Marketing Ideas

Walk in Marketing

Before someone buys something they need to buy someone. What do I mean?

Simple, ‘people buy people first’. So there are two questions. How can I meet more people and what am I going to say, do and be, when I meet them?

There are many ways of meet business people, such as networking, attending seminars etc. But the one I am going to concern myself with today is ‘walk-ins’.

A ‘walk-in’ is the practice of simply waking in to a business and introducing yourself. Whilst this marketing strategy is not for every industry there are many industries which use it and also many who don’t, but could.

So the question is, how should it be done? Like all things there is a right and a wrong way of doing something and like most marketing approaches it is easy to get wrong.

All too often I hear things like “advertising does not work” or “the internet is a waste of money” or “I have tried walk-ins but they don’t work”.

Einstein once said “madness was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. Anthony Robbins describes the formula of success as being. First, decide specifically what you want, then take massive action towards its achievement, then take notice to see if what you are doing is successful and if not change your approach until you find what works. He also says “there is a way of speeding up this process towards success and that it to model those already successful”. In other words, find someone who is already successful and copy them, or ask their advice!

However, most of the businesses people I have started to work with tell me, I have tried X and it does not work. My comment is “always how can we do this differently to produce a better result for you?”

Here are my thoughts regarding the marketing approach of walk-ins.

1. This is a professional marketing approach, so make sure you regard it this way

2. Know what your objective is. Is it to leave your business card, or leaflet, arrange a meeting, or make a sale?

3. Do you have anything you can do for someone, or give to someone free of charge in order to introduce the law of reciprocation. In other words, if you can give someone something, there is a significantly increased chance that they will give you something back, even if it is only five minutes of their time

4. Make sure you look your best and appropriate for what you do, what you hope to achieve and who you are going to see

5. Get yourself into the right frame of mind. If you think you are going to fail, you are correct you are. They same is often true on the other side of the coin as well

6. Build rapport as quickly as possible. Rapport is ‘the feeling of commonality’. In other words find something in common with the person you are in front of

7. Tell them who you are and what you want to do

8. Tell them you only need X minutes of their time

9. Make them laugh and have fun

10. Create and outstanding first impression, you only have one chance

11. Smile, its rule no one and break it at your peril

12. Make sure you are working in on the right people and only use this technique if you run the right type of business

13. Make sure that you have your business card, leaflets and brochure available

14. Know exactly and specifically what you are going to say and how you are going to say it and this if it is not working change your approach

15. Think carefully about your body language. This counts for over 55% of the effectiveness in the way we communicate with others when wishing to influence them

16. Make sure you tell them the benefits of speaking to you early on in the conversation.