AAR Partners’ second “Lesson Session” is being taught by Tom Martin, the founder of Converse Digital, based in Louisiana. The firm serves as an outsourced Chief Digital Marketing Officer on speed dial by helping clients understand and leverage technology today to grow their business.
There are two ways to prospect for business today. You can call them or they can call you. Guess which one converts at a higher rate?
In this Painlessly Prospecting for New Clients webinar, Tom Martin will show you how becoming “known for knowledge” has grown his small sales training firm by 25% each year without ever making a single cold call, sending an unsolicited piece of direct mail, running any advertising or participating in a single RFP.
You will learn:
What is The Invisible Sale and more importantly, why you are losing it?
How to leverage the Propinquity Effect to capture the attention and adoration of other agency’s clients?
Why you should never talk to a stranger?
How to Sell Greatly by being relationship first?
If you’re happy playing the RFP game, skip this webinar. But if you’re ready to have highly qualified clients asking you to take their business versus begging them to award it to you, then download and watch now, because this webinar is jam-packed with actionable advice you can start applying to your biz dev efforts immediately.
You’ve been hearing from me a bit more than usual this past week and I’m sure you can figure out why… the coronavirus!
Over the past 11 years, we have enjoyed a surge in soaring markets that have fueled the longest economic expansion on record in the United States. However, the coronavirus chaos has rippled through the world and as a result, the financial markets have seen the worst bloodbath since 1987 as panic selling devastated world markets.
Yes – we’ve plunged into a bear market again. Except this time, this pandemic is an unprecedented event and the impact is most likely greater than we can even foresee because it is affecting everything from all angles.
By now, we’re all working in PJ’s and baseball caps! 🙂
While you’re sitting in your slippers, here’s a great quick read on industries that are increasing their spend on podcasts. If you do a little deductive reasoning and a little additional homework, you might uncover some brands who are interested in talking about post-COVID communications tactics…
Just remember, don’t stalk. Don’t hound. Don’t send a myriad of messages about yourself. So what do you do?
Build trust. Share category insights. Do some light consumer research. Offer post-COVID purchase pattern eye-openers. Toss out some REAL-TIME trends. Show your expertise and how it’s relevant. Just… don’t… sell!
Good luck and remember to prospect smAARt and pitch with passion!
Best,
Lisa~
Welcome to another WFH week… According to the weekend news, we may be inching closer to a reopening.
In the meantime, AAR Partners is constantly and consciously keeping an ear out for smAARt leads to help you to help brands. And there is an opportunity that has been rising quickly… bread-making.
According to data from Chicory, a tech company that helps websites like Delish and Betty Crocker monetize their recipes, articles on how to make sourdough starter saw a 1,258% spike between March 8th and April 4th.
There are some common responses for the spike including: comfort; stress relief; self-reliance; store avoidance; boredom.
Whether it’s avoidance or boredom or stress-relief, the search volume for bread-related products on Amazon has exploded. In the last 30 days, “all-purpose flour” has seen 320k searches — a 3,618% increase over last month (according to Jungle Scout).
Various queries for yeast have ballooned by as much as 5,343%. Bread mixes, bread pans, and bread books (particularly, Ken Forkish’s 2012 classic, Flour Water Salt Yeast) have seen jumps of over 400%. Many products are sold out or are on backorder.
Below are some baking brands that can’t seem to keep up with the rising demand.
Red Star Yeast, a subsidiary of the largest yeast manufacturer in the world, has seen a sales bump of 647% since last year and is currently experiencing 3x its usual web traffic. But the company’s spokeswoman, Kelly Olsen, says Red Star — which is used to filling large bulk orders for restaurants — can’t package and transport consumer-sized servings fast enough to fill order requests.
King Arthur Flour is in a similar situation.
The 230-year-old company sold 6.6m bags of flour in March and experienced a 30x increase in online sales of its 5 lb. all-purpose flour. It is currently sold out of most of its offerings and has increased milling output and shifted transport from rail to truck in a bid to be ramped back up by May.
“The quantities we’re seeing now are double what we see during our busiest holiday months,” says Bill Tine, the company’s VP of marketing. “The demand is simply unprecedented and is outpacing the inventory in our warehouses.”
Bread machines — which were owned by 25m Americans during the ‘90s before falling out of favor — have seen a 652% bump in online sales. Now, popular brands like Cuisinart are ramping up production on a device once thought to be antiquated.
“We were out of stock for a short period of time due to demand but are now back in inventory this week,” says Cuisinart’s marketing director, Mary Rodgers.
What can you do to help?
First, stop selling and start supporting as much as you possibly can.
Remember, don’t stalk! Don’t hound. Don’t sent a myriad of messages about yourself. What do you do?
Build trust fast by offering ideas to help with their operations, manufacturing and distribution dilemmas. Share your expertise and show how it’s relevant. Just… don’t… sell!
With that said, you will most likely be “kneaded” to get these brands through these times and will build a lasting relationship. If not, at “yeast” you tried. (Sorry – I just couldn’t resist the puns here).
Prospect smAARt and pitch with passion and most importantly, purpose.
