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Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Advertising
Showing archives from 10/2004.
Lesson #1 I Wish I Knew Before I Started My First Business
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, October 15, 2004I spent almost a year organizing my first business. I devoted all of my spare time and energy to important things like securing the product I'd be selling, and learning about who I was going to be selling it to. I invested an embarrassing amount of money. And then...
I discovered what I had to sell would not sell.
This is a hard learned lesson for many entrepreneurs who believe the important part of their business is the idea. The idea is important, to be certain. But there IS NO BUSINESS until you have a customer.
In most cases, priority number one should be to get the first sale as quickly as possible to prove the business concept you have has legs. If it doesn't, all the planning and strategizing in the world won't do you a bit of good.
There are 7 comments, add your own!Success With Peace Of Mind
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, October 11, 2004A great passage from Napoleon Hill's "Grow Rich With Peace Of Mind."
"It is obvious that those who are filled with malice and envy do not have peace of mind; their malice and envy sour their lives. Failure so often hates the very sight of success. Speaking with successful men, I have noticed they speak in complimentary terms of other men who are succeeding. Their attitude is not one of envy, but one of willingness to learn from others. The failure, on the other hand, goes out of his way to find some adverse criticism of the successful person. If he can't find anything doubtful about the way that person does business, then he will pick at some other area. His malice is evident, and so it the sad fact that he not only cannot command what money can buy, but also he cannot attain peace of mind." - Napoleon Hill
BTW, the entire book, Grow Rich With Peace Of Mind, is highly recommended.
There are 2 comments, add your own!The Yellow Pages Marketing Exercise
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, October 11, 2004Here's the exercise I give at seminars to illustrate how horrible most marketing is. Just so happens, it uses the Yellow Pages, and I have been getting asked a lot about Yellow Pages marketing lately. If you do not have your own ad in the YP, pick out your business category and do it for the competition.
It's pretty simple really...
- Get your copy of the Yellow Pages and a thick, black magic marker
- Open to your section
- On every space ad, scratch out the name, address or location information, and phone number
- Now, look at the ads that are left and wait for the lesson to appear
Ok, ok. I won't just leave it there. Check back tomorrow and I'll explicitly spell out the lesson...
There are 7 comments, add your own!Client education in retail health food stores (and your small business, too…)
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, October 06, 2004The kick from my "red eyes" (coffee w/a shot of espresso) has faded lately. Too many late nights and early mornings I guess. I decided I needed something "new" to level out my energy levels and keep my immune system running on high, even as I subject it to stress.
Off to the health food store I go.
I walk in and head to the energy section. Grab the supplement that's been recommended to me and make for the counter. Before he rings me up, I ask Jay what else I should be looking at to stay my perky and happy self. Long story short, instead of walking out having spent $20, I lay 10 times that on assorted stuff.
I ask what should be the obvious questions:
Me: "Jay, how many people buy this energy stuff each day?" Jay: "Oh, that's one of our best sellers. About a dozen bottles a day, I'd guess." Me: "Really, that much, huh. How many of 'em buy all this other stuff I did?" Jay: "Hardly anyone, unless they ask." Me: "Uh-huh."
Now, I long ago learned there is nothing more futile and less valued than free advice given without being asked for it. But I like Jay. He's been waiting on me for over 5 years now. He's a nice guy. So, I say it...
Me: "Gee, wonder what would happen if right next to the bottles, you put a flyer with the headline: '11 Proven Ways To Boost Your Energy' and subheadline that says, 'You can have more energy throughout the day without getting the shakes, feeling nervous, or any other nasty stimulant side-effects. In fact, these supplements will actually boost your immune system AND make you healthier." It could describe the same things you've sold me today, using the same language you used to sell them to me. Don't you think you'd sell more stuff?" Jay: "Sure, but if they want to know that stuff they'll just ask me."
At this point I refer back to my own advice about giving free advice.
See, the thing is, most people WON'T ask for advice, no matter whether it's about marketing or supplements. They desperately want to know the right things to do, but not at the risk of looking like they don't know what they are doing. When you make it easy for your customers to find out all the ways you can help them, you will pad your pocketbook. When you rely on them to ask the questions, to know the right questions to ask, or even to know that you are the right person to ask them of; money is just walking out your door. Every day.
This is true of retail, service, b2b, and every other industry I've been involved in.
There are 3 comments, add your own!Sure, The Yellow Pages Are Dead
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, October 01, 2004Just got off the phone with a client in the midwest. His new yellow pages ad is pulling 7-to-1 (that'd be revenue to expenditure for you folks who don't track your advertising) and his competitors are complaining to the ad rep that his ad is "unfair" because it's stealing their business.
Tee-hee. I call that "success."
The best part of yellow pages advertising is the extraordinary incompetence of most folks advertising there. 
If you've got a local business, make no mistake about it: Done well, yellow pages advertising, while competitive and "tricky" ... can be very, very profitable.
That said, I fully encourage as many people as possible to scream out that yellow pages advertising is dead. Too expensive. Being rendered extinct due to the Internet. And so on. After all, with every advertiser who drops out due to costs, or, more often, not really knowing how to use the medium properly, the profits and power of it increases for my clients.
There are 8 comments, add your own!