Part of my job is to keep my eyes and ears open for new marketing ideas. As you can imagine, I speak to many businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the year. Some have great ideas. Sadly, some do not. However last week, I came upon a business scheme that had me intrigued, so I bit on it.
Last weekend I was out raking my lawn when a friendly young man walked in my driveway with a clipboard in his hand and asked if I had a minute to talk to him. So my first thought was election or petition, but I said yes anyway. After pleasantries, he asked if I had ever tried naturally fed meat. I thought for a minute and said no, I don’t think, so but I might have had some without knowing it. He asked if I would like to try a free sample. Free? Of course I did.
He was a rep for a company called Clean Protein who sells only naturally-raised livestock. He asked if he could drop off the sample on Thursday night and sit down for a few minutes to learn more about our buying habits. Sure, I was in.
On Thursday night he showed up on time and gave his pitch. He really wasn’t much of a salesman and I really wanted to give him some coaching, but his message was really very interesting; so interesting that he was in my kitchen for an hour.
His deal was great for a large family, but didn’t make sense for us. He left without a sale and I had enough free ground beef for a couple of burgers, but he had me for an hour. An hour!
The approach was old school, but the offer of free meat sucked me right in. People have a hard time saying no to “free”. It might be a good idea to try a “free” something in the future. It pretty much ensures getting your foot in the door.