SPOTLIGHT BUSINESS “Old School” Still Works Tom Gillespie, CML, CIL, CCL, explains how to professionally promote your services via an old-fashioned paper handout. H 14 ow can you expect to get new customers, have repeat business from past customers or even get additional work from current regular cus- tomers? In the prevailing atmosphere of social media, it’s likely that many of you are already spreading the word with tools such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YP, email or a company website. Aſter all, you can’t do much more to promote your company, can you? Yes, you can, and it’s simple, inexpensive and powerful. Don’t overlook an old-school handout flyer as a valuable advertising tool. A single- folded sheet of paper can provide the opportunity to explain to your customers the various products you sell and services you offer. If marketing is a pie chart, the slices include; advertising, competition research, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, community involvement and more. Remember that many customers don’t know what you do. People walk into the shop, see 13,279 keys hanging on your wall and ask, “Do you cut keys?” Despite the temptation to answer, “No sir, this is a bowling alley!” you smile politely and answer KEYNOTES APRIL 2017 yes. Or do you still have friends who say, “So you just drive around all day cutting keys?” Yes, that’s precisely what I do. Because people don’t know exactly what you do, it’s up to you to educate them. Years ago, I acquired a very large commercial property management ac- count in Orange County, CA, by hand- ing out a simple flyer on a night-time auto lockout. She had called her regular locksmith, but they hadn’t called back …as usual. As I made out the invoice, the customer read through our flyer and mentioned that she’d seen our trucks around but didn’t know we did master key systems. She said she needed some locks master keyed at the company where she worked. We talked briefly and set up a meeting later in the week. I found out what kind of hardware the company had on their properties by driving by the next day. I went to our meeting prepared with de- tailed information and was surprised to discover that she was the owner. We were able to land that account because it was being under-served by a competitor and because she was better informed about us. WWW.ALOA.ORG
