One hard working marketer was having problems setting quality appointments (perhaps you’re having the same problem).

He was cold calling restaurants on the phone and setting up appointments to see them.

But when he got there they’d forgotten he was coming or they’d pass him on to an employee or spouse or tell him they didn’t have any money to spend…before he even talked about what he could do for them!

Telemarketing has its place marketing many different kinds of businesses but when you’re not setting up your posture as a marketing expert in the right way it can be a real hindrance.

Think about how you’re being viewed…
what you look like to your prospects.

Ideally you want to be seen as an in demand consultant or marketing expert.

That’s one of the problems with cold calls…it really works against building that persona in your prospect’s mind.

The approach this marketer was using just makes him look like a salesperson and that’s the last thing you want.

If you add a step in your sales process that gets them to call or email you first that is likely to completely change the way your prospects are seeing you.

Since you’re approaching restaurant owners you could create a direct mail piece (or sequence), an email (or email sequence) or a combination of both.

I talk at length about using emails and direct mail
in the Offline Gold Get Clients Now product.

Do this well with good marketing pieces that pre-educate prospects with high quality information on the benefits to them of doing business with you and you should get a good number of business owners contacting you first.

You can also hire someone to follow up on the business owners who don’t contact you by telephone.

The good news is these follow up phone calls are going to be a lot easier to handle because the business owner knows who you are and in many cases they meant to contact you but they got busy or read your piece in the middle of the night and then the day to day hustle of running a business put it out of their minds.

If you’ve sent 3 or 4 letters or emails (or even just one with really high quality information) you’re going to be seen as a marketing expert instead of as a salesperson.

You won’t be wasting time with people who
have no idea who you are or how valuable you can be to them…

If you’re going to go to the trouble of physically meeting a prospect you want to know that they will respect your time and expertise and realize that you’re giving them something of genuine value.

It’s far better to mail or email 100 restaurant owners and get 2 serious appointments than to run around like a chicken with your head chopped off talking to a dozen different business owners who don’t think you’re worth the time of day.

Make business owners commit if they want to talk to you.

A good marketing consultant is worth at least $250 to $500 an hour. They should know that’s what they’re getting before you agree to meet with them.

In other words they should know they’re getting $500 in value to help their business succeed as a personal gift from you.

You need a game changer…

There are multiple ways you can completely change the way any business owner sees you.

The Offline Gold Army product is one of these.

With the Offline Gold Army strategy you don’t even have to approach prospects yourself. You’ll have people they know and trust bringing them to you!

And when you do call a business owner after just a few sentences they’ll be eager to talk to you and send you high quality prospects (I know it sounds crazy but that’s what a game changing strategy does…it changes the ground rules altogether).

Another game changing strategy
is having some kind of directory site…

You call business owners offering to put a free review of them and their business onto your directory website.

You just need to interview them to get some information about who they are, why they’re in business, what they stand for, what they do that’s unique.

The majority of businesses you call with this approach will grant you an interview and because you’ve made them feel important they’re far more likely to set aside a good block of time to talk to you in private.

In fact if you’re using this strategy that’s what you should ask for. Remember you’re giving them free advertising on your website.

It’s a shame for you to struggle in your first contacts with business owners when you could be having so much more fun so easily.

Always remember to keep how prospects see you at the forefront of your mind in your dealings and go out of your way to build your posture as an in demand internet marketing expert.