promoting a new business... is cold calling worthwhile?

[jax13]

I'm trying to increase business & awareness for my new venture & need to make myself known to a variety of companies / organisations & was wondering on peoples thoughts on cold calling vs info packs through the post.

the business in question is outside catering (hog roasts specifically in this case) & i'm trying to get into sports clubs (rugby, football, golf etc.), charities (lions, rotary..) & local pubs & hotels. I have cold called a handful of golf clubs already & spoken to the house manager / bar manager to let them know a little bit about me & to ask if I can drop some more info off to them for them to look at in their own time & the response was generally pretty positive but I wonder if other methods would work better.

I know from experience that a menu / price list dropped through the post will be binned without reading 9 times out of 10 so I don't really want to go down that route, nor do I want to do an email as trashing an email from an unknown sender is the simplest thing for anyone to do.

Essentially, I am after slightly different or more effective ways to approach companies as a company looking to work for them because this is fairly new to me & I would appreciate any help from others who have been in this situation & have had positive results from their methods.

 

[claret73]

Give this a go...
http://www.4networking.biz/

Sorry! That's not a Plug. I've just joined. It's not like any other Networking Group I've been too. Not Stuffy, really sociable & I'm sure with a business like that, you'll get to meet lots of useful contacts. Over 300 groups throughout the UK, so sure you could find a few to go to. 3x visits without membership then you need to join...Do some search on the MD 'Brad Burton' Really nice Guy, met him last week in Birmingham...

 

[Airlberdrm]

RE:

Nice and so good.I like that...

 

[TheGreenRabbit]

Cold calling is tough, is it worth it ? not sure any more, several years ago it was, with the internet the traditional ways of selling are changing. If you are going to cold call you need to know who you need to speak to not just start with the phone book, or you will waist your time talking to the gatekeepers. Networkinggroups are OK but it is down to the people who go and its often the same every week. At the end of the day peope buy of people, so going door to door is best if expensive in terms of time and fuel, but will yeild a better result, If I rember correctly the hit rate from cold calling is 1 in 150ish, so one order for every 150 times you speak to the right person, so its worth doing the ground work first, so if you can do 50 calls a day, and get the phone put down on you 25% of the time then account for Holidays and days off, you can end up with 1 order for every 4-500 calls is not far off the mark, Have you done a sales and markating plan ? Do you use a CRM system ? if you call from weighted leeds the sucess is much better.

My tips would be to always be connecting, I have picked up work from Twitter, linkedin, Retrobike, people in Airports, using my own database of contacts, I have been on coures with Busines link and the HMRC and no one on has left with out my business card and knowing what I do, and its paid off.

I have over 20 years in specialist sales and went self employed last year, so if you want to bounce ideas around let me know.

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

I've never been a fan of cold calling to promote my business nor do I buy from or use cold callers.
They usually call at an inconvenient time and due to the short time span they have to sell they have to be quite pushy.
If I were you I'd send them info in the post and by email, maybe invite them to an event to show them how you operate and get them eating your product.
One event at your expense could showcase what you do to 30 or 40 people, you could spend weeks upsetting your prospective client base by knocking on doors.

 

[1duck]

I've found a letter is far more effective than a phone call, because its tangible. Get yourself a sales letter format and it takes minutes to change the names and everything else. Sign them by hand too the little touch makes a big difference to people.

 

[claret73]

Agree with Nail Trail on this...although as an ex Tradesman, I know how time is tight to take sales calls. Immediately you're not interested, even if you may be...
Get an event out to Potential people FOC! Not just Joe Public, an invitational event to your potential Contacts, figure out means of attaining data from those people? You can then use this in many different means by way of Opt in via your website, Email Campaigns are Wonderful if done right & not Spam! (You have a site right?) Direct Mail & on it goes...Local Markets? Everybody likes a Free Tasting Opportunity. Back that up with Point of Display on the Stall, where they can hire you etc...Have a Van? Sign Written/Vehicle Wrap? Local advertising in Community Magazines - we have about 6x Local Mags drop through...PR in your local Newspaper, get a Journalist out to do an article on you. They're always after filling news columns...Trade Shows - attend or exhibit...

Tons to go at...Green Rabbit has helped me enormously recently and if there's anything I can help with regards to your Marketing etc drop me a PM...

 

[Jacobaa]

Yes man I know some tools to increase business sales but not so much. Today different step are taken to increase business sale, out of which email marketing is at prior. Many businesses done email marketing to enhance the scope of sales. similarly some businesses uses to publish ads on newspapers.

 

[lumos2000]

as your doing hog roast insted of sending info packs send pork scratchings, i dought many would end up in the bin

 

[The Ken]

Take a food stall at your local farmers/continental market, put on a hog roast and charge enough to cover costs, but also have a samples plate out front.

Also distribute flyers etc and directly state the sort of places you can offer to service: Corporate do's, Weddings, Stag Parties, Local Fairs etc. Some people need it written down in front of them before they'll think of it. Make sure you have a Big poster up to draw attention to the flyers too.