Tired of running your business like this?

Why do I say this? Because I’ve seen it again and again. Over the years of consulting with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in this country, I’ve met thousands of owners who are so consumed with focusing on their business operations that they unknowingly have found themselves like this gerbil on his wheel. Despite running faster and faster, they remain in exactly the same place.

Turning your business into a consumer destination is a business-differentiation strategy that works with your current business operations to make your business more profitable, easier to market, and easier to attract consumers to it. Best of all, the only thing you have to lose is the gerbil wheel!

The good news for an independent entrepreneur is that operating a successful destination business is the best way to differentiate yourself from larger, better-capitalized competitors. In fact, I’m convinced that most national chains and franchises, regardless of their product and service focus, can never make the changes that are necessary to convince a customer to travel great distances to do business with them, and to select them above all others. Once you understand these principles, there are literally marketing tactics and differentiation principles that can be utilized by an independent business owner that can never be used by national chains, because the corporate infrastructure of the national chain (which is based on creating multiple, identical units), can never differentiate itself as one-of-a-kind.

Every owner I’ve ever met wants to improve their business and their profitability. But few are willing to take a different path from their peers that allows their business to not only draw consumers from their market area, but draw consumers from hundreds of miles away, past their competitors.
There are 14 steps any business must go through in order to become a consumer destination and if an owner skips any of these stages (just like a person who would try to build a roof without building a foundation of the house first), the ‘destination’ doesn’t work as well and won’t draw consumers as well as it could. Since this article is limited in length, let’s discuss some of the most common myths about creating a destination business that keeps many owners from even trying to create one.

Myth #1:
The most common myth is that destinations are created by massive product selection. Many national chains confidently believe this today. Chains of the past like Frank Woolworth’s chain, which closed all its flagship stores in 1997, believed it too. You should understand that there are marketing experts right now sitting in their cubicles at national chains like Wal-Mart, Sears, Circuit City, and other national retailers planning and plotting how to capture more consumer dollars from their competitors.

Reality:
Consumers prefer focused product offerings versus selection, every time. Destinations are not created by huge product selection. Customers willingly seek out stores with lesser selections of product if the product that is carried is specialized, more exclusive, and harder-to-find. The customer also accepts a lesser selection is there is a full-range of product accessories surrounding that product, and if the employees of the store understand that product, from its most simple component to its most technical aspects.

Interestingly, destination business owners go out of their way to purchase product from manufacturers who have a limited distribution capability, buying from companies that can’t supply large distribution channels. For some businesses, this means purchasing product lines from little-known manufacturers, rather than the traditional product lines found with their competitors. Becoming a destination often means avoiding the product that your competition purchases and taking product risks, if you truly want to differentiate your store from your competitors and peers.

When it comes to product (and many manufacturing companies don’t like hearing it), but in order to differentiate any business from the massive collection of look-alike businesses that exist today, owners must be more selective in their choice of manufacturers, even if it means eliminating or refusing to carry certain manufacturers that have been traditionally legends of their industry.

The top destinations also identify product in their inventory and highlight that product as their ‘signature’ line. Many businesses carry the same product, but the store that positions itself as ‘the authority’ on that line, and makes it visible to every customer in their retail space and in their business marketing is the real destination. Without developing signature product lines owners never elevate their businesses in a consumer’s mind, and worse, they never gain the media attention from journalists who willingly write about unique businesses that are interesting to their consumer readers.

Myth #2:
A destination must have national brand name products in order to draw consumers in. Again, national franchises, chains, manufacturers, and many retailers believe this, and rely on this. This belief is the cornerstone of their multi-million dollar marketing strategies. Unfortunately, having a nationally-known product does not always contribute to a destination, and it often works to a business’s disadvantage.

Reality:
The top destination businesses are known by their own name first, and the brand name products they carry later.
Brand name recognition is the ultimate goal of national product manufacturers. We are taught in Marketing 101 that consumers buy brands because they get to know a product, and consumers then come to trust the name of the product because of the product’s reliability and performance. A brand name becomes a guarantee that a consumer can count on. For example, one of the most powerful brand names in the world is Mercedes Benz. Any consumer shopping for a car knows the positive associations connected with buying a Mercedes, and knows that there is the highest degree of quality associated with purchasing this car.
The top destination businesses have created a brand name presence in their consumers’ minds. It’s a fact that any business can brand itself with or without national brand name products. It is a time consuming, gut-wrenching process for a business owner to develop a brand presence in their consumers’ minds, but it is worth it. Once a customer has emotionally bonded to a business brand, they are less likely to defect to another business with their purchases. Developing a compelling brand vision for your business is the first step in creating lifetime loyal customers, who are a rarity these days.

Myth #3:
The most profitable businesses must be in high traffic areas, with above-average income consumers nearby. The phrase ‘Location, location, location’ doesn’t apply to a destination business. In fact, a destination business can take a location that has less-than-perfect demographics and literally be the first step in turning an entire marketplace around.

Reality:
Destination businesses are not dependent on location, demographics, or having high consumer-traffic. Owners of destination businesses often create the most profitable type of business because the physical space they occupy is often cheaper, and consumers are drawn from greater distances to these businesses.

When one looks at consumer behavior today, we see several traits. For one, consumers get bored easily, so the most trendy, exciting shopping center of today can be boring and ordinary tomorrow. Second, with the advent of the internet, consumers can research product globally, and if they discover a certain product they desire, they will travel to it, or order it online. They no longer have to settle for the product that’s sitting on the shelf. Third, consumers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages everyday. Consequently, consumers have become immune to advertising and marketing campaigns that echo a sentiment that they have heard before.

As a result, consumers seek out the unusual and unique. They travel to shop at out-of-the-way locations, to discover one-of-a-kind businesses that they can call their own. They are willing to travel fifty, seventy-five, even hundreds of miles away from their own cities and towns, in the desire to find merchandise and services they do not think they can find in their own communities, even if they could have.

Destination businesses are changing how America shops. Destination businesses are rewriting the rules of how consumers spend their money. Most importantly, Destination businesses are helping reinvent the world’s downtowns, one business at a time.

What’s a destination business?

Any business, retail or service-related, that has the ability to draw consumers to it, from beyond their immediate five to ten mile marketplace, repeatedly, time and time again. A destination business distinguishes itself by being the prime choice for consumers, who insist upon visiting it, purchasing from it, and frequenting it, over all other forms of competition.

This material provided by Jon Schallert and The Schallert Group, Inc. of Longmont, Colorado.  Jon Schallert is the only consultant in the country teaching small business owners and communities how to reinvent themselves into Consumer Destinations. Contact his company at (303) 774-6522, or through his websites: www.JonSchallert.com or www.DestinationBootCamp.com