Finding Customers: What to Expect

Customers have expectations and so do business owners, corporate or one-person shops, who launch a new service or product.

Background
I got a phone call from a friend of mine, Bryan, last week. He's employed by another contractor and paints murals and logos mostly in schools. He wants to run his own business for many different reasons so he recently got his own contractor's license. He told me he was going to exhibit at a trade show but after he wanted to talk with me about his marketing needs.


Dilemma
He called me up and complained how the trade show was a bust. He spent more than a $1,000 and had turned down a few jobs in hopes of landing his first potential customers. He had 16 people sign up and only one person seemed interested. Bryan called him later and the man explained he wanted to wait a few months to save his money.

He was discouraged and wondered what he should do.

I tried to explain how I wasn't surprised by the trade show results and it wasn't necessary at this point to spend money or time like that.

"But it was a home show," he protested. "I know a woman who's been painting murals for homeowners for 15 years and she gets her clients through home shows."

I countered by saying "I'll bet she also gets lots of referrals. And it may be some people at the home shows recognize her if she attends the same ones regularly."


Plan of Action
Bryan eventually settled down and I made the following suggestions. He does have a web site, by the way, but I haven't asked his permission to post it here.

I asked him to clarify his target audience: homeowner is too general. So we broke it down into a few different categories with one being upper middle class to wealthy young homeowners with children who want their children's rooms decorated in murals.

Now, where do you find those people without spending a lot of money on direct mail?

Where do homeowners with disposable income go?

Furniture stores
Carpet stores
Paint stores

These came to mind quickly. People who go there are often remodeling. I told Bryan he could leave his business cards with the owners and salespeople to pass along his service as a referral. Plus, he'd probably get some informal market research on the need for referrals.

Of course, there are particular zip codes where a nicely designed post card can be printed for about $100 and circulated easily.

He also started thinking of markets beyond homeowners and considered retirement homes where the administrators might want the property brightened up.

I told Bryan to give me a call in a few weeks and let me know how his search for customers is continuing.

I tried to boost his morale by not getting discouraged but letting him know that the first 6 months could be spent trying to get his own few customers.

Let's hope it's sooner.

Marketing takes perseverance.