When I was between seven and eight years old my father was
reeling from a recent job loss. We had moved from Wyoming to Washington and
were trying our best to get back on our feet. My Grandfather, my dad’s dad had
passed away during our move; so that was adding to his difficulty in getting
things really going.
It was during this time that my Grandmother suggested that
my brother and I join them in the Cherry Orchards to pick cherries to earn
money. My mother had grown up in a migrant worker family and at this time they
were still in this line of work. So, with no better alternative my older
brother and I woke up early in the morning (the sooner you get to the orchard
the more cherries you pick and the more money you make) and began our labors to
help support the family.
I remember the work was hard. I was small and didn’t like
ladders much because I was prone to accidents, so I stayed down low for most of
the morning picking the fruit that was down at the bottom. The low hanging
fruit if you will. Since this is the easiest fruit to get, everybody was
picking the lower fruit, and I soon realized that if I was going to be
successful, I was going to have to climb the ladder and go for the higher
fruit, which appeared to be more desirable. I got into the tree and spent the
entire day traversing the branches and filled bucket after bucket of cherries.
Everybody else stayed on the outside and low, while I, being small, went as
high as I could and did so from within the tree. The buckets were heavy for a
small kid, and at the end of the day I was tired, but I had been successful. I
earned the respect of my grandmother that day.
There is a lot to be said about “low hanging fruit” in the
world of business. Those ripe customers just sitting there waiting for you to
come by like a knight on a white stallion to give them what they want. They
want what you have, and you are ready to give it to them. You don’t have to try
much just reach up and the customer just lands there at your
desk/counter/table/etc. Is there a problem with this? No, not really. Ready
customers, willing and anxious to purchase is a good thing. You owe it to your
business to take advantage of their willingness to purchase your good or
service. It is the logical thing to do. But there is a point where it becomes
unwise to go after low hanging fruit.
When your primary focus is going after this particular
segment of your market base, you will eventually run out of business. Just like
the fruit on a tree becomes sparse when everybody is picking at it, you have
competition (if you don’t you are my hero), and they are going after the same
ready customer that you want and need for your business. You never know when
these customers are going to stop being so readily available, but they
eventually do. I would venture to declare that there is no industry in
existence that consists 100% of ready-to-purchase customers, or low hanging
fruit.
You must be willing to do the hard work along with the easy
work to ensure a long-running and viable enterprise. Meaning, that while you go
after those ready-to-purchase customers, you are simultaneously marketing to
those who are not yet aware that they need your service or goods, or those who
will need it soon. A full and complete branding strategy must be established in
order to be truly competitive.
Success based on strategies that focus on immediate ROI such
as those ready-to-purchase customers will eventually run out of steam and
produce lower and lower returns, and if you’re not careful you will strategize
yourself out of business especially if your competition is aware of the need to
have a more diverse approach to marketing.
This runs even more true when you focus on a niche market in
a broader market segment. If your competition is effective at not only
servicing the needs of the niche, but the broader market in general they will eventually
win the race to that customer. Take Wal-Mart for example, they offer such a
variety of products and services that customers go there for the convenience of
getting what they want in one location without having to jump around from place
to place. Although it is true that there are customers willing to go from place
to place to avoid Wal-Mart in its entirety, those individuals are few and far
between. If you are going to service a niche market you must be willing to do
the necessary leg work to constantly put yourself in front of the potential
customer and lead as the subject matter leader, or you will be left in the
dust.
I recently had the experience provided to me of working with
a dental company that focuses primarily on dental implants and nothing else.
The principal doctor who started the company believes that he has a brand that
is known by the market and that customers should be knocking on his door
constantly for dental implant surgery. The problem is that he doesn’t have a
widely know brand. His “brand” as he calls it is known by the low hanging fruit
that he focused on and nobody else. When I met him, I recognized this, and in
my proposal, I established a plan that would pull him out of obscurity and help
him develop top of mind recollection within his very niche market.
I came on board and began creating a marketing strategy that
would effectively do this. I developed a multi-tiered approach to separate him
from his competition and establish him as the subject matter leader. He
waivered and hesitated for over two weeks to decide or move forward. Finally,
he requested that I create alternative plans, so I did, and he chose one. The
plan was not as robust as it should have been. It had been stripped down to
accommodate his lack of understanding and unwillingness to meet with me to
discuss how everything fit together.
In the three months that I was working with him; I changed
the plan three times trying to accommodate his lack of initiative and ability
to decide at crucial moments. He wanted the phone to ring off the hook, and I
would explain that I was trying to create a long-term effect and not a
short-term flash in the pan solution. He demanded all digital advertising stop
and that he be returned to a print marketing strategy because that is what
worked for him in the past. I tried using an analogy of picking fruit and how
at some point you must climb the ladder, which was completely lost on him. I
created a print marketing plan for him which he “accepted” but refused to decide
on what to spend or what to offer as an incentive to get the call to come in.
Needless to say, I am no longer assisting him with his
marketing strategies. He refused to provide a viable incentive to get patients
to call in because he was used to them just calling from his ads. He refused to
see that since last year his call volume has been steadily decreasing. He
refused to see the writing on the wall that if he didn’t change his approach,
that he would be out of business within a matter of a few years.
The low hanging fruit of the business world dries up.
Businesses that are proactive, rather than reactive in their marketing will
position themselves to capture business and smash their competition. It is
imperative that those individuals upon whom the responsibility for marketing
rests develop viable long-term goals along with their short-term goals with
which they create strong messaging that communicates to the heart and mind of
the ready-to-purchase customer and the customer who might not be aware that
they currently or will shortly need the product or service that is offered.
Business owners must establish a mindset that not everybody
needs or think that they need their product or service. And with that
realization create the message that communicates the reason why they do need it
or will need it. Especially when they operate within a niche market, like for
example, dental implant dentistry.
NewLine Consulting Services is here to help you if you have
questions or would like to have help in developing your strategies and plans.
We will review what you have and help you establish a plan that will grow your
business.
Regardless of what you do, stay the course. Build a brand,
cultivate your market and harvest the whole tree and not just the easy stuff.
If you do this you will experience steady and prolonged growth, and you will
outlive the competition because they will be gleaning the scraps that you leave
them.
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