This morning I met with a great guy named Adam from a local business.
He has been a sales person his entire life and loves it.
He it originally from Long Island and now lives and works in the South - three strikes right off the bat.
Adam is the marketing director for a local business and he is fortunate that he has a defined niche market that is easily identifiable.
His instincts tell him to create a brochure and hit the road and call on these businesses (commonly called interruption marketing.
) After talking with Adam for awhile, I realized that he has done some things well and need help in other areas.
Here are some things Adam needs to change:

1. He has a page on Facebook and it spending his online time maintaining that page.
   His defined niche market is other businesses.
   He is on the wrong social media platform.
   
2. He has a great website that is designed to sell his product; however, he doesn't have a blog that will tell people he is an expert in his field.
   He has done some awesome community work and no one knows about it.
   He has some great clients that can vouch for the quality of his work and no one knows about it.
   He has established relationships with leaders in his industry and no one knows about it.
   A blog gets the word out to his potential clients and they will know these great things about Adam and his business.
   
3. He is a member of his local chamber.
   Usually, I promote this avenue for small businesses; however, this is not the right venue for Adam's business.
   The niche market his is trying to attract has a local organization.
   He needs to be a part of that organization.
   
4. He needs to work with other unrelated sales professionals that have already established a presence in this niche market and can help him get in the door.
   Fortunately, I knew of two such professionals that could help him.
   

Adam made a good point that people in his niche market were not going to buy from a blog or a website and that is true.
He likes the face-to-face, getting-to-know-you relationship building.
And yes, Adam, there is a place for that.
People need to know, like and trust you before they buy.
You can use social media, blogs and other forms of internet marketing to build the "know" and "trust" factors.
Then when you have made that connection - you can make that call and they will pick up the phone.
I suggest to Adam that he invest in a blog and start getting the word out about his business, community projects and business partners.
Then through his third party contacts he can promote the blog and start attracting his target market to his business (this is called "Pull" Marketing.
) As he puts himself in the path of his target market through the right social media site, offline networking within his niche and working with other business targeting the same niche.
Then he will be opening the door to some good quality relationships and building trust - then people will buy.