marketing, sales, social-networkingI have my product pretty close to finished :) Now I need to sell it to business owners. How do I get a hold of them?
I’ve tried cold calling, but just get voice mail typically. I need to arrange 10 minute appointments to demo my startup.
How do I get a hold of them?
This is too broad a question. There are far too many options to go through, and merely listing a few of them won’t touch the surface of how to do it right. But things you can try include: working your contacts or theirs to get an introduction, emailing them (check out e.g. Email Hunter or Clearbit), LinkedIn messaging them, trying to connect with them at local meetups and other events, barging into them at a bar/club or a restaurant when you spot them. You can go as far as knocking at the door of their office if you pull off getting into the building.
And of course, call them. Cold calling them mostly won’t work nowadays, because US recipients know better than answering unknown numbers. But they will pick up if they’re seen your number a few times in their inbox or if they expect your call.
Related questions in passing:
Also note that this is a sales question as much as it is a marketing one. A closed door doesn’t stop a good sales from entering a building. They’ll keep on trying through the windows, the chimney, the vent, the basement, the parking, or other until they get an unequivocal “not interested”. Keep trying.
Promotions
Specifically, Advertising, Sponsorship and Trade Shows will be your best friend starting out. Figure out what vertical market you want to reach first (hopefully you knew this before even developing the product) and then find some trade associations related to them.
Become a member so you can attend or sponsor their networking events, contact their members (sometimes this is included for business partners, sometimes its an additional fee, sometimes its not even offered for member privacy), attend their larger national shows if you feel ready distribution wise, and advertise in their publications.
This is going to be the best way in the B2B market to make initial contacts and start getting your product to market. Many trade associations exist so really try to find the best one in the industry you’re marketing to. You want one that has decision makers and a good way to find that is by looking at their publications or attending their events to see basically:
Is this Publication or Event mostly just other manufacturers like me or are there attendees? Is there real news and events going on for the end user? If its all just ads and stuff about manufacturers like yourself then chances are the end users you’re trying to reach aren’t into that association.
Cold calling is hard, so is door to door selling. It can work, it can also turn a lot of people off. If there’s no good trade organization than it’ll be your only option though when starting out. But really, everything has a tradeshow of some sort because businesses rely on other businesses.
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