Welcome to Hungry Town!

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about business. He just couldn’t figure out why he was not busy. He had mailed out to people, done radio, TV, newspaper magazine even advertising on the screen at the local movie theater. He had written articles that were published in his trade journal and even done interviews with reporters. But he still couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t busy.

Here is what I told him.

There were two people of equal means that were getting ready to open up a restaurant. Both of them had a concept for a family friendly high end dining restaurant. Both of them had all of the details of the restaurant figured out, everything from staffing right down to portion costs. They were both ready to start building and open. Everything was calculated right down to the penny. The only thing still left to do is look for a great location to open up.

They both did much research and decided on a location. They were in different towns, but both towns were very similar.

Day one and the restaurant opens its doors for the first time. Both owners are 110% sure their restaurant will be successful, otherwise they wouldn’t have opened it. One of the restaurants is fully booked on the first day and pretty much every day after that. The other has a few people for the grand opening and customers slowly trickle in for the next week or two.

The owner of the slow restaurant starts to panic so he starts spending money on advertising, promotion, magazines, newspapers. He even invites the mayor to come in for a free meal. He does coupons, discounts, and charity events.

The other restaurant does not spend one dime in advertising, the dining room is always full, the customers are always happy and the servers always get big tips.

Six months down the road the first restaurant is going strong. The slow restaurant never really got off of the ground and now is closed.

How could you have two equal restaurants in two almost equal places and one thrives and the other dies?

Let’s go back to before the restaurant is even opened. Both owners had confidence that their place would be successful. That is the first thing you need is confidence.

One restaurant owner decided to put his restaurant in a town with higher income families with an average of 2.2 children. They were mostly busy home owners with lots of social commitments. The schools were top notch and there was ample parking.

The other restaurant owner opened up his restaurant in a town where the people were hungry.

You see, the best place to put a restaurant is in the middle of a bunch of hungry people.

You may have tried advertising your services in a monthly coupon mailer or the newspaper. You may have tried to get your clients to send you their friends. You may have even tried entering nail contests and writing letters to the trade magazines.

But have you tried marketing your services to people that want them?

Who gets their nails done?

Bank Tellers
Retail Sales People
Food Servers
Entertainers (ie. Strippers) You may have an ethical problem with this one, but you would be surprised about what great clients they make. They never miss appointments and they tip extraordinarily well.
Real Estate Agents

I would be willing to bet that at least 50% of the people that go to a nail tech regularly are not satisfied. They are looking for a change, but the search to find someone new is just not worth it.

Call the HR department of any large higher end retailer and offer to give them as many 20% off coupons as they need to be put in the next cycles pay envelopes or handed out at the next sales meeting. You will be giving them the opportunity to create good will with their employees and you may just end up with a more business then you can handle.

Do the exact same thing at every bank, grocery store, restaurant, real estate agency and yes, strip club.

You will not be able to handle the business you get, be sure to have two or three other nail techs in mind that would honor the coupon to get a new customer. You will probably be so busy that you will need to shut off your cell phone and put a message with another nail techs name and number to refer to because your book is full.

Welcome to Hungry Town!