what mrs. mahoney taught me about good marketing

when i was in fourth grade, i had a teacher named mrs. mahoney. she was an older lady, grey-haired and fun-loving, who enjoyed being around children and helping them learn. mrs. mahoney was one of those people just meant to be a teacher. she loved the excitement we showed at learning something new and she encouraged us to learn to help better ourselves and our world.

i didn't know it back then, but mrs. mahoney knew something about marketing.

for mrs. mahoney, the lessons of math, english, science and such were about expanding our world and giving us the knowledge so that we coud do something with it. but that's not much different than what i have to do with my customers every day... at least if i want us both to be successful.

you see, no one knows your products or services better than you do. even your closest competitor, who may know your industry, should not know YOUR products/services better than you do. and it's that knowledge that is power to expand the world of your customers.

one of my new clients, a chocolatier, knows more about chocolate than i thought possible (and I'm a complete chocoholic, just for the record). in addition to the standard industry knowledge, she knows WHY her product is better than her competition, in which stores and with which customers it will do well. she knows the best way to display it, the best way to acquire volume orders for it, and the best customers to target for specific product types.

she knows a lot. and not just about chocolate. she knows a lot about HER chocolate.

and that's just what her customers need to know.

the more the chocolatier educates her retailers about what she already knows, the better they will do in selling her product. (assuming they'll listen, but that's a topic for another post.) the more product they sell, the better BOTH businesses do. this is why the chocolatier makes frequent visits to new customers and takes the time to help them display products well, teaches them preservation techniques and even provides samples for employees and customers.

she knows what will sell and how to sell it. and she's spending the time to teach this to her customers so that they will sell more.

as a small business owner, you will wear many hats. but the most important hat is the one that mrs. mahoney wore. you must be a teacher to your customers. help them learn what they need to do in order to be successful. it's a great lesson that you both will benefit from.