There are few things that are more of a time waste than standing in a long line. In fact, we humans are hard-wired to avoid lines – or at least pick the shortest one – at every opportunity. For example, no one willingly chooses to stand in the longest line at the grocery store. Instead, we scan all the lines and select the one we believe is the shortest.
When it comes to prospecting for new business, many promotional products distributors unwittingly pick the longest line by focusing all their efforts trying to get the attention of the marketing department. While the marketing department of any organization seems like the natural place to begin, it is also the most difficult place to gain meaningful entry into a client.
A few years ago, I had the good fortune of working with the marketing team of a Fortune 500 logistics company. During one meeting, I asked them to share with me how many times they were contacted by promotional products companies in an average week. I assumed the answer to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 – 15, but certainly no more than 20. I was astounded to hear that they were contacted 50 times a week by promotional products distributors seeking to have a “quick meeting.”
Read that again: 50 times a week!
When you only target the marketing departments of your target audience, you will have a very difficult time getting your message heard above the din of your competition. In essence, you are picking the longest line with the lowest likelihood of success.
Rather than stand in that long line – one that may never move forward – target other non-traditional departments: sales, facilities, meetings/events, production, R&D, or training. While these departments may not have budgets as deep as marketing, the budgets they do have are usually much easier to access.
In other words, choose a shorter line.
If your goal is to blend in with the crowd, continue standing in the long line to marketing. However, there are much shorter lines to gain access to your prospects – it’s up to you to find them.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. In 2014, he launched brandivate – the first executive outsourcing company solely focused on helping small and medium sized-promotional products enterprises responsibly grow their business. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, developing operational policies and procedures, creating and developing winning RFP responses, and presenting winning promotional products solutions to Fortune 500 clients. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.