Someone somewhere once said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (I know it should read “if it is not broken, do not fix it”, but bear with me), but sometimes things do need fixing with your leaflet distribution campaigns.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is good advice if whatever is working is working at its peak performance. However, sometimes when things seem to be working fine, they are actually slowing down or wearing out: and are doing it so slowly that you do not realise it until it is too late, and they eventually break down.
This does not only apply to mechanical items such as car engines or electrical devices: it can also apply to your business too.
Are you where you should be?
If your business has been going for some years and appears to be doing well, it is easy to settle back and believe everything in the garden is rosy. But when someone from outside of your company comes along and points out that perhaps you should be further ahead than you are.
They point out that you are not advancing as fast as you should be but are just ticking over: and you are in danger of slowing down and perhaps stopping altogether in the not-too-distant future.
They also may point out that your methods are out of date: and what once worked for you is now holding you back.
When faced with this situation, you may answer with the classic reply “But we have always done it this way”, And this is usually where the problem lies.
Are you stuck in a rut?
The “We’ve always done it this way” (some of the most expensive words in business) has been the mantra of many businesses that have fallen into a rut and is best illustrated in the following story.
A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the head and tail off the fish and then placed it into a baking pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish.
Her mother thought for a while and then said, “I’ve always done it that way – that’s how Grandma did it.”
Not satisfied with the answer, the little girl went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.
Grandma thought for a while and replied, “I don’t know. My mother always did it that way.”
So the little girl and the grandma went to visit Great Grandma to find out if she knew the answer.
Great-grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish”.
The point of the story is that the great-grandmother had limited resources and had to trim the fish, although she would have rather left the head and tail on.
The following generations of cooks just followed her, although, over the years, bigger and better baking pans must have become available.
When you began your business, you may have started with a limited budget. But with your energy and determination, you made it work and enjoyed a lot of success regardless of the restrictions on your resources. Because of this success, you have kept on running your business the way you started, doing it the way you always have.
And this may have allowed you to fall into a rut and be unaware of the opportunities you have missed that would have made your business grow quicker and stronger than it is now.
Are you listening to the wrong advice?
If you have been using leaflet distribution to promote your business and you feel you may be in a rut, it may be because you have been using the same leaflet with the same layout and design with the same copy and offer.
You could also have been listening to the wrong people and taking the wrong advice, and resisting changing your ways.
The reason the Beatles career lasted as long as it did while Elvis Presley’s career stalled is that the Beatles realised they could not stand still and churn out variations of their songs. So they experimented with new recording techniques.
They were also lucky to have an excellent mentor in George Martin, who helped and advised them: and they took his advice.
Elvis did not embrace change and spent wasted years churning out formulaic films and below-par records. His advisor was Colonel Tom Parker, who was happy just to advise Elvis to keep doing what he had been doing for years.
Are your leaflet campaigns working as well as they should?
If you feel your leaflet distribution campaigns have become stale, it could be you need to change your ways and stop doing what you always have been doing.
Why not give DOR-2-DOR a call and let us advise you on how to move your business forward?
