New SELLmatix dealers often wonder about how to find prospective customers
where our POS system is a good fit for the customer requirements. To answer that question,
we recently surveyed existing dealers to find the type of customers that buy systems, and the
way that existing dealers find sales leads.
Retailers that install SELLmatix typically fall into one of the following categories:-
- New Stores Opening. POS equipment is needed and budgets are available.
- Stores purchased by a new owner. Typically the new owner sees ways to improve the store and has a budget to do so.
- Stores that opened with a stopgap cash register solution, and are now ready to to install a proper Point of Sale system.
- Stores that are growing with additional POS terminals, or adding new stores to their group.
- Distressed operations making losses where they need to bring shrinkage under control and improve efficiency.
- Stores replacing old equipment that is beyond its service life, or not performing adequately.
Point of Sale systems are a significant investment for a retailer, and if they have an existing system that is performing OK, they
are unlikely to upgrade just for one or two new features. Even so, the factors above
mean that within a 12 month period, around 20-30%
of retailers would consider a new POS system or upgrading their existing system.
SELLmatix is a very good Point of Sale system, and where a dealer is able to identify retailers where it is a good fit and
open a dialog with the retailer discussing their requirements, healthy sales volumes flow as a natural progression
from those discussions. The issue for dealers is identifying those retailers and making contact with them in a low key,
unstressed manner.
According to our dealers, the techniques they have used for making initial contact with retailers include the following:-
- Trade Shows. These can help to identify a lot of prospects at the right type of trade show. however, they are normally held annually, and
if you need to wait several months before the next trade show, other methods need to be found.
- Referral. You may not know about retail shops that are about to open, or which have been purchased by new owners,
but there are other businesses that do. For example all of the followning know of new retailers that are opening or upgrading their equipment:-
- Commercial Real Estate Agents that sign leases on on retail premises.
- Business Brokers that sell businesses.
- Accountants know clients that need systems. If the accountant knows you and is confident that the solutions you provide will help their clients
they are one of the best forms of referral.
- Shopping Centre Managers know when new retailers lease space in their Shopping Centres
- Shop Fitters that install new fixtures and fittings in shops know when new retailers are about to open.
- Commercial Cooking Equipment suppliers that fit out restaurant kitchens know when new restaurants are about to open.
If you build relationships with these sort of companies, they can provide you with lists of prospective clients at the time they are ready to buy.
Sometimes referral commission is needed, and in other cases a less formal arrangement can be just as effective.
- Specialty Trade Magazines and "advertorial" coverage. For example, if you identify garden centers as a good market, advertising in garden
center trade magazines can be very effective. The problem is that dealers are typically targeting more than one vertical market, so many adverts need to be placed,
and many of the retailers that read the advert will be out of you area.
- Yellow Pages. Our dealers that have used it do not report good results in their markets.
- Television. Some dealers have used TV to market POS systems in addition to
other products and services they offer. Results reported have been mixed, and we suspect
that it would not be cost effective just for marketing POS systems but may be useful for raising awareness of
the dealer where they offer other systems or services as well.
- Word of Mouth. This is extremely effective. If dealers do a good job with their retailer clients, other
retailers will be referred. But this only starts to work after you are established and have a reputation for providing excellent service to your clients..
- Google Adwords. Google stands out for internet advertising because your can target specific geographical locations. In other words, you can target
people searching for Point of Sale systems that are close to where you are located, without paying for advertising in other locations.
Adwords can work very effectively for a very small outlay, but if you don't know what you are doing you can spend thousands of dollars without a return.
If you consider using Google, then you need to have Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords.
We bought a copy and and use it ourselves.
Perry has also written a written a very helpful e-course
and there's no charge for it.
You can find out about it here:
5 days to success with Google AdWords
- Direct Marketing (phone) and Cold Calls. This is the single most effective technique reported
by our dealers. If you do it yourself, the cost is almost nothing, it produces immediate results and is the
only technique that is directly controllable.
Many people are uncomfortable cold calling, but there are some radically different techniques
that can be used to eliminate the pressure and make it pleasurable. For information please refer to:-
Contacting Retailers.
Each of our dealers uses a slightly different combination of techniques to find prospects. Our most productive
dealers
all use some form of direct marketing or cold calling, whether they do it themselves or hire staff
or other 3rd parties to handle the cold calling for them.
If you come up with another technique that works well, let us know, and we will add it to the list.
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