Thats right. Forget to think big. You are bootstrapping your business after-all, so remove the dreams of external funding, and high dollar loans. You don’t need them in order to succeed! Toss out that whole “THINK BIG” idea for a while, and focus on the fundamentals of your business and the core structure that is going to fuel your success.
Bootstrapping your business is about getting into the mud and doing whatever possible to get your business off the ground with as little money as possible. We are all guilty of dreaming the life of Donald Trump or Steve Jobs for a while where you are the poster boy for a huge multinational company. It is fine to believe you can get to that point, but starting your business by focusing solely on that, you will lose track of the smaller things that are the building blocks of your business and get lost in the haze of the bright lights.
When starting your business, or putting together a product, don’t aim for the laundry list of features, or the largest inventory, but aim for getting your name out there, and making sure you even have something that people want. The WANT has to be there in order for your business to succeed, or you have to have the power to make people BELIEVE THEY WANT AND NEED your product / service. Starting small will also give you more time to work on other aspects of your business like customer service, which is key in any successful business.
Thinking Big in the beginning will just leave you with analysis paralysis over the smallest details, that really, get in the way of taking action in the early stage of a business. Get your product or service running, and get feedback from your clients. The feedback from them will give you all of the things you need to work on in the future. Rely on their feedback, because after-all, if you like your product and the customers don’t, you have a crap, period!.
If you are having trouble putting this in perspective for your business here are 4 thoughts to keep in mind.
- Think small – You can make all the money you need solving a small problem well instead of trying to tackle the world’s issues.
- Close your mouth – If need to draw your line in the sand at some point. Once you do, stick to it!
- Open your ears – Now find out if it is sticky now that you are stuck, Feedback and testing, they will let you know if you have the next post-it-note or if it is just a generic gum wrapper.
- Get out there – My friend John Assaraf said that if you sit on your couch planning and meditating all the time eventually people will come and take your house from around you and all that is left is you and a couch.
Shiny wrappers promising delicious treats inside, perfectly tied bows sealing seductive sweets within, colors of the rainbow catching the eye at every angle…I’d like to address the kid-in-the-candy-store phenomenon and how it applies to your marketing (more specifically, how it shouldn’t apply). Through my years of experience of working with my clients and trying to educate them on their marketing and working with a bootstrapped budget, I’ve noticed that they really appreciate it when I slap their hands and help them slow down before they burn through their budgets like a chocolate-smeared kid blowing through his allowance in a candy store. Granted, there are some very effective marketing methods out there today, but without the occasional hand-slap, you might get as excited as a child and buy up every shiny new marketing solution that you see.
First, the following is not supposed to be considered a popularity contest, and by no means am I claiming to be the coolest guy out there-well, my five-month-old son may think I’m pretty cool! But what I’d like to ask you is: Who do you know? I don’t want to know if you’ve ever seen James Woods in a Starbucks or if you’re the type of person who gets the thumbs up from everyone you pass. I just want to see if you can develop a list of people you know. Why develop a list? Because, whether you’re a first-year small-business greenhorn or a veteran badass, creating a contact list is one of the best ways to get your marketing wheels rolling. And…uh huh, you know what’s coming here…it’s free!
Instead of buying the first shiny marketing package that catches your eye, set aside a significant period of time and develop a list of all the people you know. By first creating a list of contacts that you can solicit and present your business to, you’ll be taking advantage of verified, warm leads; leads you didn’t have to spend a single marketing dollar on. The first phase of creating your list should be done through a stream of consciousness, writing down every single name that comes to mind. Subsequently, you’ll use a filter and qualify each of the name’s you’ve written down. Try categorizing them into Direct Purchase, Referral Prospects, Barter Candidates and Sleepers.
- Direct Purchase: Who on your list is ready to buy? Which names did you write down that fall under your classifications for your ideal client?
- Referral Prospects: Want to double or triple your new contact list? Then ask yourself “Who do they know?” For example, let’s say you’re a used-car salesman. Okay, so you’ve got your brother on the list, but he’s always been a new-or-nothing kind of guy and though he loves you, refuses to buy from you. Instead of testing this familial tie’s strength, simply think of who he knows or ask him if he thinks any of his friends might be interested. No matter what industry they’re in, business owners would do well to view their company as a network marketing company or an MLM. Look beyond the surface; there are many levels to a solid business.
- Barter Candidates: Who on your list could you trade services/products with? Perhaps your neighbor doesn’t need a car at this time, but you can still ask him if he’d be willing to trade you a few hours of his skills for some car repair discounts you get through your vendors.
- Sleepers: These are the people you just can’t seem to categorize. Perhaps you only briefly met them on the street once and don’t have an actual relationship with them. Either way, you should never assume a contact is worthless until you’ve made the effort to market to them.
Just as we encourage equality in society, so shall it be with your business. Never assume anything about your prospects or contacts until you’ve dealt with them directly-after that, you can judge them as much as you’d like.
Look for our future feature article on follow-up to help you capitalize on your contact list.
Well seeing as it is Monday again and we have to come back inside after enjoying a spring weekend (we just got rid of our snow and finally our spring fever).
I figured I would continue on with my favorite Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns that I have found around the web. Happy Monday everyone!
Ego Boost
I love when simple concepts are the ones that make the biggest impact. This one is fun, innovative and feeds male ego at the same time.
Jaws Eats Bus Passengers
I am huge fan of the vehicle wrap. When done well you will always get attention. Your audience is bored waiting in traffic, it has movement and it is memorable. All the makings of a campaign that will be talked about at dinner tables and push your message along.
Half a Bus Stop
The last time I had a blog post that had the message to use less we had a huge discussion about green marketing and the merits and morals of advertising.
