
Lately, it seems my 7-year-old son has the makings of an entrepreneur. Since he’s too young to get a job, he says, he’s going to have to come up with an idea for a business that will make him money. One day, while watching a TV program, he stumbled on the (not-so-original-but-new-to-him) idea of running a lemonade stand.
He thought it was brilliant. He excitedly asked if lemonade was easy to make, and how much it would cost to buy ingredients. Once those details were semi-sorted out, he began thinking about where he would position his stand. He thought the park would be a good place. “Lots of people exercise there, and that would make them thirsty, so BOOM, I can sell them lemonade!” (He’s big on sound effects.)
But then he stopped and, in all seriousness, said he might have some problems. What if there weren’t enough people at the park to sell to? Or maybe not all of them would want lemonade. And it was a big park — what if the people on the other side of the park couldn’t see that he was selling yummy lemonade?
I said, “Yeah, those are some pretty big what-ifs. What would you do about them?”
He thought for a minute and came up with a MASTER PLAN (emphasis his). He would draw posters and put them up around the park so people would know about his lemonade. He would tell all his friends to come to the park and ask them to tell all their friends so they could have a lemonade party at the park. And, he said, everywhere he goes, he can ask people to come and buy his lemonade.
Somehow, he hit on one of the key elements to running a successful business — marketing. For pool and spa businesses, that means mastering the art of promotion. Everything you do should be a marketing opportunity for your business. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Put special care and thought to the essentials, such as a company name and logo, business cards, truck wrap and website, since these often are the first line of exposure for customers. Another related question to consider: Is it time to rebrand?
2. Chances are, you’ve already done everything described in step one. The next step, which should be done on a regular basis, is to assess your website, which is arguably your biggest marketing tool. How can you tell if it’s performing as well as it should? Check out Dana Robinson’s feature, “Seven Reasons You Need a New Website”
3. Develop your social media strategy. By now, everyone knows that if a business isn’t active on social media, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Houzz, or any number of platforms, it’s considered out of touch with the times. So start by focusing on one primary goal — whether it’s generating sales, awareness or customer loyalty and retention. Then use the platform’s available metrics to evaluate its effectiveness.
4. Lastly, consider paid advertisements, direct marketing, and other media opportunities.
As for us, we haven’t yet built the lemonade stand — the weather turned cold and rainy. Besides, we got stuck on pricing: my kid insisted on charging $5 a glass despite my gentle hint that he might be pricing himself out of the market. So in the meantime, he’s pitched another moneymaker to me: on-demand daily back massages for a weekly salary of $1. I signed up immediately. But we’ll definitely need to have a discussion on business pricing strategies next.