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QUESTION: I live in a Midwestern college town 10K population with many smaller
surrounding rural towns and own a vacuum sales and service shop but
looking for other things to add to sell. Something targeted to college
kids market. Which means of value but not high priced for people on
limited budget.
I would like to add something in my shop that takes up little space.
Things I have batted around is selling cappacino, sports and rock star
posters and also specialty candy made in another town I visit now and
then that is unique, tasty and made by family owmed business. Would
have to talk to them and see if they would sell wholesale to me. This
chocolate candy is loved by just about anybody that tries it so it
would appeal to broad market of consumers.
I do plan to stick with my core business but would like to diversify a
bit and get more cash flow.
Sort of create small niche that supplements core business that can be
added to store without lot of expense and hassle.
Ideas and suggestions are much appreciated,
ANSWER: First, diversification is almost always a bad idea. It has been proven
wrong time and time again. Take McDonald's for example. About every
decade, the top brass at McD get the diversification bug. This bug has
pestered McD since its founding days. Ray Kroc, the founder of the chain
(as we know it today), wanted to start up a national chain of German beer
gardens. It failed as did all his other diversification schemes. Today,
McD is doing it again with Boston Market. However, if McD history repeats
itself as it has over and over, eventually McD sales will start to be
affected, the franchisees will get upset that McD top brass are not paying
enough attention (read that as: paying ALL their attention) to the McD
franchise, and, when that happens, the franchisees will do what they have
done in the past and slap some sense back into the McD top brass. The slap
will stop the top brass' mind from wandering, they'll sell off Boston
Market, and focus again on just McD and make it an even bigger success.
Businesses succeed rarely by being all things to all people. The most
commonly succeed because they become identified with one type of product
and/or service ... or line of products and/or line of services. It's the
difference between Yahoo and Google. What does Yahoo do these days? People
laugh and say they're not sure. It used to be that they were a good search
engine. Now they do email, online games, trip planners, and a long list of
things. Google is just a search engine and a good one at that. Google is
thriving and Yahoo is just trying to keep afloat.
So if you do want to keep running your vacuum sales and repairs business,
get rid of any thoughts of chocolates (after all, who wants dust on their
chocolate?), rock star posters, and any other nonsense. Focus on your brand
identity ... yes, you do have one ... and don't change it but extend it.
Along these lines...
Second, here's a line extension idea for your business. Sell a vacuuming
service to the PARENTS of college students. Actually, it would be a light
maid service. Vacuuming and dusting. Get a mailing list company that can
provide you a FRESH mailing list of the parents of students attending your
university. Send them a postcard that pitches your business coming in once
a week to dust and vacuum their child's dorm room, frat house room,
apartment, or whatever. "Clean room = better grades" might be a good
headliner for the postcard. Talk about how a clean room can do wonders for
their child's spirit and outlook on life ... and how that can help improve
how they do at school.
As for doing the light maid service, just put whatever is on the floor that
you or your employees don't think should be on the floor onto the student's
bed. Same goes for dusting. Whatever you or your employees don't think
should be on some shelf, desk, coffee tables, or so forth, you put on the
student's bed. You don't throw away anything. This forces the student to
deal with the stuff. If they just plow it all onto the floor, that's their
problem. The more mature ones will put them away where they should be. You
put all the stuff on their bed to force them to deal with it before they go
to sleep that night. Tell this in your postcard ad. Use a large postcard
if you have to.
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