On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Keith Lofstrom <[email protected]>wrote: > Wild idea: Imagine finding some 20 pocket wall brochure racks, > and some other consultants who offer other kinds of computer > services. Populate the rack with brochures, then go to independent > computer stores and ask for wall space. The sell? Store owners > can concentrate on selling stuff, not answering complicated > questions for free. People coming into the store looking for > brochures may also buy something. etc. If you do this right, > it will increase their sales and save them time. Don't pay for > the space, but offer some quid pro quo (time or money) for the > pamplets that turn into paying gigs. > > You and your colleagues will spend time going to the stores and > replenishing the racks - but that is your chance to learn about > opportunities from the store owners. People are more likely to > trust the people they see a lot.
On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:14:21AM -0700, Mark Phillips wrote: > Keith has a great idea, but you may meet some resistance. The computer > stores may not want potential liability of "recommending" someone they do > not know. Home Depot use to do exactly what you suggest - they had a board > where handymen and handywomen could advertise their services. The employees > knew a lot of these folks so they were a good source of personal > recommendations. Home Depot took out the board and stopped all the > recommendations from the employees. There was too much potential liability > for Home Depot to recommend a local handyman. That is a good point - but then, anything Home Despot does comes with liability, because they have a lot of assets, and with big risks, because they are too large and bureaucratic to develop one-on-one relationships with the people they might recommend. Brian does computer consulting - the liabilities associated with what he does are hard to reassign, and if he has errors and omissions insurance, that is the deep pockets, not most computer stores or owners. Sue a computer store, and you end up with what's in the till and a bunch of rapidly depreciating store stock. So, Fry's and Best Buy might be off the list, but many of the small places might appreciate the networking opportunities Brian and his colleagues provide, competent advice, etc. There might be other help they could provide the store owners, like testing and recommendations for hardware that works well with linux. Brochures and business cards may also be distributed by satisfied clients themselves. Sometimes, extra business cards left with clients get passed on to the client's associates. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
