A friend and I have owned similar retail stores on 2 different side of the states. I met him at a vendor even early on and we’ve been bouncing ideas off each other for last 5 years. I took my store to 400k annual gross in 4 years while only spending $5k on marketing.i have a 60%-70% close rate. Then over the 5th year was stagnation at $410k. This year I’ve ramped marketing up to $60k and revenue is on track to hit $750k this year.

He has spent all of $300, yes three hundred, on marketing in his 7 years of business. Depending solely on location. He has built up to $90k in revenue annually over 7 years.

Everytime he complains about business, I of course turn on the marketing speel. However it came out today in conversation that he has 3 times the foot traffic that I do! So marketing has never been the problem. Its been closing customers this whole time!

Now this is a harder discussion because he’s doing the sales and thinks he’s doing a great job.