Is it Time for a Marketing Yardsale?

This past weekend my friends and I had a yard sale (ok - technically a driveway sale but I digress!). In the weeks leading up to the big day our friends and family began dropping things that they wanted sold off at my house. Now mind you - I had plenty to get rid of without their contributions, but I wasn't going to complain!

I looked around and shook my head. There were piles of 'treasures' all over my driveway. I didn't even know what was in half the boxes we pulled out of the basement and back room. As time ticked on I thought about how I was going to pack all of this stuff up and what I was going to do with all I would have left over.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to yard sales: you have them to make money or you have them to get rid of 'stuff'. I grew up with Grandparents who believed that yard sales were to make money, and if it didn't sell, you boxed it up and sold it at the next yard sale. My mom straddled the line...she didn't want to give up the money, but she didn't want to have to deal with keeping the stuff either.

I fall into the latter category. I just wanted to get rid of everything I had. I sold a lot of 'treasures' and I sold them cheap!!! Surround sound, stereo, TV, laptop (brick) - you want them - $5 each! Curtain rods - take them all for $0.25! Actually - most everything went for $0.25-$0.50. And it worked. I had 40 feet of driveway covered in 'stuff' that became someone else's treasure.

When the day was over we packed up 5 boxes of things that we figured we could sell at later yard sales, filled up 4 trash cans with stuff that we wouldn't even give to Good Will, and put together a few bags/boxes for Good Will. All told, I made a whopping $150, and could have easily made more than that. The feeling of getting rid of all of that junk was priceless!

I think of a marketing arsenal the same way. What is the point of having all kinds of pricey items (brochures, give-aways, web designs) if they aren't bringing you business (or joy). Maybe now is the time to step back and take a look at everything you have and decide what actually drives leads to your company. Maybe a fancy website isn't as important as a really good strategy. Why design and print expensive brochures if your sales team only sends pdfs?

Don't think about the money you spent creating all of the things you don't use. It's already been spent and you can't get it back. Think about the money you will save by not re-creating items you won't use and the money you will make using only the tools that are effective. Do research into where your leads are actually coming from before you approach sales. An informed recommendation is always better than one out of left field!

And finally, put some ideas away for future use. Just because you're not using that really cool tool today doesn't mean that you don't want to keep it in your back pocket just in case! Just like after the yard sale, pack things up for the next round. What today might be trash is tomorrow's treasure!