We waste real money to attract strangers.
We don’t invest a few hours to stay in touch with people who already know us.
We try to find strangers in magazines, on billboards, via car signage, through Google Adwords, via Social media, …
I’ve studied thousands of small business owners since 1984 to find out how they get sales. A singe factor separates the few successful ventures from the many who struggle.
That success factor is “staying in touch” with people who already know who we are and what we do.
Using advertising to find a stranger who might need what you sell is expensive and random. To find that stranger at the exact time they need your solution is nigh impossible. All advertising is wasteful. It casts a wide net, touching people who will never buy the kind of thing you sell.
And then what happens when a real prospect makes contact?
- We fluff our response. We get so discouraged from dealing with poor enquiries that never convert into sales.
- And then we never contact that prospect ever again.
Successful businesses owners might use advertising to find strangers. But all of them focus diligently on staying in touch with people they know will need them at some point. They stay in touch. They keep interest alive by telling stories about how they help their clients.
If you do this once each month for a few months then you become the go-to expert in your field when a prospect needs help.
This is ever more true for regular offline businesses.
Sales at a fraction of the cost of any other marketing. I have never seen it fail.
I have seen it succeed like gangbusters selling…
- insurance,
- complex computer equipment,
- consulting,
- online and offline training,
- vehicles (industrial, commercial, and personal),
- valves,
- travel,
- accommodation,
- offline and online courses,
- packaging,
- wine, …