Fish in a Pond With Fish

The first issue in sales and marketing is to fish in a pond with fish. If there are no fish, you will not catch one. While this sounds elementary it is an easy mistake to make both when fishing and selling. If you have told your story to 50 prospects and none have bought, go back and ask them detailed questions on why. If none have bought after friendly questioning, and they all have valid objections, find a new market.

For instance a friend of my who had a decorating company was convinced that her niche was going to be preparing resale homes for market. She could show you how by spending a few thousand dollars to improve a homes interior appearance you would get ten to twenty thousand dollars more in sales price. Unfortunately she picked a very strong “sellers market” to do this in. Homes that had not been painted in 10 years were selling for record prices.

She spent a lot of time logically telling prospects why they should hire her. While these reasons might be true, when homes were selling in a week, for above initial asking prices, the sellers were not willing to pay for the services.

Finally she decided to seek another niche. She is now happily decorating high end new homes to create a regal feel.