I was a lucky kid growing up. Lucky, because I had a big back yard. It was about 28 acres big. My siblings, friends and I spent many days exploring, building, digging and hiding in the vast outback.
Geographically disadvantaged as a flatlander, there were no rushing mountain streams or flowing rivers in the valley for exploration and water play. There were only a few ditches that the rain and snow runoff would eventually pool in to create a kid’s river.
Kids’ rivers are navigable by toy boats and are only inches deep at flood stage. It was in the kids’ rivers of the flat lands that I began to understand the principles of controlling flow.
Mudding about in the puddles and ditches, I could easily create my own mini rivers, dams and lakes with just a shovel. One of the few things that man has been able to count on through time is the fact that water usually runs downhill in the path of least resistance.
Prospects and customers like a little help from gravity and love low resistance just like flowing water. They almost always choose the easy way, the shortcut, whenever they make their purchase choices. As an example, the drive-in window for morning coffee attracts more customers than the walk-in convenience store. And the mall parking lot is preferred over that tricky parallel parking on the street. The business that offers consistent, friendly service attracts lifetime customers.
Creating the path of least resistance to divert the flow of prospects and customers to your horse business front door can be done easily. Here are some suggestions:
- Create well placed, easy to read professionally lettered signage. That not only includes at the road but also directional signs at the ranch or farm.
- Add Mapquest or a similar directions link to your website to show people how to find your facility for the first time.
- Maintain easy, convenient and puddle-free parking for boarders, students and visitors.
- Use large type for telephone numbers on printed material and business cards.
- Keep the barn and arena entrances well lit, clean and inviting.
- Have an answering machine or voice mail with a friendly greeting for after hours messages and for unmanned telephones during business hours.
- Provide comfortable chairs in the waiting or viewing areas and hot and cold beverages.
- Ask your customers what else you can do to make it easy to do business with you.
Understanding the path of least resistance for your prospects and customers is simple and low cost and much like child’s play.
Start working on diverting more of the customer income stream into your business today.