Knowing my ‘numbers’ means I’m never an advertising victim. Whenever an advertising rep phones me with a special offer in the newspaper or wherever, I’m able to look at my numbers and forecast whether the rep is telling the truth or not. (“you mean....advertising reps tell lies?â€)
Especially when he tells me that other businesses are getting so many enquiries from advertising with them.
Since then, I’ve had a visit from an advertising rep for the local newspaper. I have a fairly good relationship with him and I’ll occasionally book late space in the paper.
I’d run a couple of advertorials (ie: adverts dressed up as editorial) in his paper and had only just been able to evaluate the response when he called. My ‘numbers’ showed that the ads weren’t working very well at all, even though my gut feeling was that they were.
Now, my philosophy is that if an advert breaks even, I’ll keep running it as long as it brings me a qualified client. That’s because I’ll make a profit on the back-end, when they use me again in a year or two. Plus they’ll refer me to other clients just like them so these new referred clients really cost me nothing to acquire.
I explained this to him, and not surprisingly he had some very persuasive arguments. Persuasive that is, unless you have tracked your numbers. After all, his job is to sell advertising space...not to get my business more sales.
He told me that other local businesses would not dream of not advertising with his paper because their response was so good. I asked him the all-important question...â€How do they know?†There was no way of tracking the adverts.. no coupons or offers. So as usual it was a gut feeling by the business owner.
After about 30 minutes of the usual nonsense (“your logo needs to be bigger…you need to advertise 7, 15, 20 times before someone respondsâ€), he could see that the situation was hopeless and left. I must admit that at times during his presentation, I did feel like I wanted to run a series of adverts in his paper again because I desperately wanted it to work. I also felt like simply giving into his persuasive arguments because I didn’t like the thought of disagreeing with him...but the all-important numbers simply did not add up. The response was clear in black and white. Did the advert produce a profit or did it not? And that’s really all I’m concerned with.
I had another experience recently that shows the value of having systems. My technician had booked a day off and two of my friends wanted carpets cleaned on the same day. I didn’t want to let them down so I had no choice but to go to work. Now, I’ve not cleaned carpets myself for quite some time. Instead I prefer to just ‘manage’ the business part-time.
After working hard from 9am to 3pm, I was absolutely shattered. I then had some phone calls to return as well as make sure the van, the paperwork and checklists were all in order for the next days work. I really don’t think I could go back to doing it all myself. I’m so glad I have systemised my business and have a technician to do all the work for me. Now, ‘parenting employees’ is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but this experience proves to me that having a technician and having the business on ‘autopilot’ is the best way to be.
Next time, I’ll share with you the easiest way I’ve found to hire a suitable employee without spending hours filtering out all the non-starters. It really is quite ingenious!