Putting yourself out there and letting everybody know
Regular conversations need only a ‘hello’ to get off the ground. But if the conversation involves the travel service and supplies business, ‘hello’ will rarely get you anywhere. What you need to do is to capture interests. If you insist on the power of ‘hello,’ you better make sure that you say it in a crazy, outrageous look-at-me kind of way to get any real results.
Crazy, outrageous, look-at-me kind of way?
That’s right. If you ever want to make a name for your travel service or supplies company, putting yourself out there is not enough. You have to make sure that people know you exist. If people are unaware that you’re out there, then you can expect that they won’t find their way to you.
However, it’s not all about getting attention. You have to make sure that when you get your potential customers’ attention, you keep them. There’s no point in getting attention if you can’t keep it long enough to translate into business activity. You have to strike a balance with how you get attention. For starters, avoid being over-the-top. People will notice you but they won’t linger long enough most of the time to hear and see what you have to offer. Be creative but make sure people get it. Try it out first on a sample set of people before you use whatever marketing or advertising program in public to determine how it will be received.
What if it doesn’t work?
Think you can’t pull off the crazy, outrageous, look-at-me kind of way? Then find comfort in the fact that there’s a way for you to do it without having too many risks involved. How? Web sites such as WhatTravel.Com offer you the chance to promote your products and services online, with basically any kind of content (note: crazy, outrageous, look-at-me). Best of all, the service is free.
What’s great about a free website where you can post your travel service or supply company is that it keeps your losses to a minimum in case your strategy does not work. It also allows you to try and try until you succeed – if one method doesn’t work, then you can always just try another one. It’s free, anyway. Just remember to take note of the factors that may have contributed to your being unsuccessful because you wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes twice. Keep in mind as well who you’re talking to. Rather than focusing only on what you offer, make it clear how you can address your customers’ needs.
What should you talk about?
Finally got your target market’s attention? Then start telling them what products and services you are offering. Don’t panic if they don’t respond right way. This might just mean that they don’t know what to say, not that they are uninterested in what you have said. Try to probe and ask questions. As they answer, keep asking questions to keep things moving and direct you to a particular product or service. Take note that asking questions only works out if you can provide an answer yourself. An understanding of the needs of the people you are talking to would help but that is useless if you don’t have a deeper understanding of what products and services you are offering. Only when you have a firm grasp of those two things will you be able to carry out a conversation that produces results that both you and your potential customer are looking for.
