple Sales Call Tool

My last column was about taking action to grow market share during tough times. Let's look a some real world ways to make that happen in a powerful way that doesn't break the bank.

Let's start with something cheap and highly effective. If you can’t (or won’t) do this, then any real effort will also be beyond you and you’ll just be one of those who lose market share while others take it from you.

The idea is simple and involves nothing other than materials you already own and a VERY modest investment of your time. There is only one specialized piece of equipment, but you probably already own that, too.

What you do is program your GPS on your next trip to find all potential clients between your current location and your final destination. This is done in different ways on different GPS models, but basically you select “FIND” or “GO TO” and there should be an option to select “Near my current route”.

You then select the type of business you want to target and use the trip as an excuse to drop in and leave a packet of information with those clients.

GPS units are getting very sophisticated. They can find schools, public libraries, country clubs, restaurants by the food they serve, hotels, convention centers, and a host of other categories.

Browse the functions on your GPS and see how you might be able to use this $200 investment to pay for itself in ways that you might have never imagined.

I might go into detail about how to handle the sales call in a future article. If you are interested let me know. There are different tactics for different markets, and for different personality types. But even if all you do is hand deliver your promotional material as you pass by you will be surprised at how effective this can be for your business.