Are You Taking Advantage Of All The Hidden Money Opportunities In Your Business?
October 31st, 2012 by Diane Conklin under Information Marketing, Marketing. No Comments.
When you go places and do things, do you look for the marketing and business lessons that are there? Some companies will show you good examples and some will show you not so good examples, but you can learn from all of it…and all companies, no matter if they are large or small, they all have the potential to do things right and things wrong.
Let’s first consider the hidden money in your business. And, then, we’ll find some other interesting examples of where other companies have found hidden money in their businesses and how they are capitalizing on it.
The cruise industry is especially good at this. Take for example, on debarkation day, the day you leave the port on your cruise, many times there are signs that say “private function” or “quiet” kind of thing and the reason you might see these while the ship is still docked at the home port is that they are hosting weddings or receptions or private meetings or parties.
Think about the genius of this. You have this really huge ship that comes into the port at 7:00am or 8:00am and doesn’t leave again until 4:00pm. This happens once a week, sometimes twice depending upon the ship, and that’s a lot of lost revenue while they’re cleaning rooms and turning the ship over to get people off, get the new group of people on, and get ready to go again. So, what the cruise industry has figured out is how to make money with the ship while it’s sitting, idle in the ports.
There are multiple ways the cruise lines make money on this. One is you bring the wedding party onto the ship and you do all of the food, you do all of the flowers, all the decorating, and all of that. Now, they can charge for that, plus they’re charging for the space, which means they’re utilizing the ship while it’s sitting idle. They literally bring people onto the ship, have the wedding, and the reception, and then move people off the ship prior to leaving port at debarkation time.
Sometimes, these people will stay on the ship and go on the cruise that’s coming up. What an amazing thing.
Think about how you can apply this in your business. What are the areas you use in your business where you might not be fully utilizing the skills and strategies, or the assets that you have. Where’s there hidden money that you’re not looking for it?
If you’re an information marketer, for example, it could be that you’re not offering a onetime only upsell when people check out after they purchase your product.
If you own storefront of some kind, are there things after hours you could be doing, renting the facility out for meetings or those sorts of things?
I know a dentist who wasn’t using his office on the weekends so he actually started a hygienist school on the weekends and had his staff administer it. It started a whole new (and very profitable) income stream for him.
Keep in mind here, I’m not talking about adding more work to your already busy schedule. I’m talking about making more money during idle times or with the assets you already have.
The cruise lines have figured it out on many levels that are pretty ingenious. You can do the same thing – all it takes is a little creative thinking on your part to add some income streams to your business and claim your hidden money.
