Marketing Problems? Get Marketing Mojo

On my walks lately, I’ve noticed a couple of woodpeckers pecking away on a metal transformer box connected to a utility pole. Just loudly pecking away.

Today I pointed this out to my wife. “They aren’t going to get very far,” I said. To which she replied, “Isn’t that what a lot of people do? Just keep repeating stupid, pointless behavior?”

It suddenly dawned on me that those woodpeckers are a great metaphor for what I see happening a lot to the small businesses in my community.

For example, yesterday I called my hairdresser at 9:30 to get an appointment and he said he could take me right away. Apparently his schedule was wide open. While I was there I observed that he wasn’t all that busy. The other hairdresser there was reading a book. The fact that I could have just walked into his place and gotten my haircut was my first clue that times were tough for him.

As he was cutting my hair, I asked, “how’s business?” He shook his head and said, “Pretty bad. I only had 7 appointments all last week and 3 were for blow drys.”

That did sound pretty bleak.

A little backstory before I continue….

We live in a small town on the coast of California where there isn’t that much competition for hair salons. He should be much busier. In fact, the salon where my wife goes is always busy. Sometimes it takes her weeks to get an appointment, and they have 4 hairdressers.

Back to my haircut…

I asked him something I ask most of the small businesses in our town when they complain to me that business is down, “What are you doing to get business?”

“I don’t know. Referrals. Word of mouth.”

“Listed in the Yellow Pages?” I asked.

“No, I stopped. I couldn’t afford it.” My thought (that went unsaid), “Buddy, you can’t afford NOT to.” But I let that one slide.

I knew he doesn’t have a website because we’ve had this discussion before. I told him once again that he needed one. After a while he admitted, “I don’t understand them.” He isn’t tech savvy at all. In fact I don’t even know if he uses email, and he’s younger than me! I told him, “You don’t need to understand them. Your webmaster (presumably me) will build it, host it, you don’t have to do anything except answer the phone when new customers call.” He still wasn’t interested, but I wasn’t giving up.

I began sharing with him some very simple strategies he could implement which would measurably increase his business over the next 30-60 days. In particular, I told him how a website has become as important to advertising a business today as a business card, particularly for a service business.

I told him I could get him started for as little as $10 to buy the URL (and I have some great keyword rich suggestions) and that I’d host it for $5/month. In fact, I charge my friends $90/year for all that but offered to do it for him in trade for a few haircuts. I’m offering him this because I want to see him stay in business. He gives me a great haircut, he isn’t as expensive ($25) as my wife’s hairdresser and I don’t like the only other barber in town. Plus, I really wanted to prove to him that I was right.

So here was my proposal: I cut my hair every two months, so I would trade for 6 haircuts over the next year. That’s $150. In exchange for that I’d purchase his URL, build a simple website and host it. If he only attracts one new male customer because of it, that would be a good deal. If he attracted only 5 new female customers who pay him $200 per year, that’s a gain of $1,000. Seems like a total no-brainer, right? What did this gentleman say to that sweet offer? He said, “Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

Wow. “I’ll think about it.”

I just offered you more business for less than the price of cutting, dying and styling ONE client’s hair. You only need one new customer, one more guy like me, or even better yet, one more woman (he charges more for women). And you want to THINK about it?

Amazing… and discouraging.

He’s suffering from the same marketing problems as many of the struggling small businesses I talk to:

1) He feels like now is the time to save all his cash and stop spending on anything unnecessarily. Well, pulling the only form of marketing you have – Yellow Pages – was not a smart move. How is anyone new going to find you?

2) Web and internet technology scared them. They don’t understand how it can help them. They aren’t sure how their customers will receive it. They think they have to learn to program it, not realizing that a good webmaster will handle everything for them. (Yes, I know it’s hard to believe that in this day and age this is true but I’ve discovered that many older brick and mortar businesses still find this whole web thing overwhelming and scary.)

3) They’ve tried advertising before and it didn’t work for them. What happened is they probably did a poor job of advertising or advertised in the wrong place, but now they are afraid to risk money in a new form of advertising.

What do you do when you are shopping for a product, service, hotel, airline ticket, etc.? Most likely you do what I do, you search on the internet. And many of these small business owners do it too, but they don’t think a website will work for their business. How shortsighted is that? That’s why I really don’t have much sympathy when they complain about a lack of business.

Here’s my philosophy; yes, our economy is in bad shape and businesses all over are being hit hard by the recession. People just don’t have as much disposable cash so business owners are skittish about doing new things and are holding tight to what they have. However, it is DURING tough times that you have to try new things and be better marketers! Down times are NOT a time to pull back, they are an opportunity to be investing in your business and exploring new ways to run it!

So back to that poor woodpecker. He can peck on that transformer until his beak breaks, but it isn’t going to get him anywhere. It is pointless and all he’s going to get is a headache. We literally live in a forest, so he is surrounded by opportunities to easily accomplish whatever it is he’s trying to do; he’s just going about it the wrong way.

Don’t be that woodpecker!

If what you are doing isn’t working, stop doing it! Look around you and you’ll see that there is lots of opportunity if you know how to go about your business in a smarter way.

If this resonates with you, and you feel your business is stagnant, you may need to do what we did last year. You need to invest in learning how to do it better.

We bit the bullet and invested a couple thousand dollars in training courses on using Google AdWords, internet and social media marketing, business building, etc.. As a result we saw our business grow 135% from 2008 to 2009 and are looking at exceeding that this year. Correlation? We obviously think so.

Where do you go for some good solid marketing training?

One of the marketing gurus we trust and follow is Steve Yankee.

I’ve known Steve personally for several years after meeting him at a video conference where we were both speakers. I had actually been following him online before that because he has a video marketing membership site. Steve has spent 40 years in the communications area -ad agencies, video production companies, creative services, and he really knows marketing.

Marketing Problems? Get Marketing Mojo

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We personally followed some of his advice he taught in the course and can vouch for his material. He has endorsements from some very high profile professionals in the video business who are earning well into the 6 figure income range.

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Now, no or whining about a lack of business. Here is a way to sharpen your marketing skills and find the opportunities that surround you.

Trust me. Marketing works.