Because until you do, until you begin to take it seriously, until you give it the earnest attention it demands, your Prototype will continue to be the only thing it could hope to be under the circumstances—a crap shoot!
At GERBER Business Development Corporation, we have created tools for our small business clients to begin the often arduous task of making demographic and psychographic determinations, and how to position their Prototype in the mind of their consumer. The impact has been astonishing.
Small businesses that acted like small businesses when we met them began to operate with intelligence.
Their customers came vividly alive to them, often for the very first time.
Inquiry, the active solicitation of specific information, and controlled experimentation replaced the guessing, blind hope, and feverish busy work that preceded them.
Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration became the driving forces behind their efforts.
The fact is, any small business can do it. And every small business must!
If Mature businesses, such as IBM, McDonald’s, Federal Express, and Disney, take such things seriously, then how can you not do the same?
Your business is far more fragile than a big business. So if anything, you must take marketing more seriously than a big business does.
And time is running out.
We have entered the “unforgiving age.”
An age in which countless small businesses will either accept the challenge of an information-glutted society or be destroyed by it.
An age in which your customer is deluged by so many products and promises that he becomes swamped in confusion and indecision.
The challenge of our age is to learn our customer’s language. And then to speak that language clearly and well so that your voice can be heard above the din.
Because if your customer doesn’t hear you, he’ll pass you by.
No doubt you feel frustrated as you read this. You must be asking yourself: How do I do it? How do I determine my customer’s demographics, his psychographics? What colors to use? What shapes? What words?
But if you’re asking those questions, you’re well on your way!
For the purpose it is not to answer those questions but to raise them!
Not “how to do it” but “what needs to be done.”
Unless you understand what needs to be done, unless you understand the essential importance of marketing to your Prototype, unless you understand that your customer is far less rational in his convictions and expectations than you had ever imagined, unless you understand that your Prototype is your product—all the “how to do it” in the world won’t make a bit of difference to you.
But we’re not finished yet.
We have one more step to take in your Business Development Program.
Your Systems Strategy, the glue that holds your Prototype together.
“I know you don’t want to talk about ‘how to do it,’ ” Sarah said, squinting her eyes for mock emphasis, “but if you want to leave this table alive, you’re going to have to give me more than that!”
“How do I determine the demographics and psycho- graphics of my most important customer?” she implored me.
“Well,” I began, “let’s start where you are. What we already know about your business is that it’s attracting someone to it. That the picture you have in your mind about the All About Pies you wish to create isn’t that foreign from the one you’ve created. That while you didn’t clearly formulate the ideas at the beginning of your business, we now know that your inner Entrepreneur was busy all the same. That the Caring you wish to express in the All About Pies of the future was in you all the time. It’s expressed today in the delicious quality of your pies, the beauty of your shop, and, I might add, the lovely, albeit frazzled, state of your being.”
She snorted quietly in response, and I went on.
“So, I believe it’s safe for us to assume that the people coming in your door today are unconsciously expressing their preference for the Caring you have so eloquently shared with me. They’re buying it even now!
“The first question you must ask, then, is: Who are they?
“Who are my customers, specifically? What is their Demographic Profile?
“How do you answer that question? You ask them! “You ask each and every one of them, by having
them complete a questionnaire in return for a free pie! “The free pie is the price you pay for that information.
“The answers you get will prove to be a bonanza! “But, while you’re at it, you might as well get the
psychographic data you need, as well as the geographic data you need.
“How do you do that? You find out on your questionnaire what colors they prefer, what shapes, what words. You find out the brands of perfume they buy, automobiles, clothes, jewelry, food. You match those brands to the ads and commercials that sell them, and you discover by becoming interested in what messages are being sent to your customers by other companies—who are successfully selling to them—what messages you might send to those customers, who are demographically and psycho- graphically the same as your existing Central Demographic Model, to intentionally come in your door.
“How do you find them, those people you have not yet met? You buy a list of those who fit your Central Demographic Model in what you’ve now determined to be your Trading Zone!
“What’s your Trading Zone? It’s the geographic perimeter within which your current customers mainly live. You take their addresses from your questionnaire, identify them on a map, draw a line around them, and that’s your first-pass Trading Zone.
