I had an interesting response to my email on Jose Mourinho last month (which is highly topical now that the ‘Special One’ has been dethroned at Old Trafford!).
It was from Neil Gough, Sales Manager at WLR FM in Waterford, Ireland. He expanded upon the point I’d made about Mourinho making the best of the squad he had, his first time around at Chelsea.
Here’s what Neil said:
“A person once said to me: 5, not 50. Look at the businesses in the 5-mile radius around you – there’s probably more opportunities there than driving 50 miles to do business.”
It’s a powerful and true insight.
When we look to market our businesses - to sell advertising products and services - it’s very easy for us to get carried away with coverage. We want to grow, scale and expand, and so we start to look far and wide for potential customers, to play in the fringe of your catchment area.
And in that very act, we fail to see the potential customers right in front of our noses.
I know a painter and decorator, Barry. He does very little marketing, but he’s always chock-a-block, fully booked.
How? Well, his ‘marketing plan’ is very simple. He turns up to do a job at a house, and just drops a little letter to the five houses either side of the house he’s doing the job at.
The letter explains that he’s doing some decorating at Mrs Jones’ house, apologising in advance for any inconvenience, and asking the question whether the recipient needs any decorating doing themselves.
Simple? Yep. Effective? You betcha.
You don’t paint walls for a living, but the point still stands – are you trying to ‘boil the ocean’ and get customers from afar, when not enough of your most local market know you exist ... or at least what you can do for them?
If you are, then good news: you’re probably leaving plenty of leads on the table, that can be yours, just by prioritising sales and marketing activity in your most local area. Because you don’t have to travel so far, you can hold more meetings.
It’s about exhausting your opportunities closest to home, first - owning and dominating 'your patch’.
If you fancy some ideas about how to make that happen, just give us a shout.
Happy New Year too! I hope it’s a successful one for you.
