The story goes that Dennis was looking for a Diamond engagement ring for his fiance, and was speaking with Jerry the Jeweler, who promised him the ring for below cost. When Dennis inquired about how Jerry can sell it below cost, Jerry quipped, "Because I buy it for less than below cost."
The story is meant as a joke, but it's an important truth. Buying is the most important piece of your business puzzle. In fact, Buying is your ante into the game, and selling is how you turn over your investment.
Here's my question for you. If you can sell 10 million dollars worth of inventory in a year, why can't you sell 100 million or more? If you asked most business owners the answer would be they can't scale their marketing further. They capped out on opportunity. Bottom line, if you are in a multi-billion dollar industry and proved your model enough to move tens of millions of dollars of inventory, why can't you just get exposure to more people and sell ten times more?
The Difference Between The Big Winners and The Smaller Businesses Is… Buying Right!
Buy Low, Sell High. We all know those words, but how often do we focus on all the things we are buying. You need to buy more than merchandise, you are buying opportunity cost, you are buying media, you are buying eyeballs, Every expense of your business including your time, and unquantifiable expenses are about buying right.
Most businesses know this, and focus on buying inventory for as cheap as possible. The truth is though, unless the inventory is a commodity, you should focus on buying value.
Most marketing today is sold in auction environment, even if it's not a real time auction like digital marketing, your price is driven by demand, and the value of that demand is driven by your margins. The amount you can afford to pay to acquire a customer.
Your job as a business should be singularly focused on maximizing gross margins. The secret to buying media right is having better information. Use first party cookies, use a DMP (data management platform) hire marketers that can really optimize your media spend.
Perhaps invest in a large media productivity company that can factor in how you should bid on a keyword based on the weather outside.Seriously!
Every Little Detail You Understand Better Than Your Competitors Can Be The Key To Doing Ten Times As Much Business As Them.
If you have a proven model, all thats seperating you from much more scale is buying your media right, and the way to buy your media right is to know more than everyone else about the value of every impression.
Advertising today is evolving at a rapid pace, with emerging media types like native advertising (not advertorials, but true native ads like paid search ads, or sponsored tweets…) and big data taking the stage front and center… We will see some big movers. Brands growing rapidly like groupon did, and brands dissapearing because they fail to invest in BUYING BETTER!!!
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“If you have a proven model, all thats seperating you from much more scale is buying your media right, and the way to buy your media right is to know more than everyone else about the value of every impression.” I thought that this was a great point that really hit home. If you make use that you’re aware of the value and far surpass the knowledge of others then there really is no reason that you can’t be that billion dollar business, or I’m the very least, one that is doing quite well. It is something that my uncle (who runs his own business and has been for thirty years) keeps trying to remind me of in preparation for the future because he is well aware of the fact that I don’t want to work for anyone else.
I feel like this not only applies to people turning a massive income but also to those who are just starting out growing their business. This post really is a great reminder that the kind of growth people desire isn’t far out of your reach if you know what you’re doing and you know the ins and outs of your industry and how to move through it in the right manner. Then there really is no reason why you can’t go from ten million a year to a billion dollars a year.
There is some great food for thought here. It is true that you need to understand your competition just as much as you do your own business and the industry that you’re in. When you do, you will end up being much better off and able to move towards growing at a pace you wouldn’t have originally imagined. That being said, now I just need to get myself to that point too.
I hope you get there one day Anna. It really does boil down to buying media at the right price.