Re: starting a car wash and detail shop -- Small Businesses Discussion Forum

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Subject: Re: starting a car wash and detail shop

Author:
Dennis S. Vogel

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Date Posted: 01:01:36 07/10/03 Thu
In reply to: Freddie Robinson 's message, "Re: starting a car wash and detail shop" on 18:31:09 06/27/03 Fri

Hi Freddie,

In general, I suggest you try to avoid paying for "privelge" of marketing. It's better to arrange to pay advertising media &/or joint venture partners everytime you get a sale from their efforts or resources they use in your favor. It may seem to cost you more per sale, but the chances are good, it'll cost you less or about the same amount.

Example- If you advertise in a newspaper & pay $100 per column inch, 1 ad in 1 edition may cost you $1,000. Most times, you'll get very few, if any sales from a 1 shot ad.

If you get 1 sale, it would cost you $1,000 just to get the prospect/customer to respond. That doesn't include costs of fulfillment -- supplies, equipment, labor, etc.
I you get 2 sales from the 1 shot, it'd cost you $500 per sale, etc.

If you pay a person/business a percentage or set fee for every sale they get for you, they'll be more apt to do their best to-
1) Reach your true prospects (as long as you specify who those are)
2) Get your prospects' attention
3) Work harder/smarter to achieve prospects' interest & desire
4) Give prospects good reasons (accurate promises) to take action (do what's necessary to buy from you)

So, each exposure is more apt to get you a sale. But if exposures don't get sales for you, it won't cost you anything.

In mass media, advertisers usually need to get prospects attention about 20 times to achieve interest, desire & action. Since prospects may not see/hear a message each time it's published, advertisers may have to pay for the same message to be published 30 or more times. If you pay $1,000 each time (in some cities, that would be a bargain), you'd spend $30,000 just to make 1 sale to each person who responds.

Since most small businesses can't afford to advertise more than 2 products or services at a time, this is too expensive.

NOTE- It's generally best not to push more than one sales messages at a time (especially in broadcast media). People are too busy, distracted & apathetic to pay attention to multiple messages & remember them.

You should figure out -
1) How much you can afford to pay to get a sale -- maybe 10% of your gross revenue from a sale.
2) How much you can afford & need to give (discounts, bonuses, risk reversal, service) to induce people to buy.

Of course, there are more details to these suggestions, but I don't have the space here & now to provide them. Some details are in other posts in this forum & some are in what I published on my free information web site. The URL is in my sig file.

Thank you for using this forum.

Dennis S. Vogel
You don't need a miracle. You don't need magic.
You need powerful marketing. Here's where to get it.
http://www.thrivingbusiness.homestead.com

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