Tell Me How To Create More Traffic.

Nature does some of the best teaching in life.  All we need to do is study how nature does what she does.  Nature provides a lot of really neat clues on how to perform more effectively.  Every day we walk right past many great ideas that Mother Nature sings in her normal songs.  We become so familiar with what she does we no longer notice how much she teaches when she performs her daily routines.  We walk right past them.  We do not take notes and respect what is going on around us.  We are too busy doing what we think we should be doing to take the time and try to learn something new.  We skip looking around for new lessons even though they have been right there beside us all along.  New and wonderful lessons are all around us.  They circle our daily walk constantly.  Have you heard the phrase, "The teacher appears when the student is ready?"  I live on that simple notion.  I look every moment in the face for a new lesson to be learned.  I am looking for one right now.  It is a 24/7 proposition to me.  How about you?

Nature has some very strict and steadfast rules.  She will never break them.  Never.  You can wait until you die and some of her rules will never be broken.  We are not like that.  We break fundamental rules more often than we can count.  We also wonder why we do not always get what we think we deserve.  We expect better results even when we break the rules that produce those better results.  We feel we are entitled to receive what we are not willing to produce.  We will also lay blame on anything other than ourselves for the poor outcomes we produce.  There are so many other great reasons why we failed.

We are fascinating to watch.  That is why many people go to malls.  They like watching how we fascinate them.  Our personal foibles are some of the best entertainment you can find.  Be careful, however, our foibles are not the things you need to learn how to copy.  Remember, our foibles grab your attention because they are usually stupid.  Stupid is not a very good trait to use when you are trying to create more business traffic.  Nature is not stupid.  She is very smart.  She is very efficient.  She is truly a 24/7 proposition.  She also does not care if you do not care.  If you decide to destroy one of her patterns of success, she will allow you to do that.  Destroy away.  She does not care.  Your business is the same way.  It does not care if you do not create more traffic.  It will sit right next to you waiting for more traffic to appear.  In fact, your business is a lot like mother nature, it will 'out wait' you.  They both are prepared to wait forever.  Is your "traffic-producing-clock" ticking away time right now?  If it is, your business is faithful enough to be right next to you waiting patiently.  You can wait forever for increased traffic to occur.  It is not coming until you make it come.  You can create the best sale signs ever and more traffic will not occur!


It ain't coming.

Mother nature teaches us when she reaches us.  She can only reach us when we slow down enough to allow her lessons to come in.  We need to become teachable.  We need to shut off all the things we already know.  We need to prepare our mental stance properly in order to gain what we do not already know.  It is not a very simple process.  It sounds easier than it really is.  We have some hidden protections built into our minds that keep us from wanting to learn more about how we do what we do.  Those hidden things are so powerful we will fail many times before we learn how to quit using them.  It is amazing.  I am guilty.  I do this stuff every single day.  I protect what I know and refuse to adjust my thinking when a new lesson falls at my feet.  I work harder on finding reasons to confirm what I know instead of working on new unknowns to ratify the thoughts I have and turn them into ones I discovered I did not know.  I fail to learn new and wonderful things when this occurs.  I become bored with myself and proud to be who I am.  It is a terrible concept to possess if you own a business model.  It is likely the key reason why most business models do not become really successful.  We are the true villains to our potential for better success.  Yea, yea, yea...so, tell me how to create more traffic.  Right?



Down deep, you do not really want me to tell you how to create more traffic, unless of course it matches what you want it to match.  All you really want to do is discover something you already believe needs to be done and maybe I can confirm it for you by writing it down as a suggestion.  When that kind of connection is made, you might act it out.

So, tell me how to create more traffic.

Two years ago I was doing some business with a business model that was a competitor at that time.  During that effort I noticed a lot of things being done incorrectly to produce to success.  I wad approached that competitor to solicit their support to help build a regional buying consortium that included other small retailers in our 200-mile region of similar trade.  I had approached many small business owners that performed similar types of trade in that 200-mile region.  I was working to develop a buying group to help all of those small business models to be able to buy their wares at better pricing.  After several months of effort trying to build a consensus of support for the new buying group idea, one outfit seemed to me to be in the most trouble.  When the buying group idea fizzled out from lack of support, I offered to help that one business model to begin its repair.  They denied being in trouble.  Hands down.

