Selling Satellite Dishes to the Amish
Terry
Way back before the Internet, during my time of what seemed to be endless dead-end jobs, I worked for a company which sold satellite dishes door-to-door.
We were assigned and area and had to canvas the area contacting all the home owners about buying a TV sattelitte dish.
My area was a little north of Hagerstown, Indiana.
On my first day in this territory, I did what the average beginner would do…I focused on the nicest looking farms in the area (it was a rural community).
Obviously…the people who had the nicest farms would have the most money and would be more open to buying these large satellite dishes which ran in the several thousand dollar range.
Each time I knocked on a door though, it was an Amish person.
My great hopes for a sale dashed against the rocks.
If you’re from the Midwest, you likely know who the Amish are. They’re a community who believe in simple living, plain clothing, and ignoring most of modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones, and cars. You’ll see them driving around the area in their horse drawn carriages.
My chance of a sale was zero to none. So I’d thank them for their time and go on to the next house.
By experience and talking with other sales people I learned the real best chance of a sale was to a mobile home owner who didn’t have a visible satellite dish. And I wasn’t supposed to judge the home or yard. Some of the biggest purchases were from very dumpy yards (cars up on blocks, overgrown grass everywhere, etc.).
Jeff Foxworthy would be proud.
Too bad I wasn’t a very good sales person…and didn’t last long enough at the job to find out. Never made a single sale personally. Another proof that if I can do an online business, anyone can.
But I did carry that lesson on to the Internet.
The DESIRES of your target market are more important than anything else.
Copywriters will brag about how incredible their conversion numbers are, but some conveniently leave out this important truth. Audience is MUCH MORE important than copy.
Let’s say I was a super-salesman, the kind they say could sell ice to the eskimos. Would I have a shot at selling the Amish who didn’t use electricty a satellite dish? Nope. Wouldn’t happen.
So rule #1 of effective online marketing is to find an audience who WANTS what you sell.
Notice I said WANTS, not needs. My own mind told me at the time that the people with the “poor looking” yards didn’t need a satellite dish. They needed a lawn mower! But the successful sales people shared with me that a satellite dish is exactly what this audience wanted.
So rule #2 is it’s NOT your job to decide what the audience wants to buy. You’re not in charge of their lives. You’re NOT their judge. Who knows what situation their lives were in or why their yard looked like that (maybe they were disabled or a thousand other possibilities). Don’t judge your customers. Simply find out what they WANT (proven by what they’re already buying).
Remember those two rules to save yourself a lot of pain and heartache online.
The very first monthly module (of twelve full training modules) in the Monthly Mentor Club is all about choosing a profitable market.
http://www.MonthlyMentorClub.com
In addition to giving you my detailed step-by-step plan of how to choose profitable markets (discovered over 14 years of online business and coaching), I also recruited Glenn Livingston who has successfully entered 17 radically different markets. He shares with you his proven mathematical formula for comparing the money available in multiple markets.
It’s easy to make money when you nail this point. Find the right audience. Find out what they’re buying. Make them a better offer. Do this right, and you don’t have to be a worldclass copywriter. You just need to get your offer in front of the right audience.
Posted on: Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 11:56 am 
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