I’m not sure who originally wrote this but it’s very appropriate to the times…

The Man Who Sold Hot Dogs

There was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs.
He was hard of hearing so he had no radio.
He had trouble with his eyes so he read no newspapers.
But he sold good hot dogs.
He put up signs on the highway telling how good they were.
He stood on the side of the road and cried, “Buy a hot dog, mister?
And people bought.
He increased his meat and bun orders.
He bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.
He finally got his son home from college to help him out.
But then something happened.
His son said, “Father, haven’t you been listening to the radio?
Haven’t you been reading the newspapers?
There’s a big depression.
The European situation is terrible.
The domestic situation is worse.”
Where upon the father thought, “Well, my son’s been to college. He reads the papers and he listens to the radio, and he ought to know.”
So the father cut down on his meat and bun orders, took down his advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand out on the highway to sell his hot dogs.
And his hot dog sales fell almost overnight.
“You’re right, son” the father said to the boy.
“We certainly are in the middle of a great depression.”

I’m not saying that it’s not tough at the moment for some businesses. But just make sure that any action you take in response to the downturn is positive and based on real figures and not just media led.

You may also find this post interesting… How Great Marketing Can Multiply Your Profits By 100% or More

In today’s economic climate many business owners I speak with are desperately looking at many different ways to reduce their overheads, and for many this means looking carefully at their advertising spend too.

Of course, it makes good business sense to save money where possible. But I would argue that better marketing is far more effective that knee jerk budget cuts.

Improving every area of your marketing is one of the few ways where you can actually increase your results significantly without spending more money.

Let me explain…

An advert in a local paper will cost you a fixed amount regardless of how many of your prospects actually respond to that advert.

So, if you can improve certain areas in that advert to produce twice the response you’ve radically increased your profits.

Same cost – higher profits.

Can you imagine how powerful your marketing would be if you tested every tiny key area of every part of your sales and marketing process and systematically improved them all!

You can test your offer, your headlines, the pitches your salespeople use to your prospects, your copy, your guarantee – the list goes on and on…

Increasing your profits by 50%, 100% or more is quite realistic because EVERY improvement increases your net profits.
Better still, every improvement, no matter how small multiplies upon the other improvements creating exponential growth.

If you’d like to find out more about how you can easily implement, and in many cases automate a system of tracking and testing for your sales process then feel free to give call or email me at markthompsonsupport@gmail.com