National Clothesline

When I was a little boy growing up in Chicago, I heard a story about Chicken Little. This poor bird was walking in the forest and a chestnut fell on his head.

Chicken Little thought the sky was falling. This little chicken told his friends, Henny Penny and Cocky Locky, that the sky was falling.

Is your sky falling? Are you and all your friends staying out of the forest because the sky is falling? Are you going to be eaten by Foxy Loxy or will you be saved?

Question of the month: “What can I do to offset the 20 percent slowdown that I have encountered?”

This inquiry came from a few different companies but they all said pretty much the same thing. They were being eaten by Foxy Loxy, also known as the recession.

Are you ready for this answer? Spend more money on marketing.

Do you know how much money you spend on marketing? After you add all those dollars that are being spent on postcards, your website, ads in the local paper or Yellow Pages and any other sales promotion, do the following. Determine what the marketing amount is, as a percentage of your gross sales. Include those sales dollars that nobody knows about except you.

What percent did you arrive at? Was it one percent? Was it more than three percent?

If it was less than three percent, you are doing your company an injustice. The secret to successful marketing is consistency. You must keep your name out there.

Do you have a competitor or two on the edge of the cliff ready to drop out of business? Do you want to push them over the edge? Run a promotion in the local paper that you are fighting the recession. The offer could be $10 in free cleaning for anybody who brings in the “Recession Fighter” ad.

Your next question is: How will that hurt my competitors?

The answer is that you are taking away sales dollars or potential sales dollars from them. The fewer dollars your competitors receive, the greater the chance that they will go over the edge of that cliff.

Do not be afraid to give drycleaning away for free. You are in a war — a war to win dollars from the competition.

Be certain to get the new customers’ mailing addresses and phone numbers. There is no value to bringing in new customers if you do not get them in your database. Send the new customers Thank You letters or postcards. Be certain to provide three more gift certificates to get those new clients back at least three more times. Research has shown that it takes at least three drop offs to establish a relationship.

If you want to create great PR, advertise free cleaning for anybody who has lost his or her job. Set any dollar limit you wish, and determine the proof of unemployment that you might want, such as the person’s resume.

Does giving away cleaning frighten you? If you want to diminish the dollar amount that you are giving away, clean your customer’s interview clothes free.

Prepare press releases and fax them to your local radio and television stations. If you do not know how to create a press release, open your word processing program and in the search box type in the words “press release.” Your reward will be free marketing because you are doing something for your fellow man.

What you must do, prior to any promotion, is check your finished garments. Let your employees know you are running a promotion and stress to them the importance of turning out a great product.

If you have not established a team attitude in your company, now is a good time to create it. Your goal is to create the attitude that they have to kick the competitor’s posterior and put them out of business.

Your employees know there is a recession. They are probably frightened of losing their jobs. What a great time to tell your staff how important it is to do their best work. Remember, your employees are your team. You are the coach, general manager, and owner.

I was at an interesting dinner party last week. In the course of conversation, the subject of people wanting to be taken by the hand and led came up. The man I was talking with was a professional psychologist and counselor.

He explained to me that it was human nature for businesspeople to seek help for a number of reasons. The first was that these people in business are so busy running their business and life; they do not want to spend time to work on their company. Most of his clients needed to work on their personal life, but the analogy is there.

Another reason for seeking help was failure. Yes, if failure occurred, it could be blamed on the person who provided the help. I never thought of that, but it certainly is a valid point.

Fear of failure is a great driver. Barbara was fearful of getting on the keyboard of a computer until I sat her down and showed her that she could not break anything. Now she is addicted to Spider Solitaire and Free Cell.

Regarding your business, what problems frighten you? Are you worried about the IRS? Will you ask the landlord for help because the rent is scheduled to increase in the next month or two? How about environmental issues, do they frighten you?

Those are many things to cause worry and anxiety. I read in the business section of The Los Angeles Times that workers’ compensation premiums in California are going to be increased by 20+ percent. What a great state to be in business in.

Are you in Facebook? Have you been Linked In? Plaxo has been around for a while. Do have your name listed in any of those social networks or perhaps another that I have failed to mention. In addition, there are blogs, podcasts, and I cannot forget Tweets with Twitter.

This phenomenon is growing so quickly it boggles the mind. Computer use is changing the way we live and how we connect with others. How can you take advantage of this new way of reaching others? Can social networking be used for marketing your drycleaning business?

Initially you can create three goals for your social media program. The first goal is to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Second, you want to increase sales and strengthen your brand’s recognition. You want your customers shouting your company name to their friends and neighbors.

Third is a reduction in the cost of customer acquisition.

The newest development in arriving at a CRM strategy involves a new way of segmenting your customer base. This new way of CRM deals with your customer’s technology behaviors. The behaviors of these customers can be broken down as follows:

Group 1 would be the people who do not belong to any social network.

Group 2 would be the people who join networks and actively tag Web pages, use RSS feeds and do other things as participants.

Group 3 are not only participants, they are the creators of videos and blogs.

Consider reading the book titled Groundswell. The authors are analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. They cover a plethora of topics on using Social Media and various strategies for bringing it into your business marketing plan. Stay ahead of the competition and join the computer age of communication.