Growing your business

It seems a little strange to be thinking about how to grow a business that hasn't started yet but there needs to be room for growth and development.  A business can adapt and change and needs to, to survive.

One woman, Sheri Salatin, is the marketing director at Polyface Farms.  She talks about how they had to diversify on their farm business.  They had eggs and whole chickens.  They firmly didn't want to cut up chickens and process them more but by listening to customers they realized that a lot of customers wanted the chickens processed more, either due to time or they really didn't realize that chickens had bones.  They noticed a huge increase in sales, once they started cutting up their birds.

Sheri Salatin also speaks about knowing who you are marketing to.  In their business, they realized that 90% of shoppers and food shoppers are women.  As such, they need to market more to women.  And they need to understand how women think and behave.  Notably, most women are talkers. So they make an effort to talk to women and get away from the "beep" society that we live in.  She says we get beeped at everywhere.  Beeps at the checkout at the store, at the gas station, anywhere. Take the time to talk to your customers.

She also says part of this talking includes saying thank you.  Thank you for your time,  Thank you for your business.

She says to look at marketing in smaller, more manageable bites.  Tell a friend, then another friend. Don't try to get 1000 people at once.  Get one. And then one, and then one more.  It will grow from there.