A daily email about monetizing and visualizing your corporate expertise. Give me ~1 minute a day, and I'll help you turn what you know into your most differentiated and lucrative asset.
💡 Elusive pop tarts
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There’s a bakery in my neighborhood that I’ve been a quiet fan of ever since I stumbled upon it once during a Covid walk back in 2020. It’s a one-woman shop, and at the time, she operated in a converted old house in a residential area. I wondered how she kept up demand with the unassuming storefront, but continued on with my day. (Her cookies were delicious, by the way.) A couple years later, I felt excited (and parasocially proud?) when I read that she was moving her bakery to a prime location at the intersection of two busy retail streets. I then started seeing her shop advertising pretty heavily, locally. Write-ups in local papers and blogs, coupons on the back of the grocery store receipts, and all featuring her pretty unique signature offer of homemade pop-tarts (above). Again, I felt so excited for this local small business owner investing in growth and making a name herself in a competitive area. But there was a problem — each time I tried to go pay her a visit and try one of these delicious looking pop tarts, she was closed. Like, every time. And I walk by that intersection a lot. Over the weekend, I see an article online that she’s shutting down — said she just couldn’t make the new location work. And then I read the comments — it seems there was a clear pattern:
“Every time I was there the shop was not open. I really wanted to visit, but couldn’t.”
“Agreed! I only made it in there one time the whole time it was open bc they were always closed every time I passed by, even when it was during their listed open hours”
“Yeah, I have lived a block away from there for a year and I have only ever seen it open once during business hours.
I go get coffee and breakfast every single day and walk by it and go to a different place because its not open.”
“Like many other comments, I soooo badly wanted to support this business but it was never open during the listed hours of operation.” I purposely haven’t named the bakery here because I don’t want to pile on and who knows if there’s more to the story, but I think we can learn a lesson. You can have a great product. You can make all the right moves. You can establish a name for yourself. You can build all the demand in the world. But if you make it difficult to actually buy from you, there’s only one way that story ends. For us as solo consultants, a difficult purchase means:
Are you building a name for yourself in the market, then stopping short? Are you luring clients with beautiful pop tarts, then walking away? 💡 -Wes P.S. Getting the sense that your best leads don't "get" what you do? Need help making it obvious what you know and how you help? The Intellectual Headshots sprint is a visual-first 1:1 program to get you crystal clear on your positioning and narrative. You talk, I listen, and over 3 sessions we iron your story into a crisp visual narrative so neither you nor your prospects have any doubt how you see and solve their urgent problem. You walk away with confidence, clarity and publish-ready visual assets you can leverage throughout all your marketing and sales activities. I've delivered this sprint with solo business consultants and coaches from over a dozen different domains, so I'm certain my process can help you too. Book a free call, I'll share some relevant client examples and we'll talk through the potential story we could develop for you. |
💡 The Lightbulb
A daily email about monetizing and visualizing your corporate expertise. Give me ~1 minute a day, and I'll help you turn what you know into your most differentiated and lucrative asset.