One of the great things about being an independent contractor is that I, as a "business owner", get to make my own decisions when it comes to marketing. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I can look at what has worked for others in my industry and put my own spin on that. But every once in a while, I like to see if I can find a way to reach prospective clients in a way my competitors haven't.
At the end of last summer I was having a meal at a chain restaurant. Our server, a young woman in her early 20's, was lamenting that people stole her pens when paying with a credit card. "I have to go to the store each day and buy pens," she said with a tired look in her eye. "People just assume that the pens are for the taking."
I nearly forgot the conversation until a few weeks back when my own daughter, who had just gotten a job as a server at another chain restaurant, made the same complaint. She had called to ask if we had any extra pens at our house because her customers were walking off with the ones she had given them to sign their charge slips. She said that if we didn't have extras she was going to have to go to a store and buy pens.
Hearing this, I made some smart remark like "Someone should give servers their promotional pens and let them do the distribution." A very, very small lightbulb flickered in my brain. Why don't I just order some pens with my website address and give them to my daughter (and her co-workers) to use when diners charged their meals.
My first move was to get on the internet to see who had the best deals on promotional pens. What should have been a simple task ended with too many options. There were scads of pens, order minimums, shipping costs, one time set-up fees, colors and other variables that led to "paralysis by analysis". I've seen this happen when I sell long term care insurance and know from experience that too many choices can kill a sell.
Next I called a couple of local people I know and they both recommended a local business that handled promotional products. One of them even contacted the business owner who called me promptly and we discussed the whole restaurant/server situation.
The owner, Melody, asked me a lot of questions about how much I wanted to spend and what kind of minimum order I needed. "Let me clarify something," I said. "These pens are going to be stolen. My target market is thieves." She laughed and got the point. I wasn't going to spend a lot of money on this project as it was a test case.
If I get any business out of this it will pay for the cost of the pens. But as I mention in my book, that is not good enough. We should be getting a return of 4 times our money back to make a marketing to make it effective. And tracking something like this is pretty simple because when I get a client I haven't met before I tend to ask where they got my information from. If a few say "I stole a pen from a server" then I will have some sort of proof of concept.
Have you tried anything new or different in promoting your business? If you have had success, let us know by dropping a comment below.
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.
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