You’ve probably heard it before…Location Location Location! Based on where you position yourself, whether in a storefront or online in the web, the location of your business is what will generate revenue!

Choosing the right country and even in some cases state and city matter!

If for example your product is chicken curry, and you decide to market to the non-spicy crowd only, your sales probably wont be as impressive compared to if you marketed the same product to a group of people who would enjoy spicy foods.

If your product or service for example was a course on learning spanish, you probably would have lower results in Spain versus the United States where Spanish is a second language rather than the first.

Knowing these details will help you POSITION yourself and your product/service in the right location in the world.

Location can MAKE OR BREAK a business!

I can recall from my own experience how sometimes even what you think might be the possible right location may not be the right location at all!

One of the businesses I owned was a dollar store which I thought was perfect for the downtown core of the city of Brampton, Ontario.  Now if you’ve never been to Brampton, the downtown core is like a very very tiny downtown city, with street parking and shops all around.

I thought that it would be perfect for a dollar store due to the fact that there was lower income housing there, we were just starting the recession (So a need for lower prices) and being the downtown core I figured that was great as there is a lot of traffic there.

My product was dollar store items, which I thought EVERYONE needs.  First mistake was that I didn’t DEFINE my market and stated that EVERYONE needs the dollar store.  Infact that is not true, and I realized that in the area I chose, the lower income housing brought in people haggling for lower prices than a dollar!  I had drug addicts and homeless people coming in and not even being able to pay for stuff.

My walk in traffic was between 15-20 people in a day on average which is NO WAY for a dollar store to run, and to add to it, I was spending 14 hours in the shop just to bring in $100 of revenue.

The location I thought was perfect was not perfect at all.  Plus a dollar store is not something that is prestigious enough for any downtown core.  That in itself was a mistake that was made in the first place was choice of a wrong product/service for the location!

Parking was street parking and people would get towed if they left their car on the street even 5 min longer than expiry which got many customers upset as they would come in for a $1 item and have a $150 dollar bill and a towed car!

No parking and bad location for a dollar store were what led to this business to ultimately fail.

This is a great example (That cost me $50-$75k out of pocket and almost a year of my life!) of how important location is!  It can save you time and money!  BIG TIME AND BIG MONEY in many cases!

That business died due to an improper location for the product/service, even though at first it may seem like a good one.

In the world of the web, the same idea applies.  When doing marketing for top search engine results, if we use the chicken curry example again, advertising on google USA might bring traffic, but less conversion to a sale compared to possibly advertising on google Canada (More ethnic crowd, and hence more of a pallet for spicy/unique foods).

That being said however, if you are making a mild version of Chicken Curry aimed at the North American market for a more western taste, then maybe Google US would be the best bet for you.

For example however, if everyone already has your product/service, why would they buy it?  Marketing your Spanish software in Spain for example (Where Spanish started), will probably get the worst results, versus North America.

Knowing this you can then define WHERE you want to market your product/service.

Remember, DO NOT USE THE TERM -> EVERYONE!

Break it down into exact details!  Sexual, Racial, Religious, Cultural, Country, City, State/Province.

For example, the next handheld computer would probably fare better in the men market than in the women.
The next prayer alarm would probably fare better for Muslims compared to other religions.
A Buddhist statue would probably fare better in the Chinese market where a mass majority of the population is Buddhist versus in other markets.

(Do you get where I’m going with this?)

Hopefully this helps enlighten some of you out there on how important location and market research can be.  So important is it that some companies have full market research teams SPECIFICALLY made to search the world for their TARGET MARKETS!

Always ask yourself this question before going to sell: WHERE DO THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT/SERVICE RESIDE? LOOK LIKE? SPEND THEIR TIME?

Second, ask WHEN these same people are most prone to making a purchase?  Most people probably wont be making a purchase while at work from 9-5pm unless they are purchasing something for a company or on behalf of the company.  Looking to sell a television to the common worker would prove useless between 9am-5pm however between 6pm-9pm you’d probably make more sales than you would in the whole day!  Hence why you’ll see more sales of these kinds of items happening during those times versus any other time in the day.  Also the day of the week will also determine when the purchase will happen, as well will the time of year!  January is a time when most people have no money due to spending it all in October, November and December for Christmas in North America.

Third, ask WHAT IS THE BUDGET OF MOST PEOPLE IN THE TARGETED MARKET?  If for example you have the latest car, but decide to sell it for $100k per car, well if in the area you are in, most people dont have $100k to shell out, you probably wont make a sale, vs selling the same product in lets say the HAMPTONS or in HOLLYWOOD.  Check your competitors and see what the going rate is for similar products/services to position yourself competitively so that you have a better chance at sales versus no sale at all.  A can of coke for $10 in Canada when all cans of coke are between $1-$2 will probably not make any sales unless it can prove some form of difference meritting the price, and then those who would purchase at that level as well.

Now that we have some very important answers, we can better choose the RIGHT location for the product/service and also the right location to open a storefront or market yourself online!  JUST THIS ONE STEP ALONE can bring in the sales you’ve been sitting there waiting for!

Good luck in all your business venture and until next post, see you later!

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