The first step is to focus on your geographical market.Geography will depend greatly on how densely populated the area you want to market your products or services is. Geography can be easily selected by state, counties, cities, zip code, or carrier routes. A radius of an address or zip can also be performed. This is beneficial for those pet-related businesses such as mobile grooming or pet sitters who want to stay within a certain area.
Secondly, is to focus on a specific demographic criterion. By selecting certain demographics such as household income, ages, even children in household can be useful, along with selecting specific pet types such as bird owner, dog owner, cat owner rather than all pet owners. This allows you to narrow down the consumers that can either afford your services or have a need for your services. That busy mother of 3 may not have the time to take the family pet to get groomed on a regular basis. Or the elderly man who would like for his beloved dog to get the exercise that he cannot provide. There are hundreds to demographics selections to choose from to assist in narrowing down to focus on a potential customer that fits your business model. Your mailing list broker or compiler should be able to help you chose the best demographics for any particular campaign.
What is selling?
For many, sales conjures up horrific connotations of door-to-door pushy salesmen with the 'gift of the gab' trying to sell you something you don't want. These days it's also become associated with cold calling and foreign telephone call centres, against trying to push products.
It may surprise you but selling isn't about pushing products, instead it's actually about pulling clients. Modern day sales and marketing is about taking your range of products to a target market and telling the customer about the benefits associated for them. The client will then buy into the product or service and hopefully become a life long customer with favourable feelings towards your product or service and company.
One definition of sales taken from thefreedictionary.com is
"The exchange of goods or services for an amount of money or its equivalent; the act of selling."
This definition excludes any reference to the buyer / seller relationship or that it should be a mutually beneficial process.
The most obvious reason is ensuring that any Bichon puppies you buy are genuine pedigrees. This can only be accomplished if you purchase these puppies from registered and certified breeders.
You may need the discriminating eye of a breeder if you just bought a Bichon puppy from another source, and you are not sure if it is purebred. Breeders of Bichon Frise can detect if a puppy is a mixed breed or not because of variations in physical characteristics. Also, in case the Bichon you bought comes with registration and pedigree papers, you may ask a breeder to verify the authenticity of the documents.
Another good reason is to find a good stud or female dog to which you will partner your own pet. Some breeders offer a "Stud Service", wherein you bring your female pet for breeding with a stud at their facilities. Aside from a "stud fee", a breeder may request that you allow them to keep a puppy or two from the litter.
If you own a male and a female Bichon, you would need to ask a breeder for advice on how you can get them to mate. Bichons that have different temperaments may need to be "roomed in" at the breeder's kennels. This would enable the breeder to identify and modify certain behaviors in order for your two dogs to become "attracted" to each other.
