Get Your House In Order: Fixing Bad Business Practices

Before you can hope for business improvement from your advertising, take a look around.  Is your house in order?  Is all this new business brought in by your marketing efforts going to be pleased with what they see?  You can't hope to keep new customers if you haven't fixed the fundamental problems with your business.

You have ONE chance to make a first impression.  Stop and look at your business from the position of the prospect on a first visit.  Is your appearance right?  Is your staff knowledgeable?  Is your product or service mix right?  Before you spend a dime on advertising to get more prospects, make sure you’re ready for them!

Ideally, advertising effectiveness should be measured by the number of qualified prospects it delivers, not the sales volumes.  Time after time I’ve sees advertising improve traffic flow for businesses who fail to convert the prospects into customers because of poor service, bad pricing, poor inventory, dirty store, and a variety of other reasons.  The slow sales were not the fault of the advertising; the problem was with the business itself.

For instance, I had one client who had a great advertising campaign that delivered qualified prospects.  They then opened a new store in an old warehouse where the only entrance was in the back (in an area enclosed by chain link fencing.)  I literally watched customers drive in and immediately drive back out because there were no signs telling them this is where they were supposed to come in.  They thought they were in a delivery or contractor only area - so they left.

Worse still, another client was not seeing sales generated because their sales person was rude and unhelpful (when the boss wasn’t there).  We had to send in secret shoppers to prove it to the client.

The point here is: 

Good advertising does not fix a poorly run business.