H
HERE’S AN age-old business puzzle: You need advertising to get clients
and make money, but you need money – and lots of it – to advertise. How
do you solve it? Start by using ads abandoned by your out-of-business
competitors.
Count the signs listing phone numbers as you drive down the street in a
commercial area, or the number of ads you notice as you surf the net.
Signs and ads are often paid in advance for a few months or more, which
is why when a business closes up shop, their ads stay “open.” The same is
true for classified ads that run for six months or more. To take advantage
of their prepaid advertising, call the number listed on your competitor’s
signs and ads. If you hear a ring, move on to the next ad. If you hear a
recorded message informing you that the phone number has been
disconnected, call your local phone company and ask them to redirect the
abandoned phone number to your business line. Yes, it is that simple. And
yes, it works.
Once you redirect a former competitor’s old phone number, your phone
will ring almost immediately. Prospects who are calling on those up and
running advertisements will now be automatically forwarded to you.
When prospects call, don’t be sneaky. Let them know that the company
they are looking for is no longer in business, but you will gladly serve
them.
After you’ve checked all of the ads, start with the online phone listings for
your local area. If you want to attract prospects outside of your region,
check competitor’s listings in the toll-free directories, which you can also
find online. Then, move on to other online directories. Search industry-
specific directories for ads, sponsored listings and regular listings. For
example, if you are in the party rental and supply business, you might find
competitors in one of the resource directories for event planners.
Don’t forget to check your old trade show directories. Most people hold
on to their directories as a resource, so find out if any of your competitors
listed in the directory have gone out of business and redirect all of their
prospects to your company. And don’t stop there. There’s a lot of
prospecting to be done. Redirect abandoned fax numbers, and then move
on to web domains. You can often purchase dumped domains on the
cheap, and then redirect the domain to your website.
MEET
MIKE
MICHALOWITZ
Mike Michalowicz is the entrepreneur
behind three multimillion dollar companies
and is the author of Profit First. He is
globally recognized as the guy who
“challenges outdated business beliefs”
and teaches us what to do about it. To
learn more about Mike and get access
to a treasure trove of entrepreneurial
tips, visit MikeMichalowicz.com.
Besides the phone number and web domain strategy I just taught you, my
favorite tactic is redirecting failed live events. If you know of a seminar,
workshop or other live event that would attract your customer base, reach
out to the event hosts two weeks before the event and find out if they plan
to go through with the event as planned. Two weeks is right around the
time events are cancelled due to low registration. If the hosts want to
cancel, offer to partner with them to do a smaller, alternative event for
those people who did register, and share in the revenue. You get access to
the registrants who now see you as an authority (co-host), the attendees
have a fantastic experience, and the original hosts save face by sending
people to a more “intimate” event. It’s a win-win-win.
So before you blow your budget on street signs, billboards, fancy websites,
full-page ads or even live events, look around. It takes few hours of your
time to find abandoned opportunities, and just pennies (or nothing) to
redirect prospects to your business. There’s a lot of gold out there. Happy
digging.
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