In the past fall, my mom started her own business called Arrowleaf Co. The purpose of her company was to bring her love of biking and craft beer together. Lots of bike trails around where I live have breweries along them. Instead of lugging around a large, awkward cooler, Arrowleaf is an insulated beverage bag that attaches easily to your bike so you can bring home the beers you love from your ride. As a startup and small company, my mom has to have many sales conversations to find partnerships and sell herself and her business.
When trying to partner with breweries or bike shops, she asks if there is a manager present and if they have a few minutes to talk (timing principle). She tries to make sure she goes when they are not busy in order to be respectful of their time. If a manager is not present, she asks for the contact of the manager or the purchaser for the location. From there, she performs a cold call where she sends an email or actually calls. Then, she introduces herself and her business, tries to find out if it is a good fit, and asks if there are any partnership opportunities either at a bike day, a pop-up shop, or directly in the business. She makes sure to show her excitement and passion both for what she is doing and the business she is looking to partner with.
When she attends in person events where she is selling her product, she has a slightly different task ahead of her – selling directly to customers. When a customer comes up to her booth, she begins by asking about biking, trails, breweries, etc and is able to building bonding and rapport through a common love and passion of biking and breweries. Once this trust and relationship is built, she is able to share about her business, let the customer touch and test her product, and allow the customer to come to a decision.
Through learning about her sales process, I found out she already uses many sales principles we have learned throughout this class. However, I also suggested that when she calls the businesses she should focus on asking more questions and allowing the customer to learn for themselves rather than her pitching to them. All in all, it was helpful to learn about a real example of selling from a person I love and trust.
BoweryJE22
This is a really cool business idea. By making associative connections she is demonstrating consumer behavioral awareness. It is cool to hear about the sales principles in practice.