getting past the gatekeepers...

[dreadpiratk]

We own a small service business designing and managing digital signage to the hospitality industry. We market to upscale sports bars, restaurants, and small local chains. We have been very successful in selling to the owners of such places, when we can get to them. The problem is getting to them. They are typically very busy people, and it's hit or miss if they are on premises at any given time, and they typically have some very aggressive gatekeepers defending them. Managers usually. We market entirely person to person. Sometimes we'll call first to get a name or possibly make an appointment, more often we just walk in and ask to speak to the owner. On a number of occasions we've been lucky, the owner was right there and we made the elevator pitch, got the appointment then or later, and made the sale.

The problem is at other times we're going back four, five six times to try to get past the gatekeepers. We really need to cut this down, it's too slow and expensive. Part of the problem is we are in all honesty a rather stodgy old married couple who really don't hang out at bars, and never really have so we don't know the culture and aren't likely to make any contacts socially. Any thoughts on how to bypass the gatekeepers and get to the decisions makers faster? Or how to market it differently? We don't need a huge volume of sales as it's an ongoing service model, but a steady flow to create growth. It's tough because these people are already very heavily marketed, and although what we offer is totally unique it's gets lost in the shuffle.

[Patrysha]

The things that immediately come to mind are networking and trade shows. For example, can you find the Sysco Rep, Coke Rep and/or Micros reps for your area...get to know them and leads into the restaurant industry are likely to follow. Food shows and other industry trade shows can also be a good place to find lots of your target market in one place. Go and mingle the first year to decide if it's worth the investment...talk to people and be sure that's where your target is before thinking about actually marketing through a trade show, they can be very expensive and don't always deliver the results you want if you haven't researched first. Traditional networking groups like the Chamber, Rotary or Local Restaurant Association may all be handy places too.

Do you know any restaurant owners on a personal level? Depending on the size of your town and the competitive bent you may be able to connect to other restaurant owners through ones you currently know. I know the restaurant owners and managers in this town all know each other and will occasionally help each other out even though they keep numbers and operations close to the vest they do share some information.

Online you might join a membership like restaurantowner.com to scope for potential leads.

Depending on your area of coverage, getting media coverage in a trade magazine or local paper might generate some interest and awareness so your entrance is smoothed by your perceived expertise and media coverage so that you're better known than joe blow off the street.

Having an online presence will help even if you are keeping it local, even if the owners aren't computer saavy (and many of them aren't) many have minions on staff who will do research for them on potential meet-ups and will advise according to what they find in their research...having an established website can smooth the way in that respect.

Hope this helps.

[Harold Mansfield]

I worked in bars, clubs and restaurants for 20 years and I have been that gatekeeper. The sales pitches at a bar are non stop. To be honest I'm surprised you've had the success that you have cold calling like that.

I don't have any advice that will help you get past the gatekeepers because in all honesty, most bar managers hate the constant sales pitches. I'm of the school that you need to learn how to market your product to a broader audience instead of one bar at a time. Also, I'm sure there are other uses other than sports bars. Other than that, Patrysha pretty much covered anything else I would add. A nice presentation of your product online is crucial.

[dreadpiratk]

Thanks for the insight Harold- that pretty much jives with what we've found. I think we've succeeded so far because what we offer is top of mind for most restaurant and bar owners anyway. They know it's out there and gaining traction in their industry but most don't have a clue how to implement it. Once thy hear what we do they very much want to talk to us, it's just getting to them that's the problem

You are correct that there are a vast number of possible applications for what we do, but too broad a focus in any business is a good recipe for failure. Trying to do everything you could do all at once usually means not doing what you are doing very well, so we've chosen, after much research and market testing to start here and branch out later. Among other reasons because sports bars already have the TV's so it's a low cost of entry for them, plus they spend a lot of money on TV's and programming and most are very eager to get something back from that. It's a calculated risk of course, and always subject to change, but the hope is it's only to get started, once we have a decent customer base deployed we will move to a more referral based system. One of our best customers has already set us up with his beverage distributor who just scrapped their digital signage program so there's a huge opportunity there- they could give us the introduction we need to an almost unlimited customer base.

[ajointventure]

In British Columbia Canada there is a restaurant and pub owners association. They have regular conventions and perhaps there may be something similar where you live. Showing up at such a convention as an invited guest with a working model of what you are selling could be a method of sales. The gatekeeper is eliminated and you have the people who sign the checks as a captive audience.

[Harold Mansfield]

Yep, there's at least 2 of them every year here in Vegas. Next one is in March.
Nightclub & Bar Show (http://www.ncbshow.com/)
Nightclub & Bar Convention And Trade Show - Nightlife & Club Industry Association of America (http://www.nciaa.com/content.aspx?page_id=87&club_id=160641&item_id=80027)

I re-read your original post and you seem to be saying that you want to grow, but not that much. That you just want the sales process to be easier. I would think that if you are going to be pitching people one at a time, that hitting chains with multiple locations would yield more lucrative results than individual bar owners.

[dreadpiratk]

Thanks for that. We've looked at these shows, but they are very expensive, and would likely either not be worth the price or yield more business than we are capable of handling right now. Ideally we would like to find something similar but on a more local or regional level. We provide a custom tailored service to each client, so we are very conscious of needing to ramp up our ability to provide the service at the same rate we sell it. It would be great if 20 prospects wanted to buy next week, but it would also likely be fatal to us as we couldn't create that many campaigns all at once. I think it's better that we acquire customers in ones and twos and do an extraordinary job of creating highly effective signage for them. Even if it means slower growth, it will pay off in the long run I think. Plus there a lots of would be national players in the digital signage space, most of whom have much greater resources then we do so competing with them would be difficult. On the other hand, no one is competing for Joe's bar and grill on the corner, so that where I see an opportunity. We intentionally designed our business plan so that we can be profitable on relatively few customers, not as a volume business.

It's also a part time business right now. We're moving into the awkward spot where it's more time then we really have, but not yet enough money to go full time, so we have to carefully manage the growth.

We are targeting small chains, and in fact are developing a custom service for a 50 site chain in our area. If they buy it will really put us on the map. But multi site businesses are few relative to single site ones, so it's a smaller market. We're trying to find that sweet spot with businesses that are big enough to need us, but small enough to not be able to do it for themselves.

[justinnichols]

Hi dreadpiratk,

I'm not sure why there is no Sales section in these forums, because your question is a sales question and not a marketing one.

Here is an incredible way to get past gatekeepers: Go through them.

This is how you do it. Call them up and say "Hi, are you the decision-maker on high-level strategic partnerships?" They will 90% of the time say "No". That's when you say "Who is? I've looked at your website and am interested in exploring if there's a fit for doing business together."

This works incredibly well. I say strategic partnerships because you should be treating all of your customers as partners. Sometimes you will get a gatekeeper who thinks they have more authority then they do, but there is always caveats to every approach.