Titillating Tuesday Business Tip
with The Luvely Rae
The 2nd problem: Your customer (who are you cultivating to be a fan)
“If you are selling beautiful hats but the demand is low, then why are you creating beautiful hats?”
In this fun small business experiment by Christop Biallas, the small business Meet a Mom was created in a matter of hours. The focus of the business was to fill a need. While the need was identified, the profitability of filling that need was not addressed. Let’s take Mr. Biallas’ business model and apply it to making hats. If he wanted to sell beautiful hats, then in order to sell his hats, he would offer his audience hairpins for free, and suggest they should buy the hats. People love a good bargain. By not putting filters in place to ensure the audience would be interested in buying hats Mr. Biallas would have a list of people who are definitely interested in free hairpins, possibly bargain hunters who wouldn’t buy a hairpin bus simply like free stuff, or people who are too broke to be able to buy a hat.
If you are going to create your business based off of filling a need, then you must understand what your customer would be willing to pay to fill that need. What is more important to you? That you sell hats or that you supply people with decorative head wear? If you could make more money creating flower hairpins and there is a higher demand for flower hairpins, then why not sell flower hairpins? You can then tell your satisfied customer about the beautiful custom hats you make (a repeat customer, crazy I know).
Now let’s apply this same theory to burlesque. If you are only performing in dive bars, then you may not be performing for an audience that puts a high value on your expensive routine. Think about the wonderful world of dating. Are you really going to find that millionaire in the local pub? The chances are pretty slim. I hear what you saying. You want to show that you are in demand and great to work with. You know producers talk and you want word to spread that you are just too good for the dive bar. Yes producers do talk, but we rarely say things like, “So and so is too good for my dive bar show.” We also have a lot of things to talk about other than you. Maybe there are a few performers we think should be at bigger venues. Maybe we don’t talk to all of the big venue producers. If you bring us a classic act to a show that clearly states a theme, then trust me, we will talk about this. “Oh, yeah, so and so. So sweet, but I don’t know why she brought classic to my non classic show. We told her the theme. WTF.” Now you become the performer who doesn’t follow instructions. Also if I were producing that bigger venue show and I knew you performed your signature act at my friend’s dive bar show for less than what I pay, I would look at your act more closely to make sure your act is perceived to be financially worth the amount I’m paying. What’s more important to you? That you do the fancy act you want to do or that you give the producer something that is suitable for his/ her show? Don’t let your signature act be just another free hairpin.
Titillating Business Tip: Be sure to keep in mind what you are selling, who you are selling it to, and what the needs are of the person you are selling it to.
Part 2 of 3
