Sales the good old fashion way..

OK as I await the big snow dump coming this Saturday I have been doing my normal Friday customer support stuff.  It seems to me that no matter what we do as a small business we are always looking for leads and sales.  How have we gone about this task over the years well let me bring back some oldies that some of you may remember:

• Use a pager to get important calls or at least announcements that yu have to call that pager company to get the info.  Yes I carried one of those things on my hip for man a day and it was like an anchor yu had to have it. I was checking it often and even in the day I would call them and ask them to wake me up early if I had an important plane flight to catch...It worked :)  Well yu dont see many of these any more but we did use them to respond to leads.
• Mailing out flyers about your business. Oh I would often sit at a coffee shop or a place where I could get lots of coffee and just address envelopes to send out my company flyers.  I would spend a lot of time at the post office and I had to buy those little bottles that had water in them so I didn't have to lick the darn stamps.  So how many of you remember the days before the nice stamps came out? I got several of those mailers back a waste of money but they did work sometimes:(
• Going to the library to use books, SIC books to look at areas and companies to mail to and call and yes I said books remember them??? Actually it was kinda of fun but those darn books were pretty big.  Now of course you sit at a computer terminal and it is much easier than the good old days of big heavy books.  Oh yea spent a lot of money copying the pages in the copy machine.  Funny I was at the library and did not see a copy machine hmmm  At least I didn't have to worry about having a lot of quarters with me:)
• I used and still use the old fashion one ringie dingie, two ringie dingie  telephone. yes some of the old rotary phones were still around but I rejoiced when we got touch tone phones yeaaaaaa! One thing though there was no such thing as a wireless phone back then so you had to have a long, long cord to get to the table:) The phone was a fast and economical way to reach your potential clients. So naturally i got good at using the phone and still can do a passable job today.  Today when I call someone they are surprised or just in shock that someone would actually call them! I usually get to the top person and that is where I always start!
• Cold calls yes I mean cold calls, the youngsters today do not even know what they are, they want leads on a silver platter. We use to pick an area in the city the whole group to help one of the gang and we would fan out and make calls in that area for our fellow salesperson. It was fun, it built team work and wow did I get use to having the door shut in my face :)  There is still some fun associated with cold calling, most people will see you and sometimes I do it just to keep sharp and do a change of pace.  You never forget the people that grab you by the shoulder and show you the door, I remember a lot of them but you also remember the nice ones that talked to you and bought or just treated you politely. I still keep in touch with one of my old sales buddies and if you ever need content writing, check with Tom Rambo of Rambo Writes.  Tom I am sure will get a chuckle out of this article.
• It is starting to fade away but I use to go rent a hotel room or conference room and set up my cash registers or computers or what ever I was peddling at the time and set appointments for the day to have people come in. I would have pastries and coffee in the morning, a small assortment of sandwiches in the afternoon and again more little trays of food to eat with Coke or Pepsi for later in the day. Yes it was sugared Coke or Pepsi the only non sugared or sugar free was called TAB and oh did it suck!  You want sugar free you ask, here is a nice glass of water with ice:)  The bottom line was a full day seeing maybe ten to twelve good suspects. It worked and probably would work today also.

All of these above were before the big use of the micro computer, cell phones, and such but seemed simpler to me back then, you got to see your clients often and your prospects face to face. It is harder for a person to say no to you if they are looking at you and know that your job could be supporting a family and by saying yes and if the product was good you would be helping yourself and that persons family perhaps.

Yes I do miss those days but the fundamentals of sales and sales calling are still there. The basics of making a sale is still the same. Know your product, your territory, and never give up,it is a hard life but a rewarding one.

More to come, hope you liked my little visit to the past.

Until next time

Joe Rossini Jr.