Do Business Well

It is fantastic to have your own business, but the greatest thrill is to see your “baby” grow!

At last – you’re in business! But remember that even though you may have the best product or service, if it’s not properly promoted it will not succeed. Many entrepreneurs put marketing last on their list while it should be a priority; this is an important reason for business failures. But, there are various relatively inexpensive ways to promote your product or service. Let’s look at some examples.

Positive word-of-mouth publicity is still the best you can ever hope for. Did you know that a very large percentage of your customers will buy from you because of recommendations made by other happy customers? But, did you also know that studies in America have shown that customers tell twice as many people about bad than good experiences? So, keep your customers happy.

Yvonne Lottering of Coin Security says they depended on word-of-mouth recommendation to break into the market.

Would you believe me if I told you that a very successful South African mail order business with annual profits of close to R10-million did not advertise for years? The Mashold company only relied on word-of-mouth publicity.

I live very close to Pick ‘n Pay in Faerie Glen. To celebrate its opening, the building was bathed in light at night and fashion shows with fairly loud music were held outside. After some of the residents complained the festivities were stopped. Each of the complaining residents received a box of chocolates with a letter of apology from Pick ‘n Pay chairman, Raymond Ackerman. This gesture was the talk on the bus and at work for a whole week!

Be innovative. Leigh Downing’s thriving modelling agency also has a successful casting agency supplying characters for television and film. The agency was approached by a film company wanting 100 Hispanic people.

Instead of placing a conventional advertisement in a newspaper, Leigh approached the newspaper to make a story out of the event. She told the paper that it was a great opportunity for their readers who didn’t have jobs as they could be part of a film and get paid for it!

She quickly found the 100 people, the advertisement cost her nothing, she received good publicity for her agency and the paper ran a good story which benefited its readers as 100 unemployed people had work for a week. Everybody won!

Be accessible to the media. Richard Branson, owner and founder of the Virgin group of companies is far more accessible to the media than other company executives. He says it is much cheaper than advertising! Merely by promoting himself, he generates business for his airline. After a chat show on British TV his airline received 38 000 calls.

For publicity purposes Richard has crossed the Atlantic in a balloon and clocked the fastest time for a crossing by boat.

Be the best and you’ll be noticed. In 1947, when engineer Howard Head had a bad day on the ski slopes he blamed it on his wooden skis. In his spare time over the next three years and after 39 failed attempts, he came up with a new design in metal.

He couldn’t break into the market although he knew that his skis were superior. Everybody was still using much cheaper wooden ones. His lucky break came when an unknown member of the Swiss ski team won the pre-Olympic downhill on a pair of his skis. Head became a millionaire!

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