Dec 07, 2022
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A friend and I bought a liquor store we found listed on BizBuySell.com in the early 2,000’s. It was just a small mom-and-pop shop, or more accurately a pop-and-son thing, and the son had lost interest so pop was selling cheap.
It was located in a pretty busy shopping center with a Home Depot as an anchor, so I was confident I could boost revenues and quickly grow to a second location.
My strategy?
Offer a compelling “lead magnet” and capture email addresses of my customers so I could communicate value on my terms.
Tapping into my experience with another business I was in, we bought a badass poker table and set it up in the store as a display and ran a promotion to win it.
The rules were simple:
Register with your email address.
Earn additional entries for every $10 you spend.
The strategy was a hit, garnering over 1,200 email addresses of local imbibers of booze. Following a similar strategy to Gary Vaynerchuck’s book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook,” I sent an occasional email to my list with stories, local events, and, of course, specials, promotions, and coupons for our liquor store. Value, Value, Value, Offer. Within three months we had tripled our monthly sales revenue. When done correctly, email still reigns king. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, especially the 99.9% of your notary peers who haven’t tried it. I applied these learned lessons to my own notary business (and continue to do so today). Your network, and database of customers, is the single most valuable asset your current, and future business owns. To the extent you bring value and stay in touch (keep it warm) with your network, you’ll never have to hunt for a customer again. Everybody needs a notary at some point. And, If they needed a notary once, they’ll likely need another one again. If they don’t, they’ll know someone who does. You can’t let them forget you. That’s your responsibility…not theirs. And if you offer any other service, like Apostille Facilitation, Fingerprinting, Living Trust Presentations, Field Inspections, Wedding Ceremonies, Real Estate Sales, Insurance Products- literally anything else, then you are leaving major money on the table if you are not sending periodic emails to inform your clients of your skills and services. Even more than leaving money on the table (which as a business isn’t a good idea anyway), I think you actually do your clients a disservice by not staying in touch with them. Have you ever needed a notary and not been able to find one? Or found a notary…that didn’t know what they were doing? There’s 4.5 million notaries in the country but you can’t find a great one when you need one. If you’re an extraordinary notary that has gone through additional training, and are constantly honing your craft because you care about your customers and the role you play in our economic system, then you owe it to your clients to stay in touch. Don’t make them go on the hunt for a quality notary again. Keep them close. Be unforgettable and top of mind. Stay. In. Touch. Every appointment with a client you want to stay in touch with should end with some variation of this question: “I love to stay in touch. Would you mind if I send you a thank you card and the occasional email to check-in?” I’ve never had anyone say no. Get their email and mailing address and then do what you said you’d do- Stay. In. Touch. This is how permission-based marketing- modern marketing- works and it can change your life.
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