The Worst Marketing Mistake You Could Make
August 30, 2007
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Marketing is the lifeblood of your business. And no matter how busy you are, you need to be constantly marketing to new customers, and existing customers.
This may seem pretty obvious, whatever type of business you’re in. But no matter how well you’re doing and how many sales you’re making, you don’t want to make the massive mistake that I made this summer.
We launched a plumbing business at the beginning of March this year, and we were busy from day one. I’d done it before, and we did lots of marketing so it wasn’t really a surprise. But, it’s always the one thing you’re not expecting to happen that will trip you up, and that’s exactly what happened to us.
Here’s what I did wrong: I didn’t anticipate what might happen if all our plumbers went off sick at the same time. After all, it just doesn’t happen does it? Well, that’s what I thought anyway, but it does and it did, right at a time when we were in the middle of more jobs than we could handle. And the worst thing was we had no backup plan.
We upset a couple of people of customers because of the delay, and we even lost one big job, as the customer couldn’t wait. That was bearable. But, what we did next was totally foolish and it was all my fault. I decided we should stop marketing, until the plumbers returned to work and we caught up on the work we were behind with.
This was a huge mistake, and I should have known better. When you’re using various different marketing methods and bringing in heaps of sales, suddenly stopping for a whole month can have a catastrophic effect for a long time afterwards. And it did. Our sales dropped dramatically - we just weren’t getting enough work.
Now, I already knew this would happen, so why on earth did I do it? Well, to be honest, it was the worry of having to turn people down. I thought it would harm our reputation. But, looking back, turning people down would have been a far better option than bringing our marketing campaign to a halt.
This is what I should have done: I know you’re maybe thinking it’s a bit late now, but you will never become so experienced in business that you don’t make mistakes. I can learn from this one - and hopefully I can help you to avoid making the same mistake too.
I should have done two things. 1) First I should have had a back up plan in place for staff illness. If we’d had a documented plan, we’d have been able to cope with the problem immediately.
2) I shouldn’t have stopped marketing. If we’d continued marketing, we wouldn’t have upset people too much if. We could simply have referred them to another reputable plumbing company. And we’d still have had work flowing in when we needed it later.
Now it may seem like a bit of a waste to spend money on marketing when you’re not able to do the work, but believe me - it’s far better than watching your cashflow dry up.
You may be thinking this could never happen to you - especially if you’re in a different type of business, but it could. And if you don’t remember the complete story, just remember these two important points:
1) You should make plans to deal with the worst imaginable emergencies that could happen in your business. And you should document them, so that everyone knows what to do when something goes wrong.
2) You should never ever stop marketing - no matter how busy you are.
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2 Responses to “The Worst Marketing Mistake You Could Make”
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Excellent points. Done that. Got the T-shirt.
And it’s one mistake I’m ashamed to admit I’ve repeated!
Complacency is the enemy. When the flood is turning into a tsunami (forgive the plumbing references!), you want to help cope with it.
But the tsunami isn’t an enemy. And the last thing on your mind is turning on the tap. It’s that counterintuitive that it’s a trap that anyone - even the most experienced - can easily fall into!
Do agree that it helps reputation when you refer people to others - even competitors - when you;’re busy.
Think about it. It simply increases desire to use you. People don’t usually recommend a rival.
They may even wait - even though you hate to keep clients waiting.
It’s because it’s so unexpected. You are acting honourably and honestly by saying you always stick to your promises and because you may let other clients down, you would prefer to recommend someone else than lead them up the garden path and simply not turn up.
I wish I’d taken my own advice on several occasions!
Ans when you’re turning people away, still remember that your marketing still has to continue.
And you are right - it would have looked so much better if I’d just recommended someone else to do the work. I’m going to find a couple of reliable people I can recommend and add them to my contingency plan.
Oh well, the warning has probably come at a good time. I think I was getting too complacent you know, and always thinking it was easy to get as many customers as I wanted. And the truth is, it isn’t easy. When you start thinking something is easy - you tend to forgot how much hard work you put into it to start with don’t you?