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When the economy turns, the strong thrive and the weak perish. Tiffanie Gisseman has been perishing –slowly but surely. But to blame the economy would be an open invitation for the ghost of Charles Darwin to swoop down and finish the job.
Clearly the economy had something to do with it, though. Just two years ago, Tiffanie had a hefty list of ladies, and a few metrosexually-leaning men (including yours truly,) who lined up to get their bangs trimmed and their color done. Getting in withTiffanie, even a year ago, was harder than getting in with Warren Buffet. Five years ago, with her salon business booming,Tiffaniemoved out of her “booth rent” commercial salon and relocated to the basement of her suburban home. She lost a few clients in the move, but there were plenty more standing in line to take their spots.
Then the home mortgage world collapsed and half of Tiffanie's client base cut back on luxuries – like hair styling.
That left Tiffanie suddenly thinking about marketing. “Suddenly thinking about marketing” is like cutting back on hamburgers while you’re in the middle of a heart attack. Marketing is the lifeblood of a business and Evolution's blood was anemic.
So she started from ground zero. She printed out postcards and handed out 600 of them, door-to-door. Result: 1 new client. She advertised in the local newspaper. Result: 0 new clients. Tiffanie went back to a booth rent space. Result: $3,000 in expenses and 1 new client. She put a little more effort into her website, started answering her telephone and paid a bit more attention to Facebook. Result: her remaining clients were happier, but business didn’t pick up appreciably.
Her next move made sense in a sad sort of way. She took a job serving sushi. What else could she do?
If anyone’s asking me, I’d say FAIL FASTER!! Tiffanie's tried four things over the course of about two years. Her “frequency” is six months. In other words, she tries one new thing every six months. Marketing campaigns, especially boring and obvious campaigns like the ones Tiffanie attempted, fail at a rate of about nine-out-of-ten. Only one-tenth of the marketing I’ve tried over the years has worked. I’m really, really good at it now and I’m up to about one-in-five that work. At the current rate, it’ll take Tiffanie about five years to come up with something that works. That is, if she doesn’t quit.
“But what can she possibly do?” many zombie-headed entrepreneurs may whine. “She’s already tried plenty of regular advertising.”
“Regular” advertising never works in my experience. Irregular is the only marketing with a chance. I could hammer out a list of things Tiffanie could do, but it might be more productive to talk fishing instead of fish:
At that rate, Tiffanie will start an avalanche of failure. Even if she sees one campaign a month succeed, she’ll have to tolerate nine campaigns a month that fail. Most people have a tough time with that much failure. That’s why the strong thrive in a down economy. They’re willing to take more ego-abuse than other folks.
Ego pain is not real pain. Ego pain is something we make up in our heads – though it certainly feels real in the moment.
Will Tiffanie put her ego in its place and start failing like winner? Time will tell.
Now THAT would be Evolution!{jcomments on}
