[DesertRatTom]

,,,I suggest to anyone. Start part time. Run as hard as you can as long as you can and hope you have a wife or husband that can support you when work gets slow....

If you are actively marketing, your numbers should be fairly stable. Part time and full time are quite different. Running the machine is interesting, but someone has to sell something or you have a hobby. Unfortunately, most people have a complete misconception of selling. Today, the old idea of overcoming objections, of selling something to someone who really doesn't want it, is long gone.

The idea is to eliminate through marketing and communication, those who don't want stuff, and not to pester them by repeated, unwanted contact. You sift through the "no thanks" folks and occasionally, you run across someone who is looking for what you are offering. Sometimes it is because they have a client looking for something you could provide and they don't know where else to look, or you can deliver quickly, or you can consult on, or even supply, designs that translate to workable results. You don't know, but if you listen and ask questions rather than engage in a sales pitch, you will detect the interest and by asking further questions, you can figure out why they need help. If you can do it, are willing to handle their issue, then you are likely to have a customer's first order. Your service, assistance, support, and you produce good stuff, you are likely to get further orders. Price is rarely the big issue with good customers.

There's an old piece of wisdom in business. What do you do with a troublesome, bad client/customer? You replace the with good customers. Sometimes by saying no to rush rush jobs, no to low or slow pay customers and jobs, imposing extra charges for rush jobs, you can retrain them to be better customers. But you be reluctant to do that if you don't have a good customer to keep up your cash flow. That's why marketing is so important.

What to do with the mildly interested or the NOs? Ask permission to send them a little information. Send a page or two, one with pictures of your best work, the other a brief bit of information about what you do with phone number, email and an admonition to keep this handy in case they ever need what you do. Keep this informational, avoid selling language. If you use the phrase, "serve your needs," you'll be dismissed.

 

[DesertRatTom]

There is a wonderful little book for self published authors on how to sell lots of books and build an interested readership fairly quickly using email with an assist from social media. It is by far the most concise and worthwhile book on the topic I've ever found. It is titled "Your First 1,000 Copies."

Although for authors, it applies to almost any business. We used if for years to generate business ourselves, modified it only slightly to apply to our clients practices and a bit of it is in my suggestions for marketing. You use the emails to follow up and send a stream of useful information out to prospects who have signed up to read your email. The method fits the small CNC business to a T. It is inexpensive to maintain and allows you to present your current projects to new prospects. In a way, it allows you to let your prospects know how good you are, and at the same time caution them about picking just any provider when they could get your expert help and production.

The basic principles of marketing are very simple, even if some of the methods are arcane. You are looking to reveal people who want what you want to sell, and over time, to turn them into paying customers. Old sales methods focus on overcoming objections to get someone to buy. New methods focus on providing services and goods that people want, or will want, or preferably will want over and over again. If land a contract with a small, but expanding hotel chain to put their logo on every room number plaque on every door, then as they expand, so will your business with them. Once you have their logo scanned in, it's easy to fit on all kinds of additional signs, restroom plaques, signs for the hotel bar, laundry, etc. A B&B or large lodge in the mountains, near the sea or lake, or..., may never open another location, but they might well love the CNC themed signs with logo, and want them everywhere, indoors and out.

Finding these folks isn't all that difficult. Finding agencies that do branding for such chains is pretty easy as well. There are thousands of small agencies to be approached and if you talk branding using the CNC produced items, you may well reach them. If you help the get started by helping design and then provide a sample, they can pitch their client, and you may have a client. Designers, PR agents, art directors, in house agencies are all prospective clients, and it's not hard to reach them.

If anyone wants further discussion of their CNC marketing plans, I am happy to reply.

 

[DesertRatTom]

When I want to know how to sell something I simply ask the people sellng it.

OK, fair enough. I prefer asking the people who are laying out the cash to buy it. Our consultation and training tab starts at $24K, up to $32K for additional services and programs. No one else "sells" anything like it, so the understanding and listening to the buyers is the key to staying in business nearly 40 years, and now, my daughter runs the show. We have a troubleshooting survey form that addresses almost every issue we've encountered over all those years. And we know how to resolve ever item on the list and have past clients who vouch for us.

When I mentioned small agencies, I remember a guy who supported our PR department at Kawasaki (motorcycles) when I was PR manager for that company. We had an open budget account to cover him and relied on him for backup and support. He would sometimes pop up with ideas and suggestions that set us off on a different course, including connecting us with a great photographer who didn't break our budget. In my business journalism days, I ran into and got helpful info from a number of small free-lance marketing and PR agencies and individuals.

Marketing and modern sales avoids the language of selling and the old nostrums: overcoming objections, ABC Always Be Closing, pressure. That faded out a long time ago. Good riddance.