Maybe its a sign of the economy, but I continue to get innundated with people selling promotional items like pens and embroidered shirts. The business’s low overhead must be attactive.
What these folks seem to not realize is that EVERYONE is selling the same stuff. Yet they all come in without a prepared sales pitch. They give a quick pitch, find out who I am, that I don’t need anything right now, then ‘hope’ I’ll contact them in the future with my next need. I griped about this back in September, saying these salespeople were caught in a MAZE (maximum activity, zero effect).
Today’s cold-call visitor was different. Yes, the same information was exchanged, but he also did the following:
- Had three bargain-basement specials on flyers that would be available all year.
- Told me he would send bi-weekly emails with more specials.
We’ll see about the quality of the emails, but this is more than any other cold-calling promo salesperson has done recently, and it doesn’t really cost him much time or effort. These are tools that we marketers can put in our salespeople’s hands if they are doing cold calling.
A B2B marketing blog by an honest-to-goodness marketing manager for an industrial manufacturer.