I was impressed this week with the lessons we can learn from the basics of a summer lemonade stand. It turns out there are crucial lessons to be learned from the unwavering determination that a group of entrepreneurial children have as they work to capitalize on the long hot summer days. For businesses working to improve their online presence and attract new customers here are a few of the lemonade stand lessons that may apply to you:
Perform Market Research
In the beginning, the children sat at their lemonade stand selling sports drink in small paper cups for a quarter. Can you guess what happened? They sat and sat and sat with no business. They “thought” they knew what people would want and had set up accordingly, but they were wrong. One child began walking up and down the street and realized there were a lot of people out mowing their lawns in the 90 degree weather — surprisingly their target customer was not a child with a quarter in their pocket, it was a thirsty and busy adult. This knowledge and understanding allowed them to change tactics. They began offering the full 32 oz. bottle of sports drink rather than the small cup, and upon understanding exactly how hot and tired the people were (and what they were willing to pay) they proceeded to mark up the price an outrageous 400% and the result…they SOLD OUT!
Taking the time to know and understand your target customer is key to the success of any business.
Location! Location! Location!
Where do your customers find you? People use to rely on the Yellow Pages, but Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing have replaced the old traditional methods. Businesses need internet real estate that places them where their customers are looking. Smart and strategic search engine optimization strategies position your business where the traffic is. Working to secure your Google rankings allows you to essentially own prime real estate online. More than 70% percent of people will click on the one of the top three rankings, that means if you are showing up on page two or three or 10 of Google you are losing out of traffic to your website simply because of your location.
Be Willing to Adjust
As the summer day turned to evening the lemonade stand substantially slowed down. The lemonade stand kids decided it would be wise to pay attention to where all of their customers were going…and that was the baseball field down the road. They loaded up a cooler and went where the people were…instead of sitting at their stand wondering why nobody was coming. By paying attention to consumer behaviors and adjusting their strategy — by going to where the people were — they once again SOLD OUT!
If terms like inbound marketing, search engine optimization, and pay per click are new to you and your business do not fear! Grab hold of the daring and undaunted lemonade stand spirit and take action today to increase your online presence and grow your business.
