Copyright 2009 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
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I responded to another of Ted Hurlbut's posts in http://blog.inc.com/retail/2009/01/when_times_are_tough_dont_go_i.html
NOTE- I'm not trying to degrade Ted or what he writes. I agree with a lot of what he wrote in other posts. I agree--with reservations--with what he wrote in this post I'm responding to.
I wish more retired retailers would still be involved in retailing. Their involvement can help the rest of us & literally keep them alive. (Sometimes, retiring is bad idea. Nobody dies of old age. Some fade away because they withdraw.)
A retailer I admire in Two Rivers (WI) permanently closed his store last year because it wasn't profitable anymore. I joked a few times about him semi-retiring some day, then he'd only work 40 hours per week. I don't know his age, but he's still mentally sharp (probably because he didn't retire) despite some health problems.
He plans to be in a non-retail business this year.
Unfortunately, despite or maybe because of his many years of experience, he didn't adapt his store to current consumers & competitors.
If you get advice from 6 experienced retailers, you'd probably get conflicting advice. They'd probably advise you to do what worked for them in their specific situations, which are different from yours.
Like many fields, retailing has no experts, just people with various experiences.
Somebody with experience may have answers & solutions to yesterday's questions & problems.
Before you invest a lot of money & risk your business, you should test what seems valid. Try it for a limited time or with some (not all) customers. You may need to test variations before you find which variation works.
It's hard to give thorough advice about testing various kinds of ideas in this small space.
Stephen R. Covey wrote & talked about how many breakthroughs are really "break withs". Break withs come from outsiders &/or former insiders who break with people & practices from the past.
What difference does it make from where or whom a great idea comes?
In the mid-1990s, would an experienced retailer or consultant have helped a less experienced retailer setup an effective retail web site? Maybe.
Many experienced retailers didn't respond correctly to Sam Walton & Wal-Mart -- a break with.
Experienced retailers have valuable perspectives, unfortunately, their perspectives may be toward their past instead of toward your future.
I advise you to use your trade-skill to evaluate options from various sources, then test some methods. But don't leave your business choking while you try to figure out what to do or search for a guru.
You should test methods in small, inexpensive ways. Before you pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a newspaper ad, you can test it by 1- sending it as a post card to some customers or prospects &/or 2- make a flyer & ask other retailers (who serve the same niche) to give it to their customers.
Many consultants charge retainers before they'll start working with a client. If you pay a retainer, it means the consultant retains your money.
Some will work without payment until what they do brings their clients money. (Jay Abraham advised me & 2 other consultants not to do this, but I'm stubborn.)
Jay & others acknowledge they & other experienced marketers don't always know what will work until it's tested.
Audition consultants by testing their advice, when their advice pays off; pay them a percentage of the revenue you get from their work. Whatever their experiences are, their ideas may not work for your specific situation. You may end up testing a few ideas from a few consultants before you find what works for you.
Reality Check: You may know people aren't expected to answer rhetorical questions. This is a "rhetorical" (for you to think about but NOT to do) idea: Get, at least, 2 marketing consultants (1 with experience & 1 without experience) to design marketing messages for you. If you test these messages, put this line above the headline of the message written by the experienced consultant: "This message was written by an experienced consultant."
If customers respond to the work of the experienced consultant, ask if they responded because of the consultant's experience. If they buy from you only because a consultant is experienced, then you'd know you don't have to offer superior value. Just let people know you have an experienced consultant.
Don't let your reality check bounce. Would consumers really care how much experience, if any, your consultant has? Since your income comes from them, should you really care about the level of a consultant's experience? Or are you really concerned about how profitable you'll be because of a consultant's work?
Superior ideas come from many sources. Superior ideas don't search for experienced consultants. Superior ideas occur to those who are open to them & learned enough to recognize them.
Some ideas you test won't be superior. One superior idea can bring you far more profit than the cost of less successful ideas you test.
A knowledgeable novice & an experienced retailer or consultant could give you the same advice. Would it be any more or less valid because of the source?
You could get the same guidance from Jay Abraham or from me. What's the difference? Here there IS a difference. From Jay, the same guidance would cost $5,000 or more. I wouldn't charge that much, though I paid Jay thousands of dollars to get the knowledge.
Any time an experienced consultant tries to convince you to ignore those who have less experience, ask him/her how s/he got started before s/he got some experience.
Experience isn't magical; it's earned. To earn experience, people have to start.
Some people are arrogant & reject anybody without little or no experience. But how did they get their experience?
Whether you started your business, inherited or bought it; how much experience, did you have when you were a novice? I thought so.
If you want only highly, formally educated advisers or consultants don't try to hire Jay Abraham. He didn't attend college classes; besides he gets paid $5,000 per hour & is too busy with multi-million dollar clients.
Until Jay read books & listened to executives & business owners, he was as ignorant as any novice. Until he was given a chance to use his knowledge to test methods & gain experience, he was as inexperienced as any beginner.
Enough said?
Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
Copyright 2009 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
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