The impact this one creates is great. One of the best ways to get attention is to take a familiar object and turn it’s concept upside down. Good job Denver Water!
Is IKEA taking over the world
It would seem that I have accidentally created a public transit guerrilla marketing post I will continue with the theme. As the one above it is a great job of taking the familiar and playing with perception. I hope that it does not rain.
I once read a sign in a locker room that has always stuck with me: “If You Hit Your Hand with a Hammer Every Day, It Will Never Get Better.” Before we jump into the main significance of this message, I’d like to point out that I saw this sign years ago and still remember it quite clearly. The message was quick and to the point and was accompanied by a simple image. Remember there’s a time and place for longer content. Think about the audience and location of your ads before you develop your copy. Not to perpetuate any derogatory stereotypes, but guys in a locker room probably aren’t looking to read a whole lot. A quick and tempting ad has the power to persevere and remain locked into your audience’s minds. Okay, so now that I’ve gotten my standard tangent out of the way, we’ll get into the marketing meat and potatoes I originally intended.
Unless you’re one of those athletes who continued hitting yourself in the head with that hammer, then the sign’s message should be quite clear: Your injury will never heal if you continue participating in your sport and don’t do anything differently in your routine. As I am just short of the athletic talent level of Tiger and Gretzky, I decided to pursue the limitless possibilities of the Internet, and have remembered this sign for a different reason. In my sapling days, when I was a young and inexperienced entrepreneur, I sometimes found myself experiencing aggravating defeats in my marketing ventures. The element that made them the most aggravating was that my lack of success was consistent. It seemed that even though I had some great input from some marketing gurus and had applied my own Einstein-level of genius that my ads just weren’t gaining the traction I thought they were capable of. Then I saw the sign…literally.
When I read that sign, I realized I’d been hitting my injured marketing campaign with a hammer and expecting it to get better. I was so confident in the ads I had going that I managed them like a desperate soon-to-be-vagabond in Vegas, playing the same number over and over again in roulette, thinking that I was improving my chances simply because of numbers and time elapsed. Your bootstrapped marketing campaign should be looked at the same—you’ve got an equal chance of failure or success with every prospect. Granted, sales and marketing does ultimately come down to a numbers game, increasing your chances of a sale with every person you ask, but you are a bootstrapped budget and can’t always afford to play the game of large numbers.
Lesson learned: Whether it came down to wrong geographical location, incorrectly targeted demographic, outlying economic factors…I came to realize that even though I had some fantastic ideas and approaches involved in my ads, they simply weren’t working. Don’t hold on too long to ads or business methods that aren’t working or you’ll end up with an extremely bruised and battered hand. A particular method to help you decide how well something’s working for your business is conducting an A/B split test. For example, create two versions of an ad for the same exact product/service. To ensure accuracy, make sure you disseminate those ads equally among demographics and locations. Then, measure and compare the results of ad A versus ad B. Go with the one that garnered the best results, and then use that ad to create another split test down the road. Because even though you may have managed to put the hammer down, you may still be able to look into some business supplements to take you to an even higher level of success.
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Unless you’re an uber famous Hollywood star, then chances are you ask this question almost every time you purchase something (unless it’s toilet paper): Why should I buy? For one thing, some Hollywood stars probably do use their money as toilet paper. But the point is money isn’t exactly an issue for them, so they don’t put much consideration into most price tags they come across. For us Average Joe Consumers though, we’re on a constant hunt for value. We’re like a real-life version of The Price Is Right; with every successful move hinged on the price of a product or service. Now, apply this mode of thinking to your prospect’s perspective.
Every time a potential client is presented with your product or service, they will ask themselves why they should buy from you. This is a natural reaction—people have a natural propensity for procrastination. However, when you multiply this by the effects of today’s economy and then multiply that by the thousands of new small businesses entering the marketplace on a daily basis, well, you sure have to give them a helluva good reason why they should buy from you.
Now, hopefully you’ve been following along and enjoying our articles, so perhaps you’ve heard us mention unique selling point (USP). Your USP is the answer to your prospect’s question as to why they should buy. Make it incredibly obvious what makes your business different from the masses. These are the one or two gems that make your business a necessity in your prospect’s life. Take note of an important element in that preceding sentence. You need to make sure you keep your focus on just a couple distinguished aspects of your business. Include more than that in your marketing and branding efforts and you’re going to sound like a recent graduate’s resume, listing everything from “habitat improvement” for mowing lawns to “sales experience” because they buy groceries on a regular basis.
Spread your apparent specialties too thin and throw fluff at your prospects and they will see through you. And remember, Newton’s Third Law here: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This can go two ways for word of mouth (WOM) marketing. Most people only talk about getting clients through WOM, but if you come off as the recent graduate in your business pitch, then you may lose clients through WOM. Just think about all the countless blogs and online forums here on the Web today. An obvious trend is people’s absolute love of discussing hate. People are just tickled pink that they now have the opportunity to complain about anything at all that bothers them. Whether it’s the fact that one of their feet is bigger than the other so they have to buy two pairs of shoes or that they visited some person’s website and thought it was nothing more than a cheap ploy, word will spread about your business.
Your specialty could be the fact that you’ve never once been late or missed a deadline or possibly your stunning customer service which never allows the phone to ring more than three times and the promise that they’ll get a live person on the phone every time. Write down your business’ top 10 attributes, and then narrow that last to your top one or two. Now, make sure you’re striving for attributes that are not only top-notch, but are also distinct from other competing businesses.
Just be ethical, present your business in an honest manner, keep your USP simple and laser-beam focused, and prospective clients will then know why they should buy from you, and only you.
Check out these other articles for more information: Well I Should Hope So and People Buy Benefits, not Features