I have a membership based service that I want to approach small business owners about. My wife owns a flower shop and I know how she gets tons of telemarketing calls on a daily basis and they are annoying along with sales people that walk in. I hate to bother these business owners with a telemarketing call or to just cold call with a visit.
How open would business owners be if I sent them a very short email introducing myself and that I would like to set a time that I can stop by and drop off information on our service. Maybe give them the 15 second commercial about what it is.

As a business person, would you be more open to a telemarketing call, cold call or an approach via email??

Give me your thoughts and feedback on cold calling.

I think one of the problems with cold calling is that you might be calling during times when the business owners are busy and therefore will have no time to entertain your calls. I believe this is why so many people get annoyed at telemarketing calls as well. As far as emails you need to just be careful with not spamming business owners but aside from that I think emails might work best. Hope this helps!

-Alexandra
www.cafepress.com/sarobey
www.zazzle.com/sarobey

Anyone who calls I tell them to send me an email. So... yes, very open to email, BUT if they called first and remind me of that in the email, I will simply delete rather than report as spam if I'm not interested.

T

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!