For much of the last decade, we’ve heard about the importance of the global economy. The mantra you may have been reading is something like “grow global or you won’t grow at all.”
The Internet has certainly made that approach more viable but there is an equally meaningful perspective that warrants your consideration.
Seth Godin champions this point-of-view. He’s a best-selling author of about a dozen books on marketing or blogging and he is an original thinker. I subscribe to his blog and I do so because his thinking inspires me or it reinforces or extends my own thinking.
You likely will have noticed that my sales related posts are about becoming more related with your own customers. Seminars and referral meetings are really – at its core – about becoming more related to your own relationships. This is because for many small businesses, going global isn’t an option. They need to be effective in their own zip code.
Today’s blog from Godin presented a new twist on the art of becoming related locally. He suggests that you start your own local “newspaper.”
The way he’d go about it is to briefly interview a local business, a local student or a local political activist by phone. Get 20 households to ‘subscribe’ by giving you their email address and asking for a free subscription. You can use direct contact or flyers or speeches to get your list and then release the newspaper via e-mail twice a week. In no time at all, you’d build a mailing list and if you do it well, in not time, it would be the talk of the town.
More important, for you and your business, you will become related on a very local and personal level. You will know about people and the value they contribute to the community. You will become a source for connecting others. Most important, you will be transformed into a valuable resource associated as the source for learning about all of the wonderful things going on in your own backyard and in your community.
And that sounds like a fantastic position for you to be in and a source of strength for any local business.
Strategy Insight 