Is It Time To Get A Business Coach?

Some years ago when I was working for Yellow Pages I was visiting a client who was a key cutter. We got to talk about advertising and he was adamant that it no longer had the effect that it used to in the past. Whereas I was prepared to say there may be some truth in that I wasn’t prepared to admit that it didn’t work per se.

We decided (or rather he did as it was his business) to put it to the test. Outside his shop was an A Board on which he wrote special offers and promotions. If you walked past the shop, and a lot of people were doing so as it was right by the market place, you couldn’t really fail to see it or at least be aware of it. He brought the board inside and re-wrote it. Instead of the offer that was currently there he wrote in big letters. ‘All Key Cutting FREE Today’. He then went and replaced the sign and we waited.

I was only with the guy for about an hour but in that time not one person came in and asked for their free key cutting. When I returned two weeks later the owner assured me that is stayed out all day and not one person took him up on the offer.

This was somewhat surprising but not completely so. I do not think that this suggests advertising is a dead medium at all, but I do think it tells us that advertisers and marketers are having to be increasingly clever and skillful to get their message over with any level of success.

People are very often in their own world focusing on whatever it is that they need to do and seeing little else. I saw a stat that suggested we are hit by 10,000 advertising messages per day. If that figure is accurate and I have no reason to think otherwise, then is it any wonder we are filtering out most of that 10,000? Otherwise we would be in sensory overload, we have become masters at seeing what we need to see and little else.

Advertising and marketing are critical to most companies yet most small companies do no realize this fact. They think that an advert in Yellow Pages and an occasional mail shot is enough to secure success and it isn’t. Instead of repeating the same old campaign, take a fresh look at how you promote your business. Are you giving out the right message? Are your ideal customers seeing your message? Does it tell them instantly what’s in it for them and why they should trade with you? Do you capitalize your current client base and keep in the forefront of their awareness? Are you maximizing on the potential the Internet has to offer?

Some of this may require that you bring in a Business Coach or Consultant or at the very least a friend that can look at your business through neutral eyes but the results can make it a very worthwhile exercise. I would recommend any business review their marketing approach at least every other year and preferably annually. Business and the way it is conducted is changing and it is changing fast, you can either embrace that change or you can resist it and the latter only has one outcome and it aint a good one.

www.adaringadventure.com

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