To Buy A Fat Pig

What does buying a fat pig have to do with your business? Stick with me and all will be revealed.

Does your business have a tactical and a strategic way to go to market? Let's go down to Mr. Hoover's butcher shop to see how it's done.

Mr. Hoover has been selling bacon and other pig products for years. That's pretty tactical, but can result in a good continuing income stream. A lot of customers come in week after week to buy their bacon and ham and pork loin, after all.

But Mr. Hoover wants to develop another income stream. What, he wonders, if he could get people to buy the whole pig ahead of time.

And, maybe, he also could get customers to pay for a pig on the installment plan.

Then, Mr. Hoover could afford to buy more pigs basically for nothing. Customers would be paying for the upkeep. And, Mr. Hoover could even own a stud pig that he "rents" to other pig farmers. Yet another income stream. Sweet!

My tactical tool - or bacon - is email newsletters and marketing programs aimed at customer retention and loyalty. Once I'm in the door with email, I can develop a client relationship that later allows me to sell the whole pig.

I designed my business this way from the start so I'd have a continuing income stream. Then, I could concentrate on what I really like to do: selling myself as a strategic partner who can help a business develop its positioning statement, fully define its audiences and develop and implement a more comprehensive communications program that has bottom line impact. That's my fat pig.

Have you thought about your business that way? What's your fat pig?

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Focus Four, Levolor, New World Mortgage, North Carolina Tourism, TeamHeidi, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX, and Verbatim.