I had an interesting response to my email on Jose Mourinho a while ago (which is highly topical now that the ‘Special One’ has been dethroned at Old Trafford!).
It was from a kitchen retailer called Neil. He expanded upon the point I’d made about Mourinho making the best of the squad he had, his first time round at Chelsea.
Here’s what Neil said:
“A person once said to me: 5, not 50. Look at the market in the 5-mile radius around you – there’s probably more opportunities there than driving 50 miles to do business.”
I'm sure you'll relate to that, it’s a powerful and true insight.
When you look to market your business - to sell kitchens, bedrooms or bathrooms - it’s very easy to get carried away with ‘coverage’. You want to grow, scale and expand, and so you look far and wide for potential customers, to the fringe of your catchment area.
And in that very act, you can fail to see the potential customers right in front of your very nose.
I know a painter and decorator. 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 possible inconvenience, and asking the question whether the recipient needs any decorating doing themselves.
Simple? Yep. Effective? You betcha.
You may not 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 know 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. And if you don’t travel so far, you can undertake a higher volume of sales calls.
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.
