A few days ago someone asked whether we could help her find clients for her guest house. Well, what an invitation. That’s what we do, and if we don’t – for you – it costs nothing. (30 days, or it’s gratis!)
For instance, our best client happily admits to knowing nothing about marketing, and is quite happy with his lack. We sent him 76 enquiries last month at an average price of R7 each. Just one sale pays our bill to him a few times over. And Easter is supposed to be an awful month. These were leads from hospitals, restaurants, and even the military in a few African nations. (OK, so that was an unashamed nudge, but I needed to boost my confidence for what follows.)
I began by explaining how we work.
“Nope, that won’t work with my business,” she exclaimed. Then she told me all about what guests want when they are looking to reserve a night. I explained that we’ve been looking at this sector for about a year, and spent a chunk of money researching. And then I mentioned that we’d had some success already in Plett.
“Nope, only people over sixty go to Plett,” she said, “and they don’t expect to pay instantly.”
We continued in this vein for a few minutes while I looked for a razor to end the misery that was my life.
I was destroyed of course, finding out that I know so little about marketing. It did not seem worthwhile mentioning that a bunch of the 60 year olds seemed intent on running the Knysna Half marathon in July. And I could not bring myself to talk about our successes for a B&B in Cape Town (5 enquiries per day) lest she tell me what was wrong with them as well, even though one had already stayed and paid.
It was a long morning until the optician called to tell me that my new specs were ready. I get new specs every 18 months or so. Diabetics have eye issues that you don’t want to know about. On top of that I had two cataract ops a few years ago. This means that light pours in, but not in a very focused format.
I have been using two sets of bifocals. One for reading and short distance, and one for driving, with the bifocal lens letting me see the dashboard. As you can imagine, I am a very inspiring driver. Often I inspire other road users to keep their distance.
A few years ago the optical crowd introduced a new type of lens, called a progressive lens. It combines three lenses into one – reading, short distance, and long distance. I was an early user. At least I was for a week or so. By the end of the first week I had fallen down a few stairwells, and even fallen off my chair in a bistro, while just sitting on it. Fortunately an old woman at the table behind managed to catch my breakfast egg in her lap.
By now I knew that progressives were a very bad idea. Indeed, you can focus much better, but you will fall down a lot more than you want to.
Last year they tried selling me a progressive set again. They’re expensive, so I wrote it off as a marketing ploy. After all, I was an expert on the subject of using these lenses to explore the floor close up. Which brings me back to the point of this article. What we think we know is more often wrong than not.
Last week I was forced to use a progressive set. And all I can say is WOW! The product has improved so much over the past few years (while I was not following its progress) that I feel like I have new eyes.
And as I sat at my desk much later that same day it hit me that I was no different than said business owner, thinking I was an expert in a field where I had less than perfect knowledge. Awfully sobering.
I’ll end, if I may, with some feedback from very old client. Old being about 75, rather than in the sense of being a client for a long time. He was referred to us after some awful experiences after an expert prepped his site for Google. (Number of enquiries dropped from a few per week to about none per year.)
He was as cynical as only old people can be. He’s only been on board for three weeks, but gets about 4 enquiries per day. (A good number since he sells high value property and last year he received just 1 web lead.)
“The response to date has been surprisingly good and has necessitated action to achieve a spread of agents across the country. I have not been so busy and re-invigorated for a very long time.”
I must ask him if he also uses progressive lenses.