Herman School of Business
Herman...tell us a story...
There are several upcoming speaking events where the people who have engaged me want answers. They want me to solve problems that have taken months and years to build up to this point…and in about an hour they want me to explain how the audience can escape them.
Please tell us how to create more sales in an economy where no one is buying and we have a product that no one really needs? How do we get people to stop paying their bills, stop spending so much on food, give up those costly prescription medicines…and spend that money on my almost worthless trinket. We know Americans have five TV’s in every house but how do we get them to upgrade to this newest version that sounds almost 1 percent better and the picture is so clear they will think they are standing on the mound with the pitcher in the game they are watching.
The poor shlubs out there bought gas guzzling hogs with no equity and we want to know what marketing we can do to compound the shlubs’ life even further by trading that hog for a new gas efficient vehicle so he can save on gas…but the shlub has to take a big loss on that last purchase because our back lot is full of hogs we can’t sell. Surely there must be some marketing scheme we can launch to overcome this…because if I can’t sell more cars how can I keep up my Lexus payments? And my Condo at the beach is killing me…a storm blew off part of the roof and that emergency assessment is ridiculous. How can the Condo managers think I can drop another fifteen hundred dollars when we only rented it out six times last season instead of the eleven times I needed to break even?
Tell us a story Herman. There must be a way we can market our way out of this mess and increase our sales!
Once upon a time there were two people who started a business on the same day selling the same things. One person researched the town and picked a place where traffic was good and convenient to shoppers…it wasn’t the new Mall, but the rent was much more reasonable. The other person loved the Mall…bright lights, five minutes from his house and full of shoppers. The rent was outrageous but so what, look at the upside. DING DING DING DING DING (warning bells going off). The person with the cheaper rent started looking at marketing costs. They did some low cost flyers, gave specials to customers so the customers would go out talking about their store, and built a great interactive website. The Mall guy bought TV advertising so his neighbors would see what a Bigshot he was. The Bigshot stuffed his store with an overload of inventory…he maxed his credit cards out to buy the goods…the person across town ordered new goods as people bought what was on the floor, this let him shun debt. Now if both merchants sold the same thing why did one go under and one survive. That’s the way to market and sell. Stop forcing your customers to pay higher prices because your rent is ridiculous, your ads are too costly, and that interest rate you pay on your inventory is killing you.
The story I will tell people is the truth.
You must face reality and perhaps sell your store and start over, because the guy selling the same goods as you…down the street from the Mall…is cleaning your clock.
Quit worrying about marketing and increasing sales because you will spend yourself into the ground. The question you should be asking…and the story you need to hear…is how to cut costs, how to put realistic spending habits into your business, and how to stop satisfying your ego and start satisfying your customers…that story has a happier ending.
- Posted: 21 November 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business failure
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