How to cook up your own business disaster a la Leanne Battersby

I don’t know if you’re a fan of Coronation Street but I’ve been waiting for the (inevitable) outcome of Leanne’s little business venture.    Apparently she is now planning a nice little insurance scam.

They say buyer beware when you go into business and never a truer word…

I’ve been receiving emails from Ken McCarthy (The System) ahead of his conference next month.  I love it when these internet gurus have a workshop or a conference, or launch a product as they give out such a lot of free information ahead of time.

Ken McCarthy was using the example of a restaurant to show how not to set up a business.  Like Leanne – straight in, no market research, no business savvy, no niche cultivation.  It’s not just restaurants though.

Near where I live there’s the street of the damned(businesses).  In the ten years I’ve lived around here the average lifespan of businesses in this street is 6 months.

Every time a new one opens there I hold my breath, send my best wishes, try to buy from them if appropriate and wait.  Recently a barbers, a fair trade shop and most interesting a shoe shop came and went.  Now we already had 3 shoe shops plus two large supermarkets in the town.  Between them they covered a wide range of prices, ranges and styles.

This shoe shop offered upmarket shoes starting at around £80 – a low level Jimmy Choo.  But it’s location wasn’t where it could draw in the market it needed.  Women with style and disposable income.  It didn’t look stylish enough and it was next to… a perfectly respectable but downmarket eaterie.

Sad.  Contrast that with another shoe shop in the town where the owner has his market, location and marketing down pat.  It’s target is the customer with difficult feet.  Not exclusively targetd at the over 50s but principally so.  Customers come back time and again… and from a radius of about 50 miles.  His customers are sure of finding what they want, and are given the service they need.

Bingo – a successful business.  Best of all probably 80% of his customers are from referrals.