Page 94 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

TRY A FEW UNUSUAL IDEAS

30 Think differently about marketing your business

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given
(and passed on) is to look outside your own industry for
marketing ideas. This may not sound like much of a
marketing idea but believe me it is. If you spend all day
focusing on what you do and what your competitors do
and what your customers do, you can become very insular.

The end result of this is that all businesses within a
particular industry start to look the same. For example,
have a look at a few dental surgeries. They are all exactly
the same. Car rental offices all look the same. Lawyers’
offices, doctors, chemists, butchers, bakers and candlestick
makers all start to look the same. Is there anything wrong
with this? Not really. However, if you look outside of your
particular industry you may discover a world of marketing
ideas that would work wonderfully for your business.

I experienced this first hand when I had a SCUBA
diving shop many years ago. At the time there was a trend
for dive shops to be absolutely full of gear, with a fish tank,
an old fishing net on the wall with the mandatory plastic
fish and crabs and a few pretty cool-looking dudes running
the place with earrings and ponytails. My business was
struggling. I was very young with absolutely no idea of how
to run my own life let alone a business.

To cut a long story short I was desperate. One day a
man pulled up in front of the store in a red Porsche. He
came inside and introduced himself saying that a friend of
mine recommended that he pay me a call. He offered to
turn my business around for a flat fee of $5000 (at the
time I would have been lucky to have five dollars). I politely
said thanks but no thanks.

The months rolled by and business was going from bad
to worse. In a bizarre turn of events I joined a lotto
syndicate that was advertised in the paper and I won
$5000. Rather than paying a few bills I called the guy who

79