Today Ian and I have found ourselves manning a stand at Network Central at Sandygate in Exeter. We had a range of different products to show customers including Telephone Systems, Handsets and a new solution we have just put together that allows businesses who call Mobile Phones a lot to make calls from the Office to any mobile for just 2p per minute, (this usually costs between 8-15p per minute).
We started at 7.30 this morning and finished at around 4.00pm. Having just got back in to the office we have sat down to discuss how successful the day had been. I have today spoken to forty eight different businesses and Ian had spoken to a similar amount. You would think with a way of saving 75 to 85% off of the Mobile calls on your bill we would have walked away with a massive amount of customers begging to sign up to our new service. The reason that this had not happened was that the majority of the Visitors today had been one man bands with no use for our product.
This caused Ian and I some heartache thinking that we had wasted a day of our time for no fruit. Having talked it through however we have already decided we would do it again. Why???
Today we have met 100 businesses that we have never spoken to before. Each of them have their own sphere of customers which we have probably not met either. Lets assume for these purposes that each of them have 50 customers. This means that today Ian and I have opened our door to another potential 5000 businesses that we did not know when we got out of bed this morning. If just one of those visitors hears one of their customers say that they need to re examine their phone system next week then who are they going to think of?
I know that following today’s exhibition people will ask if this is a worthwhile exercise. How would you reply if you knew that you had increased your potential customer base by a possible 5000 contacts in just 8.5 hours.
And before you ask… Yes I will be doing it again, (even though my feet are sore!)
Jim
