Well, 2019 isn’t waiting around for anyone is it?!

As I write, February is in sight, with Christmas a distant memory and we’ve had the busiest start to any year I can remember. Which is great. 

We’ve got huge plans for this year, which means that we’ve needed to knuckle down and put a lot of the foundations in place during January.

Thankfully for me, our newest member of the team has been a vital and integral part of everything we’ve done this year, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce her: Chloe Dunn.

I had an interesting response to my email on Jose Mourinho a while ago (which is highly topical now that the ‘Special One’ has been dethroned at Old Trafford!).
 
It was from a kitchen retailer called Neil. He expanded upon the point I’d made about Mourinho making the best of the squad he had, his first time round at Chelsea.
 
Here’s what Neil said:
 
“A person once said to me: 5, not 50. Look at the market in the 5-mile radius around you – there’s probably more opportunities there than driving 50 miles to do business.”
 
I'm sure you'll relate to that, it’s a powerful and true insight.

We’re well on the way towards Christmas now, and no doubt you’re super busy on your final jobs, ensuring that families have their brand-new kitchens in place before that wonderfully natural deadline of the 25th December!

But today, I just want to touch briefly on what happens AFTER Christmas.

As we all know, there’s a big rush to get new kitchens installed prior to the big day, but the buying intent kicks back in soon after Santa slides down the chimney.

In fact, over the years, one thing has become very clear to us about kitchen buying dynamics.  It starts with a profound trigger…

Before I go any further, I want you to banish all thoughts of what a successful sales and marketing message should look like. 

Because what I’ve got to share with you goes completely against the grain of what most people think marketing is – we call it the ‘Re-activation Email’. 

Quite frankly, it wouldn’t be too harsh to consider it the runt of the marketing litter.  It’s a bit of an ugly little bugger, but it sure does get results.

As I mentioned the other week, I’ve always believed in the power of mentors – having someone who’s already trod the path that you want to go down is a very smart way to shortcut success.

Last week I mentioned one of my oldest mentors; this week I want to refer to one of my newest – the inimitable Nigel Botterill.

Botty’s a bona fide UK business superstar, with bags of sales and marketing experience.  Last year, he introduced me to a very clever approach, that can be used with great effect in the kitchen industry…

Throughout my career, I’ve always had mentors, and there’s a simple analogy that explains why:

You wouldn’t attempt Everest without a Sherpa.

Having someone on hand who knows the route is hugely valuable, can stop you heading off in the wrong direction, and make sure you go the most direct way to your desired destination.

I was flicking through the channels the other night and I caught one of those football shows, ‘The Premier League Years 2004/5’. It was the season that signalled the arrival of ‘The Special One’, Jose Mourinho.

It was 14 years ago now, but there are two big marketing lessons in the changes that Jose made to Chelsea, and I wanted to share them with you.

I had the chance last week to spend some time with legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

You know who I’m talking about – the guy who cut his own frostbitten fingers off with a hacksaw.

Although I’m not planning on climbing Everest anytime soon, Britain's greatest living explorer had some hard-won advice that I enjoyed digesting, and I thought it might be relevant for you too.

Over the years, I’ve realised that when it comes to marketing, there are three distinct types of KBB businesses:

• #1 - Those who do no marketing (or very little), and rely solely on word of mouth

• #2 - Those who do a few campaigns throughout the year; maybe radio for a couple of months, then a flyer-drop a couple of months later, or a newspaper ad with an offer to stimulate sales

• #3 - Those who see their marketing as a process and a system, and have properly bought into the idea of 'rhythmic customer acquisition'…

I’ve written a few posts recently, and I guess the majority have been about one particular subject:

Marketing.

And with that in mind, you might be surprised to read my next statement.

Marketing isn’t the ‘be all and end all’.

Bear with me for a moment, please.  Here’s a couple of questions:

Did you wake up this morning and decide that - today - you’re going out to buy a bed…? Or, a new washing machine…? Or, a new car…? Chances are, you didn’t.

You see, research indicates that if you take most products, only 4% of people want them TODAY…

I was chatting to a kitchen retailer a couple of weeks ago; talking through some marketing ideas for his business.  We came up with some great strategies to generate more leads and win more work, but then he stopped me and said:

“Here’s the thing, David – ideas are not necessarily the issue; it’s putting them in place that’s the problem.”

It’s a simple statement. But to me, it’s profound in its ability to sum-up where so many kitchen businesses are at…

A common view in the world of Kitchen marketing, is that Google is the ‘be all and end all’.

Get on Google and everything will be alright.

It’s not strictly true.

Over the years, I've spoken to A LOT of kitchen retailers.
 
And a huge percentage of them suffer from the same problem.
 
I call it ‘Dabbleitis’ – the tendency to dabble in multiple forms of marketing, without ever really gaining traction with any of them.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing a few of the marketing tactics and strategies I used to increase the turnover of my family’s kitchen business by EIGHT times.

My name’s David Barker, owner of Inspire KBB.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve instigated numerous highly successful marketing initiatives for Home Specialist companies, particularly Kitchen Retailers.