Jeff For Local Marketing argues that entrepreneurs fail by chasing new tactics instead of repeating what works. His principle: contacts equal contracts. Whether in sales or marketing, consistency beats novelty. A pest-control business succeeds by hammering the same core message repeatedly, even as the packaging changes.
Well, I think one of the toughest things for a business owner is that they tend to fail on because there's, you know, we with our mindset as an entrepreneur or business owner is what we see opportunities. And that's why we took the risk and we opened up a business or we went into try a startup, whatever it might be. I think one of the most difficult things to do, and I really see that from a client-business owner relationship because of owning a marketing company is consistency. I think it's, I think it's hard for people to do the same thing over and over and over again and hopefully they get results. Well, here's the thing. I think of it a couple of things. Many years ago, I was in sales and it just came down to a guy. He said, Hey, there's only a few things you have to do. Contacts equal contracts. And when you meet somebody, if you can now have a counseling session with them and you can demo your product and then you can ask them to buy, there's almost no way you can fail unless you don't make enough contacts. It was always pretty easy to go back and say, hey, you know what? Why are my sales not where they're at? I could literally link it back to that one piece and say, I just need to meet more people. And if more people weren't coming in the door, what I would do is I would go out and find those people. I'd knock on their door, walk in their business, and it made such a difference. And even through some tough times, now this is back in the '80s when we had a recession, and I went out and my sales continued to grow. My point being is not that I was successful with that, is because I made it very simple. And then I just did the same things over and over again. The same thing is true when it comes to marketing your business. And a lot of times we want to put out something new, something new. But let's, as an example, let's say you're a pest control company. You know, you help reduce pests at our homes. And so the message has to be very clear. If I have a pest, you can take care of it. And we just have to keep repeating that message over and over. Now, we may repackage it a lot of different ways, but we don't lose the essence of that message. It's almost like saying, hey, if my sales were down, I can relate it back to the fact that I didn't have enough contacts and I just have to get back out there and make more contacts. If my message is different all the time, I am hoping that my audience will make the connection and then come to me when they're ready. But the challenge from that is, is they're probably not gonna make that connection cuz they're really, they're only going to see my message when they have the problem that my product or service will solve.
