I went to a shopping mall today, I’m not great in shopping malls, in fact I hate shopping!
I was one of very few shoppers in this shopping mall, my wife had a look here and had a look there, many of the shops were empty. More shop assistants then customers, most of them chatting with themselves, not helping or assisting the customers as they should!
In fact I had to wave one assistant over from the other side of the massive store, where she and her colleagues were hiding and she was not happy that I had interrupted whatever she and her four colleagues were doing.
Later we went to another shop and I got talking to the owner. I asked how business was, he said, slow. “What are you doing with your self and your empty shop all day”, I asked. “Waiting for customers”, he answered.
He had a computer on his desk, so I suggested he should sell, market and promote his business online, while he waited for the next customer to come.
“I don”t know how, I”m to old for this online stuff”, he said.
I spend 30 minutes with him, set him up on twitter, told him a few things about twitter and got him going. Still, he was very skeptical when I left him.
A few minutes ago I got an email from him:
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your help, got already 66 followers, I’m using the keywords we worked out and I’m getting great contacts for free. Not had a sale yet, but on guy lives in St. Albans and will see me at the shop on Saturday.
This really works, thank you so much……
Why sit in a shop all day waiting for customers, when you could be online to promote you business for free. No wonder the retail figures are so bad. Run an online business out of your shop, send a newsletter by email with the latest offers, use twitter or a blog to promote your products, actively.
And while you’re about it, get your shop staff in on the act, if they want to chat, let them chat to customers, online. – ST.
