Everybody wants a sales system that doesn’t require them to actually talk to anybody. They want the perfect cold email. The automated Facebook message. The magical funnel that brings local business owners running to them, credit card in hand, while they sit at home drinking coffee. And listen, I get it. That sounds great. Unfortunately, local advertising usually doesn’t work that way. At some point, you are probably going to have to pick up the phone, walk into the business, introduce yourself, and ask somebody to buy something. I know. Terrible news. But here’s the good news: almost nobody else wants to do it either. The “Easy” Sales Channels Are the Crowded Ones People talk about cold calling and door-to-door prospecting like they are horribly crowded, outdated sales methods. Are they really? When was the last time a local business owner had five different local publishers walk through the door in one afternoon? Probably never. Now ask that same owner how many emails, Facebook messages, texts, SEO pitches, website offers, and “quick questions” they received this week. Their inbox is a landfill. Half the messages start with some version of: “Hey, I came across your business and absolutely love what you’re doing…” No, you didn’t. You found them on Google three minutes ago and pasted their business name into the same message you sent to 75 other people. Business owners know this. They can smell a bulk message immediately. Cold email feels less crowded because you don’t have to witness yourself being ignored. You press send, close the laptop, and tell yourself you prospected. Technically, you did. But nobody talked to you. Call Reluctance Is Usually Procrastination Wearing a Nice Shirt Nobody likes rejection. I’ve been doing local advertising for 30 years, and I still don’t wake up excited about interrupting a stranger and asking for money. Anybody who claims they love every second of cold calling is either lying or a little strange. The goal is not to love it. The goal is to stop letting the discomfort run your business.

I’m looking for a handful of entrepreneurial people who want to launch City Games in their own market this fall, and we’re building a pretty compelling way to get started. The launch strategy is built around football season and local bars. Instead of trying to introduce City Games to an entire city all at once, a publisher can start by building a network of participating sports bars, breweries and restaurants and running a season-long football promotion that gives people reasons to visit those locations, play local games, complete challenges and compete for prizes. That creates three things every new City Games market needs immediately: Players. Participating venues. Recurring advertisers. The bars get something much more interesting than another social media ad. They become part of an interactive local promotion running throughout football season. The publisher gets a natural reason to walk into bars and say, “We’re launching this across the city for football season. Want your bar to be one of the locations?” And once those businesses are inside City Games, the opportunity extends far beyond football. They can become ongoing Venue Partners while you expand into restaurants, retailers, suburban Side Quests, seasonal promotions and other local experiences. You don’t need to launch with 100 businesses. Start with 6 to 10 great bars. Build something people want to play. Then grow the market from there. City Games provides the platform, game concepts and business model. You build the local relationships and own the opportunity in your territory. If you’ve been looking for a local business you can actually build, this football season gives us a very natural starting line. Interested in becoming one of the first City Games publishers? Comment “CITY” below or message me.