Is this the state of your business?
Imagine, you’re out in the middle of the ocean, on a boat; and the boat has a slow leak. To top it all off your sails have been torn by gale winds and you’ve flooded the engine trying to start it. You and your crew are busy trying to get the sails and engine repaired. Every now and then someone thinks to scoop out a bucket or two of the water that’s steadily rising inside of the boat.
This is the condition of too many small retail businesses since the recession hit, and some even before. The boat is sinking and the crew is so busy trying to repair the sails and engine that no one’s trying to repair the leak or scoop out the water. We’re trying to manage costs, inventories, crews, and schedules. But no one is trying to get new customers. No one is scooping out the water…so the boat is sinking.
It is a fact that your list of customers will shrink if you are not getting new customers. Let’s assume that you make every single customer happy that you now have. Some will still move away, either out of the city or out of state. And some will still pass away. It is also a fact that folks move on an average every 5 years. That means at any given moment 20% of the people in your trade area are new and 20% are leaving. If your only consistent marketing efforts took place prior to your opening, you can see how this could create the sinking boat effect.
Don't let this be your only marketing efforts
The oxymoron in this whole scenario is that those same establishments that said they had no time to market, (or money to market), suddenly have both when they’re going out of business. How many times have we seen people standing on the side of the road holding signs like these? If the average new business fails to last longer than 5 years – I have to believe that a lack of marketing is one of the major factors leading to its demise.
Commit yourself to 1 hour of marketing efforts per day. 1 hour creating your marketing calendar for the quarter. 1 hour of handing out samples. 1 hour adding to your email database or sending out promotional emails. 1 hour contacting community organizations to create partnerships and I guarantee you your business will not only survive this recession, but you will create a foundation that will sustain you for the long haul.
