Don't buy any advertising until you read this!

Next time you talk to an ad rep, or a salesperson from a website company, think hard before you buy anything.

1. Your business is still running because of your own hard work and common sense.

Your success has very little to do with advertising - so please don't be panicked into buying the first newspaper or radio ads (or website or printing deal) you get offered. You'll only regret it! When the tough times start, you'll be hounded by ad reps and advertising agencies and website companies. When they come knocking at your door, they're trying to boost their own sales, not yours. Which is why you should do some serious thinking before you spend any money on the things they offer you.

We have spent 30 years testing ways to increase sales in businesses like yours and have found there are much more effective, and lower cost ways to boost sales and profits than advertising.

2. It can be as simple as changing the things you say to customers when they visit your business.

A few different words can have a dramatic increase on your sales. And before you say "That's okay if you're a retailer", this secret has worked just as well for plumbers, solicitors and accountants!! And it's so cheap that it's almost embarrassing.

We've also discovered that most Kiwi businesses get 60% or more of their turnover from people they've already dealt with - and that there are obviously much cheaper ways to talk to existing customers than advertising - letters, phone calls and customer evenings to name a few. We've learned that a simple phone call to your customer can result in more sales than any ad. We've learned that customer evenings are actually incredibly popular with your customers.

The most important thing you can remember in the tough times ahead of you this year is that you already know most of what you need to do - it's the stuff you did when you first started your business.

Of course it's going to mean harder work and a more hands-on year for you. So if you'd like someone to share the load and do a bunch of the planning and work for you - someone to bounce ideas off, someone to give you direction - we'd love to help. That's where Holloway & Hudson Consultants come in. We work through every step with you. We produce a plan for you and then we help you implement it. We coordinate people and projects for you.

3. We deal with the ad reps for you.

We help you test and measure to find what really works and what doesn't, which means when the ad reps come knocking we can take the hassle away from you if it's not the right avenue for you to be marketing.