1. Sales or Consultant
Now that you know how to make impressions and earplugs what do we do next?
We need to focus on helping people and recouping your investment. It is not just the capital investment that you have given us, but all the time you have thought about how Big Ear will work in your life and the time you have invested so far.
If you take a simple mindset of not selling but merely making people aware that as a Big Ear provider you can make them custom hearing protection products.
That’s it. If you just focus on this for a few months you will have established your self as a person that can help them with this need. It’s just like a Dry Cleaner or Seamstress, not everyone needs one, but when you do you want to know where to go.
It is this simple. Get awareness out there. Because at the end of the day you want the sales to come to you. Why try and sell something to someone that has no interest. It’s like trying to sell a private jet to your neighbors.
Unless you have a high net worth group, most people will never want a private jet.
Earplugs are the same. We all have 2 ears and should protect them, but most people are fine where they are and don’t want custom earplugs.
You need to go where you can bring value.
So you want to pass out your cards and put up flyers where people have a need. You started this journey for your own reason, but the early heavy lifting of just letting people know that you can make custom hearing protection will go a long way in getting you easy sales down the road.
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2. How to Get Started
We have a goal now.
Make your first sale.
It’s your business and you set the prices. We have retail prices on the website and this is base on the lowest cost to be able to make a profit and stay in business.
Let’s get something out of the way now, make your mindset.
You have to decide early on if you’re in a business or charity. So if your going to give free things then give your time to help a person move or loan them your truck. When you’re in business then you have trained and made an investment to service a need and fill it.
The price of a Simple Earplug should be no different. You are skilled and have a talent, like a doctor or an artist. You are also providing a service and a product. Charge for this.
Everyone wants everything to cost less, they want a great deal or get if for free. If you start out of the gate doing this discounted then the word gets out that you are cheap and they can get a deal? What is a deal? You took the time to train and buy and stock the material. You have set a time to take and talk about what has worked for you and you can solve their problem as well. Here is what it costs to have it done for you.
This is not a mass produced product that you can get in from China, it is not a commodity, it is a custom made product from a persons ear canal.
Then you finish the earplug, deliver it to the person then warranty it for 3 years.
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3. Your WHY
What is your Why?
For many it is family, some a new truck, even more, it is to be a business person.
Each person has to define this and make and keep it the main thing.
Once you have that meeting with your self and figure this out then everything you do goes towards meeting this goal.
So if you want to have just a simple business to help us protect people’s hearing or want to retire then you merely need to start. I will guarantee that for almost EVERYONE if you had a line of people at your door that had a hundred dollar bill to make a set of earplugs you would try and do as many as you could until the line stopped.
Part of my background was in farming, not my choice, but my dad bought a farm when I was 13 to take us to the country and teach us.
I plowed and tilled 30 acres and planted wheat. It took 2 weeks to do this and when I was done the last night at dark my dad came out and said: “Son, What do you see”?
I said “DIRT”
Dad said “YES” and “because of all of this work you have planted an entire field of Wheat, and no matter what happens over time it will give you a beautiful field, then over time a crop of Wheat”. “You might have a weed or 2 but it will be all Wheat”.
I went to that dirt field every day over the next few weeks and then it happened. The entire field just started to shimmer in a green mold look, over the next few days it turned into the most beautiful uniform field of green that I ever have seen.
We were just going to plow it under to provide nitrogen but I convinced him to let it grow and over the next few months it grew into a massive Wheatfield. We eventually harvested it and the cycle was over.
I learned a great lesson from this. All the effort you put forward in your personal life, most will never see it but you will always grow a crop of whatever you plant.
I learned at a young age to only work on and plant good things as this is all I want to reap.
So let’s get started working on your WHY!
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4. Just Do it
Big Ear was designed to be a business in a bag.
No matter if you just have the starter kit or have the entire trade show package, you are always ready to break out your kit and make a set of earplugs.
So all you need is people that have a need and want you to provide them a solution.
Now that you are trained, (Not super confident yet), you need a few people to make earplugs for.
You need to start this journey and start planting seeds.
In previous sections, we outlined ideas of where to find people, but this should be a daily activity when you are moving around. Big Ear is designed to fit a fast-paced lifestyle where you can simply drive by a storefront, your customers work, home or community center take 5 minutes and give them your info and continue on your day. Big Ear is a very niche company as we are looking for a very specific market. However when you find that one person in a thousand, you have the ability to change their lives and the groundwork you lay with positive interactions and successful hearing protection made will set you up for success down the road.
You need to create a folder to carry with you to let people know in all the different business that you can make them earplugs, like the dry cleaning service, not trying to sell them.
If they have a need then you’re the person.
This is as basic as it gets but will get you great results done all the time.
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5. Ready For Larger Events?
So now we’re ready for a larger event or presentation, you have done all your work and you are ready to make multiple sets of impressions. Here are a few things that you will need to have in place.
- How do you want to take money, cash, checks are easy? Credit Cards set up Paypal
- Make sure you have enough supplies on hand
- How big of an event and what show style are you about to do
- Let us know so we can help promote your event
There is much more to consider. Stone has done a series of Videos on how a large show looks.
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