Selling computer systems to garden centers?

Question

Where are the best places to get leads other than garden shows?

Answer 1

Four places to try first.

1.  The Internet.  Use Yahoo! to search for garden centers in the towns you are interested in.

2.  The yellow pages.  Use your local yellow pages to identify local prospects.  (Also visit the public library and identify out of town prospects using their out of town phone directories.)

3.  While at the library check out Thomas Register, which lists every business in a state along with the address, names of key officers and a rough indication of their dollar sales.

4.  Never leave a sales session (even those where you didn't succeed in making a sale) without asking for the names of others who might be interested.

One word of caution.  Before you make any telephone calls to promote your product look up the federal and state do not call regulations so that you can determine who you can and can't call, what you are required to say, and what you are permitted to say.

Hope this helps

Jerry-the-bookkeeper

Answer 2

Certainly do a search for a list-broker.  I would recommend doing a direct mail type promo.  The trick here is that if you want to target those specific types of business, then you need to know what the specific issues are that they face with their computer systems.  What is a unique problem they have?  Then address that problem.  Position yourself as the expert when it comes to advising garden centers about computers.

If you are not restricted to a geographical area and want to sell online, then I would recommend to write some articles about these specific issues and post them to article directories with a link back to your website for more info.  Give away a free report on your site about the specific issues you can address and require people to enter their contact info to get the report.  Now all of a sudden you have a list of garden centers who are looking to solve specific problems.  Shouldn't be hard to sell to them :)