Today's Guest

Gordon Van Wechel has over 25 years of experience in marketing and brings to the table a winning recipe of revolutionary ideas combined with enthusiasm to encourage, inspire, and support his staff and clientele. Gordon also helps company owners transition out of their business if they are looking to sell. Gordon has successfully built and sold 3 businesses himself. Gordon shared the insights he’s learned to help small businesses take their marketing to the next level through a combination of strategy, creativity, and drive.

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Episode Summary

After selling my previous business in 2001, I began looking back at the strategies I used to build three successful companies and several less successful companies. What I realized is that while the strategies were fairly consistent, it was the market conditions that made the difference. Furthermore, I knew most small business owners don’t have access to marketing strategies used by ad agencies because they can’t afford to write that big check every month for ad spend. This is what gave us our focus when we started Alchemy. We wanted to offer agency-level support to the $500,000 to $5 million annual revenue businesses.

The main challenge we see across all small businesses is they are often trying to do it all themselves. Often the catalyst for them getting into business was their expertise in one or two areas. Marketing is generally not an area of strength for most small business owners. When we work with small businesses, we start by helping them define their target market. Frequently, we hear there are lots of people that could use their product or services. While that might be true, unless you have PepsiCo’s ad budget, you’re not going to be able to reach all of those customers. The key, especially early on, is to define very specifically who you want to target. Then, as your business grows you can expand your focus.

When it comes to where you should start with your marketing, the foundation is a good website. That doesn’t mean a high-end expensive website but something that looks professional and clearly states your value proposition. Why should that high-end homeowner choose you over the 35 other roofing companies in your market area? The second part of your marketing foundation is a fully optimized Google business profile. After that, most agencies will tell you to focus on SEO, but I won’t. Rather I would tell you to focus on traffic because what you need is those homeowners to find you.

While word of mouth marketing is a strong lead source for many small businesses, the data says you can’t have a thriving business on word of mouth alone. Statistically, between 85 and 90 percent of people that are referred to a business by word of mouth will still go online to research them before contacting the business. Your website is the foundation that proves you are a legitimate business, and that’s where most future customers will land first. Then after a potential customer has been on your website, they look for reviews from past customers. That provides the social proof that others have had a good experience with your business. 

Resources Shared

• The Alchemy Consulting Group
• Core 5® Marketing by Gordon Van Wechel (FREE DOWNLOAD)
• Thryv
  

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