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Advice on generating good sales leads please.
I have been open a few months now, operating from my home. I am having a problem finding the right people to talk to for the initial contact.
I find places that obviously need sign work, talk to the shop fitters usually and try to get the owner’s contact information. They usually are reluctant to give it out so I leave a business card with them and ask them to pass it on to the owner.
This doesn’t seem to be working very well, and it’s alot of time spent trying to get to the right person and little work generated from it.
Do I need to be speaking with architects, or estate agents who will refer me to the owners or?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Del -
6 Replies
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Del
if someone is using shopfitter then they are normally using 1 of the bigger sign companies or already in place you are better putting your efforts in to the smaller businesses opening, may be join your local Chambers of Commerce or go to a few local networking meetings normally means getting up early as most run before work hours. However if you are the only sign company in the group you can gain a lot of work they do expect you to return the favor in that you use and put them forward for stuff you don’t doKev
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Hi Del,
We’ve been running 5 years, and are only just now starting to get more involved in signage, and that’s only because we’ve got a reliable quality fitter we use. Vehicle graphics and digital print are our day to day bill payers.
Unless you’ve got the all the gear and knowlege or a decent fitter, I’d start as Kev says, with smaller businesses. Trouble is smaller/newer companies are sometimes more price conscious than more established companies, expect an illuminated sign for £200, designed & fitted by weekend.
I’ve not come across an architect who gets involved in the signage, shopfitters probably have agreements with some of the larger companies who have the resources.
We also did some networking (BNI) and only recently left. IMHO, ignore all the figures they tell you, our group supposedly did £1.2m, although it was common knowledge these figures were false. That’s turnover too not profit.
Look for groups that have people who will need your services, or come across people in their day to day life, i’ve never met anyone who’s gone out selling to their best customers like BNI would like to think they do.
We worked well with the builder & window fitters in our group, and still do now. However these weren’t the one man band outfits.
We left as leads externally from the group were rare, and only a handful of members were ‘quality’ so we left and maintained the relationship with those who we worked with previously.
We’re not very proactive in our sales, usually obtaining repeat work, or recommendations, I haven’t had a recommendation because we’re cheap in years either.
Look at the competition, how quick do they turn signs around, price, quality, designs, (Facebook is good for this) then set your area. Better designs, quicker turnaround, slightly more expensive, and push that to the customers who value it. Maybe make some mock designs up to show your skills.
It’s not a quick route but it will pay off.
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Thanks both of you for your advice. I will do the things you talked about. I am also going to look at facebook more and free web advertising as well.
Cheers -
Try dropping flyers in to local businesses, a lot of the time people want things done but just don’t know where to start, so when faced with an easy solution they jump at it. Make sure you go when they are open though!
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Thanks James. That seems to be the trick for me is catching the owner when he’s actually at the store. Ideally I would catch the business owner before he starts taking bids on a sign. I have tried looking up new permit applications on the local city planning office but when I call them they seem to be baffled as to why I am calling them. Bad timing I guess.
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Del,
This is a really interesting subject! My colleagues have actually been working on an e-book which covers this exact topic, so keep your ear to the ground – there are a of idea’s in there that might help you generate more leads – so keep a look out for that.
What Dave said about facebook and other social media sites is so true – you can learn so much from these and leaflet dropping is a good option doesn’t cost too much and you will more than likely be able to design these in-house with the software you already have, which will save you some costs as well.
I am personally quite a believer in websites too – these can be really powerful if you regularly update and add to them.
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