Are you a Business Dreamer?

Five months ago I was doing some web development work for a business which I have created a site for in the past. Although their website is doing well, their offline business is a different story.

Here is a story about being a “business dreamer” that is based on a true story with the names changed to protect the businesses mentioned.

John Smith had dreams of having his own computer business. It would be a big store loaded with the latest computer parts and he would sell many new computers per day. Eventually, if everything went well he would open a chain of stores and hopefully compete with the big boys.

He followed his dream and secured a shop front on a relatively busy street, it wasn’t cheap but he managed to get there. Next he decked out the store with some really nice furniture such as a oak desk out the front with his logo engraved into the woodwork, branding is important right? On those desks were some impressive 21 inch LCD screens and some brand new computers built especially for the business. He got a electrician to wire up the shop to have a networking outlet every couple meters. It takes money to make money.

He then hired a technician to work out the back and a for receptionist out the front to deal with all the business he is going to get. As for advertising, he has had some amazing full color brochures made up that look great. The brochures tell the customer about the businesses mission statement and other information such as its locally owned and operated.

About a month has passed and he has easily spent over $50,000 getting to this point and the shop looks great. With a business that looks so professional and had a $50,000 startup, its bound to make a ton of money.

There is one problem however. After a whole month of operation they haven’t sold a single computer yet.

On that day five months ago when I was at the same “John Smiths” place being told what changes they wanted to their website and they were telling me about their plans to create specially branded PC cases for their computer business. They wanted to get custom case side-covers made that have their brand name embossed in the metal on the side of it, similar to the way the big name brands such as HP or Dell do. They were also going to get a designer to create a custom background with their logo on it that appears as the default background on every new computer sent out.

I asked them whether they had the parts to build complete computers and they said yes. I told them with a smile that I recommended that they work on getting those computers out the door and make some money first before putting money into all the other stuff.

Thats what I was saying… here is what I was thinking:

Are you guys totally crazy? You have spent all this money on getting shiny new equipment and having your store totally decked out and you haven’t even sold a single computer yet? Your place looks great, don’t worry about all the fancy crap that the bigboys like Dell do, get out there, sell some computers and make some money!

As for your advertising, people don’t want to read two pages about your mission statement. You need to get their attention quick and fast because in day and age where we are bombarded by advertising you need to get their attention first. Why do you think businesses use beautiful semi-naked women to market a product? To grab their initial attention, THEN you can tell them about your product. People don’t care about your business plan, they want to know how you can solve their problems.

“If you buy our deodorant then you’ll get tons of hot women all over you“. Its not always about how good the product is, its how you market it and how they believe it will fix their problems.

Stop spending so much money on crap, get some effective advertising out there that its bold and straight to the point “Onsite to fix You Computer in Under An Hour, Guaranteed!” and make some damn money.

Perhaps their dream isn’t to make money with their business, but to be able to say that they have (soon to be HAD) a business that looks like one of the big boys?

..End Rant..