You are an expert in your field. You know the history of how your product was developed and produced, how your service has evolved to meet the needs of today’s consumer. You know how you can make your customer’s lives easier. And you know how to budget for payroll, production, purchasing, warehousing, and transport.
But it amazes me how little most business owners know about how to get the word out about their product or service. They don’t think twice about spending to produce or stock more products, or designing a beautiful storefront or warehouse, but that same owner will not spend much at all on advertising.
This tends to be the same business owner who wonders why advertising “doesn’t work for me”. This is woman who won’t take calls from advertising salespeople. Receptionists who are trained to screen out the ad reps. And if a call does get to the boss, he sounds utterly disgusted to be listening to – ick! – an ad salesperson.
This may be understandable. None of us want to be scammed or taken advantage of, and we feel this especially in areas we don’t know much about. What we fail to realize is that most salespeople are extremely knowledgeable about their product and may be able to educate us in new areas if we allow them the privilege.
My advice to the business owner is to make appointments with as many ad salespeople as possible, and take all the information you can—you’re not obliged to purchase. When you do purchase, you will know what you’re buying. Ad reps are happy to invest the time to educate you. Talk to the newspaper guys, the radio gals, anyone who can add to your knowledge base about promoting your business. You are bound to learn something new. People aren’t going to become a customer if they don’t know you exist.
I especially advise business owners to talk to advertising and marketing people daily to discover what is happening in their market. Salespeople have access to research data that would cost a business owner thousands of dollars to produce.
As a business consultant I do a lot of research so that I can make intelligent recommendations to my clients. I receive some of the most current data from salespeople who have to be knowledgeable in order to sell their product. When I make a recommendation to a client about what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their advertising dollars, that decision is generally backed by hours of research that validate any claims.
There is more to come on this subject. One final thought, if you do not learn more about how to get customers in the door, your competition will.
