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House Calls and Association Meetings:
One of the pleasures for those of us who like to write is the occasional call or letter that we receive to indicate that you do actually read this stuff. Believe me, we appreciate it. Even if you don't agree with what we say, and hopefully you won't sometimes and it will strike a cord with you and you will be the next one to respond. You see, we don't have all the answers and we don't have all the ideas. I'll bet our readers have a lot more ideas for articles than we have. As I was contemplating what I might write about for this issue, I received a pleasant phone call from Taos, New Mexico. On the other end of the telephone was Arthur Yellen, an 80-year young veteran of the RV industry. We had a great conversation about RV News and the industry. I found out that Arthur is the former editor of Camporama, a newspaper he owned and operated when he lived in Florida. The publication was distributed only in Florida and Arthur owned it from 1980 to 1990. Arthur said, "It was a 140-page newspaper that was well read. It had five sections and we calculated that it brought $65 million to $75 million dollars in revenue to our advertisers." The result of our conversation was a suggestion from Arthur for the rest of you folks who still make a living in this industry. Are you wondering what you can do to spice up your sales life a little bit, especially on days when you might be down a notch from your typical jovial and confident self? Arthur noted that in many communities you have areas with homes costing $500,000 and up. I'm sure you have a few of them in close proximity to your dealership. He wondered how many of these people ever walk into an RV dealer's showroom or even knows the quality we build into today's modern homes on wheels and high-end travel trailers. Are we complacent? Do we think they are above us? Do we think they would never be interested in RVing? Do they even know what the RV lifestyle has to offer? Arthur hasn't lost any speed off his fastball and is still thinking of ways to challenge the RV industry. Here's his message to all of the sales reps sitting around thinking about where their next sale will come from. Go out and make a house call. Yes, he said, "get out of the chair, pick one of your finest rigs, get the keys and go make a house call." Now you have to do a little homework before you set out on this journey. You'll have to go down to the town hall and find out the names and telephone numbers of the people living in the neighborhood you are going to visit. Most of this is public information and available in the tax office. Make a list of the names and telephone numbers, grab your cell phone and head for easy street. Park that big beautiful motorhome right in front of somebody's house. Then pick up the phone and call the person inside the house. Simply introduce yourself and tell them you are sitting outside their house in that great looking motorhome and invite them out for a tour, perhaps a cup of tea or coffee, and an informal discussion on the RV lifestyle. Then call a few of the neighbors and tell them who you are and where you are. Let them come to you. You know what's really great about this idea? You probably never considered doing this. It took an 80-year old veteran of the industry to sit back and give us yet one more lesson in life. Never assume anything. Now you can read this, call him crazy for thinking about this and me crazy for writing about it, but unless you actually try it once or twice you'll never really know if it will work, will you? Just think, what if it did work. What if the above average family, earning above average wages, who like to purchase above average toys, actually did come out to see the motorhome? Gosh, what if they actually wanted to buy one with all the excess discretionary income they may have sitting down at the bank? What have you got to lose? You can sit around the office and hope somebody comes in. Then you can hope that they are buyers. Then you can hope they can buy your big rig. Or, you can take that big rig to them. I like it -- I really like it. In fact, I want some of you to try it and send me an e-mail or note and let Arthur and I know how you did. You've got two choices. You can say it will never work and continue to do business as usual. Or, you can actually give it a try and go out and develop your own prospects and make the sale while everyone else sits back and tells you it will never work. Arthur's got eighty years under his belt. If you think he's wrong, go prove it. Now here's your second idea for what must be a slow day at the dealership if you are reading this on "selling" time instead of looking for new prospects. I get credit for this one though. Go find your yellow pages book for the largest metropolitan area or city near your dealership. Look up all the listings under "Associations." How many of these associations would love to have a speaker come in and tell them about the RV lifestyle. Perhaps show them the Go RVing videotape. Show them the different types of RV's and how families and businesses use them. Let them know how easy it is to rent or buy one of these gems. What does RVing have to do with the association's main business purpose? Absolutely nothing. That's what makes it interesting. I live in the Boston area. In the Boston Yellow Pages there are approximately 500 different associations listed in my book. 500! If you gave one presentation every two weeks, it would take you about 19 years to get to them all. Heck, if you made it a goal to give one presentation a week to an association about your dealership and the RV industry, you get it all done in just 10 years. Are we crazy? Maybe. Could we be on to something? Maybe. Will it work? Guess you'll never know unless you try it. I've been involved with many associations and I can tell you this; they are always willing to listen to somebody with a creative idea. They may allow you to sponsor a cocktail hour and bring an RV to have on display. They may want you to be the featured speaker at one of their monthly meetings and give you an opportunity to bring one or two units to the meeting place. I'm done with this article, and so are you. You can turn the page and forget everything you've just read. Or, you can do something different for a change. I'm really glad Arthur called this week. It gave me an opportunity to write about something different for a change. Maybe we'll expand on these ideas a bit more next month. Good luck and good selling.
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