How am I supposed to get this dulcimer sold for her?
One of my coworkers at Bluegrass mentioned that she had an almost new dulcimer she wanted to sell. She said it just wasn’t quite the right fit for her. It was a little too long.
I asked her if she was advertising and she said she did, mainly by word of mouth. I asked if she’d advertised on Facebook, and she said that had never occurred to her.
I told her that I’d sold vehicles and land and all kinds of stuff on Facebook, by targeting pages that were specifically interested in those things. I offered to create an ad for her and told her that after she approved it, I’d post it on 15 or 20 relevant FB sites.
She said that sounded like a great idea!
So I spent about an hour yesterday creating this ad, and told her I’d post it as a picture, then create links to her contact information.
So I work up the ad, ready to launch. Then I get a message from her that said, “Thank you so much! Just make sure only your friends and my friends can see it.”
OK. Blew that sale out of the water.
Of course I am respecting her wishes but….what?? This is not the first time I’ve created ads for people, but this is the first time they asked me not to actually advertise!
Since I do this for others once or twice a year, should I create a dummy Facebook account for contact purposes for people who are leery of getting their contact info out there? How do I resolve this? (And no, I’m not being paid. I just like doing it.)
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One word: Craigslist. Forget writing an ad. Just use the super-easy Craigslist template.
I’ve sold many, many products, some of them quite off, using this wonderful service.
Just one suggestion. Don’t sell or mail anything out of town. Use the local chapter and collect your money in person and in cash from the buyer.
You are not if she doesn’t want people to know she is selling it.
@Pachy That wasn’t the issue! Read the details.
Apparently she doesn’t @Tropical_Willie. Or….she doesn’t understand how it works.
Share the ad on a local yard sale group on Facebook. If she asks, ALL those people are your friends. Bob’s your uncle.
Like, hammered dulcimers are hardly something most people are looking for. If she wants to sell it, she’s going to have to actually advertise it. Or, y’know, give it away to Guitar Center or whatever.
She specified her friends and my friends only, Seek. I have to honor that, but geez!
Sounds like she doesn’t want to sell it.
She does. She wants to buy a different one, but she needs to get this one sold. She just doesn’t understand advertising. Like, when I sold our 5 acres. I’m sure every one of my friends is dying to buy five acres of pain in the butt land just like everyone of them wants to buy a dulcimer.
Well, she can’t find someone to buy it if she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s selling it.
I know. She doesn’t understand that putting those restrictions on it is counter productive. She doesn’t understand that if it can’t be shared, no one outside of our small circle will know about it. She just thinks, like so many people think, that Facebook is somehow magic.
BUT what do y’all think of my ad?
I would give her the ad and say “post this on your page, I can’t sell it if I can’t share it to a much larger group”.
Well, I posted it on her page. I guess I’m done.
That gave me an idea @chyna. I just gave it to her and suggested several pages where she might have more luck, like Buy/Sell/Trade sites and specific Bluegrass pages. I told her how to find them.
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