Business Advice: Location, Location, Location
Business advice for women entrepreneurs
Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our members Rachel McClean, Owner of Terra Organic Spa in Fayetteville, New York, who has owned a massage business for 7 years. We were talking about her success when she said, “In the 7 years I have owned my business, I have moved its location 3 times. Each time I moved it, I ended up with more new customers while retaining current customers. One of the keys to my success is continuing to find the next best location for my business.”
As she stated this fact, I drifted back in time to 1982 sitting in my first business marketing class at SUNY Oswego when the instructor taught us that “location, location, location” is the key to marketing success. It’s one of the reason’s McDonald’s conducts extensive traffic surveys before buying property on the left or right side of the road. They want to make sure they choose the best side where more traffic will pull off to buy from them.
In an Internet focused world where businesses can obtain and service customers anywhere around the world, you wouldn’t think location would matter anymore but it does. It especially does for retail businesses like a massage therapist or a retail store. I also know it matters when a home based service business decides to finally find a new home in a new retail space. The demographics of the neighborhood, image of the town, traffic surrounding the business and marketing exposure they can gain from opening shop does matter.
Today’s blog post is meant to remind you that if you are looking to grow, expand, revise or re-launch your company, do your due diligence and consider the location of where you want to work for the next five years. You may find, like the member I spoke to yesterday, that making a move that helps you service clients better will flood your business with new vitality and a new creative space to work in. It might just be the next best thing for your company. Don’t be afraid to move if you feel doing so will help your business.
Sometimes no matter how great the products or services we offer are, we need to make sure we have our companies positioned and located where our customers can find us best and where we can service them even better.
Women TIES 