If you are like most people trying to gain new customers, it is likely you serve a wide range of businesses and occupations. For example, your prospective customers may include butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, and many others. One of the best ways to learn more about your prospects' interests is from their trade and professional journals. Every industry and every trade has specialty magazines and journals that contain a treasury of tips, tricks, trends, and other information you need to know to be able to talk to your prospective customers.
ACTION ITEM
Visit the kinds of businesses you want to learn more about. Most of them get some kind of trade journal and will be glad to share their reply cards.
When new employees come to work for Rodney, the very first thing he does is to give them the reply cards out of the various trade journals associated with his business and have them subscribe. Most trade journals are absolutely free and are supported by industry advertising. He encourages his employees to make time each month to go through them and keep up with developments in the various industries. His office currently gets about a dozen different trade journals, and they are all well used. Nothing flatters prospective customers more than knowing that you have taken the time to learn more about what they do, what their interests are, and what challenges they face.
TAKEAWAY
If you want to know about more the intricacies of
any business or profession, there's no better way
to learn than from free professional journals.