Who the Heck is Frank Bauer anyway?

Hi,

I want to quickly share with you an online marketing lesson that I was reminded of today offline…

Normally I do weekly data backups onto my external FireWire Iomega Rev drive. But not yet this week as my drives power supply was busted. BTW… this is the second power supply of an Iomega drive that I know of that broke… the same happened to my brother (www.Batronix.com … hi Andre’, if you read this, say hello to Gabi and the kids).

Still… I do like that drive for backups, I just wish their power supply would be as good as the drive.

Since I bought my drive through eBay (no warranty), I drove to Powerhouse in Parramatta today to quickly pick up a new one… 5 Volt & 1 Ampere, how hard can that be.

Well… they didn’t have it in stock and recommended another store to me to get it. I have to admit I was listening not very closely, anyway… by the time I arrived at the intersection they told me to drive to, I had forgotten the name of the store. I looked around, saw a bike store, a car parts store and yes… there was a computer store.

I entered the tiny computer store and asked the mate inside for the power supply. Nope… he doesn’t sell power supplies like that he replied. Hmmm… I told him somebody in Powerhouse told me to check in his store and he replied: “Did you check in Jaycar?”

Hmmm… Jaycar? The car parts store? I didn’t think they would have power supplies, but thanked the computer store employee and left for Jaycar. On the way there I kept wondering why a car parts store would have power supplies… but since it was recommended, I went there.

When I entered Jaycar… I was completely surprised! That wasn’t a car parts store at all, but an electronics store. Hey… and they had the right power supply for “only” Au $29.95!

When I told the mate at the register about my misunderstand, he nodded and explained to me how the name of the store came from the name of the original owner of the store.

I told him that their store name is misleading and they should at least place a sub header under their store name on the outside (yes, silly me used the term sub header). He said they do… and when I left I saw that electronics where mentioned in smaller letters under the store name.

What can we learn from this? If their store name would had at least said “Jaycar Electronics” or similar, I would have went straight there. I am pretty sure they are loosing business this way.

And the same is true for our online web businesses, if our URL, product or service name and web page headlines are not telling the visitor exactly what they can expect from us and what we are delivering to them.

What do you think about this?

‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.’
Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

To your success,

Frank Bauer