Marketing Lessions from a Mall Kiosk Vendor

He was selling a glass cleaning and polishing product.

What he would do is look for people wearing glasses and right before they got to his kiosk he would step up to them and say, "Excuse me Sir. (or Ms.) your glasses look scratched. If you will allow me to polish them I think I can remove the scratches."

He approached people who were most likely to buy his product - people with glasses. But more so... he drew their attention to their "problem."

I've mentioned this before... in one of my businesses I cold-call business owners who I have discovered have a problem. Nearly 100% of the business I approach become clients. And all I do is draw their attention to their problem and let them know I can fix it. Sometimes, I draw their attention to the problem and then flash my business card - which tells them I solve the problem (they more fully believe it because they read it themselves, and we all know what's written is true, right?) and credentialises me at the same time (a fly-by-nighter would not have a business card).

Markus Allen told an interesting story... he was contacted by someone who said something like, "I have spotted two spelling typos and a dead link on your site. For $5 sent through PayPal I will tell you what the typos are and how to fix the dead link."

A simple Three Step procedure:
[*]Find a prospect with a problem. (Look for people wearing glasses.)
[*]Let the prospect know about (draw their attention to) the problem. (Your glasses look scratched.)
[*]Offer to fix the problem. (I can remove the scratches.)

You can offer your "solution" en masse and hope some of the people in the potential market will identify themselves and buy your solution.

Or

You can pro-actively contact those in your target market (the ones you have identified with the problem), draw their attention to the problem, and offer your solution.

I have had great success with the second method - and it's real low low stress "selling" too. It's almost like letting someone know their tyre is flat, or something is hanging out of their car, or they dropped something... (I notice you've got this problem. Oh yeah. I can fix it, if you like. Would you, that'd be great.)

Michael Ross


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