I've bored everyone enough talking about getting robbed in FULLERTON, CA and am sick of talking about it.So let's talk about how I found my first two leads for scooters only having been in the state 18 hours or so. There was nothing special about it really, just keeping my ears open and hearing what I was told.
I called to rent a car and a guy came to my motel to pick me up so we could go back to their office and do the paperwoork. As far as I knew he was nobody special, just a guy. We were chatting casually as we drove, and he asked what I did, just as he probably asks everybody. I said that I sell Rascal scooters to the VA hospitals. He started tellng me that his company is located near Disneyland and that a company down the street rents scooters to tourists, and that he sees them tip over going across the street frequently. I asked what they rent and he says Pride, and that he's been thinking about getting some Pride's also and renting them himself. At this point I find out that he's the owner of the rental company and that he might want as many as ten scooters to get started. So I spend the rest of the ride telling him about our brand new untippable 3 wheel front. That it's been tested and proven to be as stable as a 4 wheel, and that when it was rolled out to the VA's I took it to each of my VA's and as I showed it I told everybody that I had $20. that said they couldn't tip it over. I also told him that there are some big guys and gals there and some of them really tried but that NOBODY tipped over. One guy spun it in a circle as fast as it would go in the hallway, to the point that the tires slid on the waxed floor and he slammed a wall damaging the brand new drywall, but to his amazement he couldn't tip it, and he weighed upwards of 300 lbs or more. I gave him more examples and when we got tho the rental office, he gave me his card and private number and asked me to bring a demo in to show him as soon as possible. He also gave me the name and card of the company down the street that rents Pride. They're friends and he said they may also be interested as safety is a concern.
My point is that it wasn't difficult to get these leads, all I did was recognize a need and offer a solution. Which I'm sure all of us do every day. It just happened that we now have the best solution out there, and that's what I offered. Safety...
As it turned out, I fanally got the demo, it only took about a month or so to get it to me. I set the appointment and did the demo, the guy was very nice, but vague. He reduced the number he wanted to start with to 5, and said it all depended on him finding liability insurance, which made sense, a condition, not an objection for those of you who're salespeople. I checked back and actually found one broker who thought she might be able to get him insured, I gave her his number and him hers. Then we had the conf call that told us the bad news, so I called to see where he was at and inform him that Rascal was closing. He was brusque, saying I'll call you back, which he never did. That's where it stands, I never called him again, because as far as I know he's not interested enough to call me, and we probably wouldn't have been able to fill the order anyway. Of course who knows, maybe he went around me direct to the company, I don't think so but you never know, or maybe he used our quote to shop around, I know that another company offers Pride's for rent in the hotel lobby where my prospect is located, that's more likely. In any case it's a dead issue now.
ReplyDeleteLee Murray