Is Your Picnic Short of a Sandwich?
A few weeks ago I was paying for a book in a second hand bookstore when a man walked in and announced to the store owner (who happened to be ringing up my book) that he’d started a sandwich shop around the corner. He sandwich shop owner quoted prices and rattled off a few sandwich options before assuring us that his prices wouldn’t be beaten. Then he turn on his heel and left.
After the sandwich shop man had gone the book store owner turned to me and said “He seems like an enterprising guy. He’ll go far.”
“He might appear enterprising but I doubt he’ll go anywhere!” I replied. I went on to say that I thought he also didn’t have the …
A few weeks ago I was paying for a book in a second hand bookstore when a man walked in and announced to the store owner (who happened to be ringing up my book) that he’d started a sandwich shop around the corner. The sandwich shop owner quoted prices and rattled off a few sandwich options before assuring us that his prices wouldn’t be beaten.
Then he turned on his heel and left.
After the sandwich shop man had gone the book store owner turned to me and said “He seems like an enterprising guy. He’ll go far.”
“He might appear enterprising but I doubt he’ll go anywhere!” I replied. I went on to say that I thought he also didn’t have the sandwich making ability he claimed to have to enable him to succeed, even if he wanted to.”
“What makes you think that?” asked the bookstore owner.
So I explained why I thought the sandwich shop man’s theories and understanding of marketing were wrong.
First, he was (or appeared to be) relying on word of mouth to build his business.
As a business owner, word of mouth isn’t something you create, it’s something that’s given to you by loyal customers—customers who are enthusiastic about you and the products, goods, or services you make, offer, or supply.
If all the sandwich shop owner did all day long for a month was to tell people about his business he simply couldn’t say the same thing to enough people to make as much of a difference to his business as the store owner who says just one thing once but who says that one thing to 100,000 by direct mail.
The other thing is that the sandwich shop owner is wasting time talking about his business when he’d be better off SHOWING people how great his sandwiches are by offering free samples, or by offering free sodas with each sandwich: the product then becomes the marketing.
If the sandwich man told 100 people every day about his business he still wouldn’t be driving enough traffic because his message is too scattered. By not working in his business he’s also robbing it of much needed and necessary direction, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s also spending too much time and effort to reach his audience.
The book store owner listened to this and said “I’m not sure I quite follow you.”
“Well”, I said “let’s say the sandwich shop man’s time is worth $25 per hour. And let’s say he gives the same speech to 10 people per hour. So regardless of the number of hours he talks, every presentation he gives still costs him $2.50.
But, if we were smarter, he’d be talking to tens if not hundreds of thousands of people every day for a fraction of the cost per hour by using press advertising, printed menus, and direct mail that all offered discount coupons, deadlines on specials, free gifts with purchase, and a good deal more.
And he can do all this and more through press advertising and direct mail for a fraction of a penny per contact and leave a far longer lasting impression than he left with you.”
“Wow!” said the book store owner “I’d never looked at it that way.”
Which is the point here: it’s the store owner and business owner who HASN’T looked at things in this way who loses out when they don’t advertise or when they don’t use direct mail or press advertising that both include compelling, benefit driven messages.
Dollar for dollar, newspapers and direct mail STILL out pull word of mouth publicity, especially when the mouth in question is NOT that of a satisfied customer but instead, is the mouth of the store or business owner.
Those business owners who insist that newspaper advertising still doesn’t work and that direct response is a waste of time and money miss the point that it’s the directionality of the message that matters most and how that message is aligned with the prospect’s personal compulsions that truly makes the register ring.
