#8: Door to Door Salesperson

I visited stores and went inside offices, trying to meet people in person. I introduced myself. I asked if they were familiar with The Community Newspaper.

How is business these days? What’s new? Are there stories we should include?

I find a lot of stories:

A small fabric store in the neighborhood, all but closed at the beginning of the pandemic and then began making masks, hired everyone they’d laid off, taught people to sew masks, and now had a full schedule of sewing classes from people who found they enjoyed sewing.

A wine shop owner wanted to write a regular wine column. It will be funny, he promised.

If it were up to me, I would publish his column starting this month.

But I am the Sales person. Everyone is counting on to pay the bill

I spend two hours meeting people. I call/email/ leave messages for 50 people a day. Five days a week.

After a month, I get two sales, and promises to buy advertising for the holidays.

The nos I get are one of three kinds:

We don’t make the decision and the person who does is out of the office, hard to reach, busy.

We are prioritizing payroll and keeping lights on. We can’t afford advertising.

We work with someone who is doing our social media marketing. Does anyone still read the newspaper?

Is it that I don’t know how to “close” a sale? Or is something else at work here?

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog