Finding Customers

From todays class transcript... on the topic of finding customers...


sjamesusa: I have a ques about approaching retailers and getting their feedback.
sjamesusa: many of the high end stores I visited in SFran were not informed about their industry to give me any practical feedback.
sjamesusa: where do you find the smart clerks in stores??
wknauss: Feedback on the product or on reps?
sjamesusa: these days..
sjamesusa: feedback about the product from store clerks.
Jspiers: sjames, recall how I say visit six stores six times?
Jspiers: precisely because the clerks do not know... so drive home this fact, and get past the clerks...
sjamesusa: yep. I went to 8 stores and didn't get good feedback from any of the clerks there.
sjamesusa: ahaa..
wknauss: I'd missed the six times mulitplier
Jspiers: "Does your manager know...?" when the manager shows up, "does your divisional know?"
sjamesusa: somehow we get past the dumb clerks..
Jspiers: when the divisional shows up.." does the VP know?
wknauss: Dumb or, more likely, bored and unmotivated, minimum wage folks
Jspiers: O! this is critical...
Jspiers: home depot laid off their $24/hr experts...
sjamesusa: i heard that about hdepot, also.
Jspiers: then replaced with $12 kids...
Jspiers: now dumped them, and only hires labor ready at $10, then cans them at 89 days... so don’t have to pay bennies...
sjamesusa: I'm trying to get feedback about my redesigned stylus and I can't get it from stores like radio shack, best buy.
wknauss: I think Circuit City did something similar to HD. Worked out well for them... NOT
Jspiers: exactly wknauss, it i an indication they are going under... but many stores are hiring less than the bst in their front lines...
Jspiers: point is, you have to work past them...
sjamesusa: I'll keep trying, though, to reach at least a manager.
Jspiers: I think I push this point... 6 x 6...
Jspiers: and I make the point we become someting of a pest...
sjamesusa: ok. I didn't want to divert the teaching for today but thought I'd through some of my experience in..
sjamesusa: from last week's efforts ..
Jspiers: sjames, it is most welcome..
wknauss: Your experience is teaching!
Jspiers: everyone has benefitted..
sjamesusa: ok.
Jspiers: and note that becoming a pest as a customer is a lot easier than trying to pester as a potential vendor...
Jspiers: same goals, but far easier as a custoemr...
Jspiers: make sense?
sjamesusa: are we inquiring about our product as a customer or..
Jspiers: plan A is inquire as a customer...
sjamesusa: I know it's not in the stores and trying to find out if store is interested in selling.
Jspiers: plan B is inquire as a vendor...
sjamesusa: ok. got it.
Jspiers: sjames that is plan B... infinitely harder than plan A
Jspiers: to bug a divisional as a customers is rather easy...
sjamesusa: I've inquired as plan a. I know it's not in the stores I went to.
Jspiers: to bug a divisional as a vendor is going to get you escorted out by security...
sjamesusa: and my design is not even online.
sjamesusa: I think I've entered plan b, right?
Jspiers: sjames, of course what you know can be wrong, but in any case, it is best to drive on as though you expect your item, your idea, to be there...
Jspiers: you get so much farhter with so much less effort...
Jspiers: I am afraid so sjames...
Jspiers: must return to a zen state of knowing nothing...
Jspiers: hard to communicate this...
Jspiers: but the more you presume they have it in stock, right now, somewhere...and you insist they find it here and now, the more trouble you cause because you are absolutely sure they have it in stock somewhere...
Jspiers: the more likely you will succeed.
sjamesusa: I don't find it anywhere..online or in store.
Jspiers: well, why wouldn't they have it in stock? what could be more natural?
Jspiers: just how wierd is it that they do not have it in stock?
sjamesusa: the stores I went to have the stylus but it's the same ones that are sold everywhere. I have a redesign.
Jspiers: your attitude as a customer in the store is: “what is the matter with you people here... why is this item not here in stock right now?!”
Jspiers: (I guess i am not getting my point across...)
sjamesusa: oh. I get it... such tactics like that..
wknauss: Get you kicked 'upstairs' in the chain so the min. wage clerk doesn't have to deal with you
Jspiers: psych yourself into an angry panic when you shop for your item, be filled with righteous indignation that they do not have it in stck just this instant...
Jspiers: yes, indeed...
Jspiers: be a problem...
sjamesusa: ok. I
sjamesusa: can do that.
Jspiers: good...
sjamesusa: I"m convinced, though, that my product will be a go..
Jspiers: the more YOU insist it does not exist, the less interest they have...
wknauss: Then you get a garage full :-)
*** edaercayan (edaercayan@edaercayan) has joined channel #worldtrade
Jspiers: your opinion is worth exactly nothing, sjames...
Jspiers: in fact, it is detrimental to your hopes and dreams...
Jspiers: edaercayan, join us in #worldtrade
sjamesusa: I'll convince the retailers..
Jspiers: well, better they convince themselves...
Jspiers: learn from con artists...
sjamesusa: is Best Buy one of the stores we can work with?
Jspiers: they never instill confidence in themsleves, the con artists... the con artists get their marks to be confident...
Jspiers: never BEST BUY, sjames...
sjamesusa: or, places like Office Max, and those kind of chains?
Jspiers: never...
sjamesusa: ok.
sjamesusa: good to know that.
sjamesusa: even radio shack?
wknauss: And the issue is they will quickly find another supplier?
sjamesusa: hmm.. yea. all good stuff to note.
Jspiers: the process of plan A will get the decision makers in the upscale stores to gain confidence in their decision to buy from you, when you come back with what the decision maker said was a good idea and did not exist...
Jspiers: make sense?
sjamesusa: makes sense! as I get our feet wet in this field, I learn.
Jspiers: sjames, after 3 weeks at office max, when they reorder... someone will say "$10, I can get these for $2... let's roll!"
Jspiers: you do ndeed sjames...!
Jspiers: at specialty stores, the volumes are low, you test gently, make money on reorders, not volume... and you expand your line leisurely since you are gicven ideas as to what to do next...

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