That process occurred almost two years ago.  Yesterday, that business had its windows boarded up and a sign on the door, "Out Of Business."  It was suddenly locked up.  We are our own worst enemies.  We are truly the ones to blame.  It is our fault.  Less than three miles away a small business operating in the same retail category as a competitor with the closed down model is having some of the best growth they have ever experienced.  When I was working with all of the owners back during the consortium efforts, I was impressed with this lady operated her business model.  She was one of the supporters of the buying group idea.  She was not sure how she could grow much more in the facility she was occupying, however.  Same market, same retail category, same products, same models.  One fails while one flourishes.  Your decisions, your leadership, your methods of operation and your ideas do in fact matter to how much traffic you produce.  Period.  It is your fault if traffic is not well.  Get over it and change how you do what you do.  Go get help! 

Learn how to walk in your daily paths with the notion to grasp what you do not know.  Test your assumptions.  Question your knowledge.  Quit working overtime on protecting the stuff you already know.  It shows.  Your prejudices sometimes stink and you do not even notice how badly they appear to others.  You are too busy finding reasons that support how you can logically keep the assumptions you currently protect.  They are yours and Damn It you are not letting them go for no reason!  Right?  Hogwash.  You may need to learn how to build more inner strength in how you manage your six basic fears.  One of those fears is running out of control and holding you down.  Your business does not produce high traffic because you do not do the necessary things that produce high traffic.  Period.  It is your fault.  Get some helping in correcting how you think.  Unwind what you know and re-learn what you don't.

Your business is much like nature, it is patiently waiting for you to create more traffic.  It does not like the current ways you are going about it.  Oh my, I hate this kind of tough stuff.  It is too direct.  We need more softness to be applied.  We want softer tissues.  Try to explain that kind of approach to all of the people who become "stung" by the sign on the front door of that business this morning!  It has absolutely nothing to do with the economy!  I know the truth on this one.  I could see it developing two years ago.  They had teachers walking all around them, I am certain of one.  Are you walking right past the teachers?  I catch myself doing it all of the time.  It is not a good affliction to manifest. 

In the end, all we really want to do is create more traffic.  We do not want to learn about how someone else failed.  We consider ourselves different than that.  We are not like those who lose.  We are still open for business and need some tips on how to create more traffic.  All we really want to know is how do we get more traffic coming in.  The heck with learning about mother nature.  We just need more traffic.

The truth remains, however, creating more traffic is not that easy.  Some simple things must be done in order to successfully generate more traffic flows.  Unfortunately, those simple things are not very easy to do.  We must first get ourselves out of the way.  Let's pretend.  I like pretending.  I do it a lot.  It makes me feel good.  I do not necessarily need it to be true, all I need to do is to pretend it is true.  That works for me.

If I was to tell you to mark everything down and discount the heck out of all of your products, would that create more traffic?  I don't think so.  The few people who currently circle your business model could not go out to tell enough people about your great discounts in order to increase the necessary sales volume you would need to generate to make those discounts work profitability.  You may actually be creating a new problem later when your revenues eventually cannot exceed your product costs.  No traffic in the world can help you survive a 'planned' negative income statement.  Do not get trapped into believing "mark-downs" create increased traffic flow.  They do not.  Furthermore, do not make the marketing mistake of believing WalMart is successful because it offers everything at a low price.  That is not how WalMart produces so much traffic.  Look a lot closer than discount efforts when you evaluate how WalMart does it.  Discounting products is only a small part of all of the very good things WalMart does in its business model to become the behemoth it has become.  It happens to be the largest trucking company in the world!  Did you know that?  Look deeper.

I will give you one traffic idea that will work.  Just to humor the owners, I will make one unique suggestion.  It is crazy but it will work to create more traffic flows, if that is what you want.

Hire a security company to protect the front doors of your establishment.  Place a huge, large sign above your front doors that reads, "SALE."  Arrange to have a lot of automobiles parked in front of your store after you close for business each day.  Do this for one week only.  When you close for business each day during that week, purposely leave your front doors wide open.  Make sure you have instructed the security company to tell everyone who comes to those doors that your staff is inside the back of the store getting ready for the sale tomorrow.  Nobody is allowed to come in each night.  Slip the news about how the front doors will be left open to your business for one week to the news media.  That's it.  Do nothing else.  Your traffic will improve.

There.  You got one idea that you had no intention of trying!  Like I said, it does not confirm with your current beliefs.  You will logically reason it away.  It is true, isn't it?  I rest my case.

Until next time...