When people decide to give up on their business and go back to corporate life it’s not because they prefer PAYE world. It’s usually because they have just run out money. They aren’t able to make enough income to cover their day-to-day costs, let along make a profit.
But these businesses don’t go out of business because of bad service or poor quality products. These businesses are usually run by people who are passionate about what they do and genuinely care about their customers.
So why is it that so many small businesses come and go?
Is it because they had a bad business idea?
Sometimes, yes but more often the real reason is that they have no idea on how marketing works and what are the easiest and simplest ways of attracting customers.
Let me give you an example.
Jane is an ex-accountant who got fed up with the commute in to work every day and because of her passion for colours and interiors, she decided to re-train and start up an interiors business. She now offers a range of services from one-off consultations and personal home styling to project managing big decorating jobs.
Jane is based in a fairly affluent area. The current housing market has meant that more people are extending and modifying their property to get more space rather than move. There is a potential market place for Jane’s service, especially when Jane has worked out that she only needs to be working with a maximum of 10 clients at any given time.
She has sensibly got a 6 month financial buffer, but four months in and Jane is finding it difficult attracting enough clients to her business. She rarely has more than the odd appointment in her diary each week.
She advertises once a month in her local newspaper because she felt she ought to have a presence and get her name out there. And she has also just signed up for one year advertising in her parish magazine as well with a local online business directory. She has even gone round and put a leaflet in every door in her local neighbourhood offering a free consultation, but not one person has called her about the offer.
Selling her business is becoming hard work. It is demoralising and the passion is starting to dwindle. If it carries on like this, Jane will be forced to give up on her dreams and return to her accountancy career to pay the bills.
It’s not fair is it? Especially when Jane is offering a quality and professional service which is backed up by study and training. There is a local market for what she offers and she knows that her knowledge can help increase the value of people’s homes and save them endless of hours of research.
But what she doesn’t know is how to market herself. All her money is going in to advertising that obviously is not working for her and on leaflets that are obviously aren’t compelling enough to make people call.
Jane needs to stop and take the time out to really get to know her target customers.
Targeting the right customers with the right messages is really the secret to great marketing. The better you know the people you want to attract, the more likely it is that you will know where to find them, how to communicate with them and how to make yourself attractive enough for these people to call you.
Jane needs to stop her advertising and go back to basics.
Who are her target customers? What are their worries and concerns? When it comes to home decorating and creating more space, what are their real problems and challenges? How much are they willing to spend for to solved these problems?
By focusing on some simple questions such as these, Jane’s answers will help her work out what her special uniqueness could be to make her marketing activities and offers compelling and attractive.
So, for those of you out there who feeling like Jane, take a long hard look at how you are telling people about your business. If your advertising isn’t working, cancel it. If those leaflets cluttering up your office aren’t working, get rid of them.
Cleanse your business of stuff that you are doing because you think it is the right thing to do. Stop second guessing and start understanding your customers.
What are your thoughts? Add your comments below
I found this article pretty frustrating. It leads you on with a plausible, and very familiar, story and so you scroll down hoping to find the solution to Jane’s problem but the author bottles it at the crucial point. If you can write a very specific example of a person’s good business idea failing through poor marketing, why can’t you write a very specific solution, instead of falling back on generalisations? Jane sounds bright enough to have worked out for herself that ideally she should know her target customers. It would have been more helpful if you had advised her HOW to find out their worries and concerns, their problems, their budget and so on. If she knew that then of course she wouldn’t be wasting her money on random ad shots and leafleting.
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Hi Ali – thanks for stopping by and adding your thoughts. You ask about how Jane could find out their worries and concerns, problems and budget.
The easiest and simplest way of finding out more about one’s target audience is to go out and ask them. You can’t second guess these questions that I outlined in the article.
Whether you have past clients’ to go back to or ask for recommendations of people to speak to within your network, you need to go out and talk to them. Either offer to buy them a cup of coffee or arrange a time to speak on the phone.
I remember doing this in my first few months – I wanted to work with firms of accountants and solicitors to help them retain their female staff after maternity leave but after a dozen or so interviews with senior partners and female accountants and solicitors I soon realised that there seemed very little in the budget for firms to invest in the programmes I wanted to offer. The problem wasn’t bad enough to invest time and money in fixing, and I was very glad I didn’t waste any money on getting leaflets printed and adverts placed in journals offering my workshops!
Good old fashioned market research is often ignored by small business owners but spending time speaking with your target clients’ is usually the fastest (and most cost effective) way to get your marketing right.
Hope that helps, Ali
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Ali,
I read the article too and found it from a twitter link.
I suppose there is no magic answer, different things work. There are however a few basics, one of which is conducting market research.
I highly recommend a book by a US author called “Duck Tape Marketing” specifically focused on small business marketing strategies. It will give lots of ideas.
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Well, I run an interior design business and because of the nature of the services I provide (working closely with the client to create the home they want), all my clients have either come through word of mouth and/or by personal contact – I once found a client by sitting next to her and chatting about her home whilst queuing for parking tickets!
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