SBA Consultation Insight
When Your Market Doesn't Know It Needs You
A franchise owner discovered that his real challenge wasn't competition. It was convincing prospects they had a problem worth solving in the first place.
By Doug Mansfield | President, Mansfield Marketing
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The Awareness Problem Nobody Talks About
A business owner came to me after purchasing franchise territories for a B2B product serving automotive retail. He'd launched in February. By August, revenue sat at one-third of what the previous territory operator had achieved in the same period.
The obvious explanation was timing. COVID disrupted everything. Cold calling became nearly impossible when prospects wouldn't meet with anyone new.
But the deeper issue wasn't pandemic-related. It was structural.
Two Types of Sales Challenges
Most businesses I consult with face what I'd call a competition challenge. Their prospects already know they need the service. The question is which provider to choose. Plumbers, accountants, marketing agencies, medical practices. People search for these services. The business just needs to win against alternatives.
This owner faced something different: an awareness challenge.
His prospects weren't searching for solutions because they didn't recognize the problem. Used car dealers weren't sitting at their desks thinking about vehicle odor elimination. They dealt with it when a sale fell through because a customer complained. Then they moved on. No systematic approach. No ongoing relationship with a solution provider.
The franchise offered a product that could help dealers sell inventory faster by addressing odor issues before they cost sales. Genuine value. But the value only became obvious after someone explained it.
You can't optimize a website for searches that don't happen. You can't run pay-per-click ads for keywords nobody types. The entire digital marketing playbook assumes demand already exists. For awareness problems, demand has to be created through direct contact.
Why Cold Calling Remains Necessary
I told this owner something he probably didn't want to hear: there was no clever workaround. No digital strategy that would replace the need to get in front of decision makers personally.
The product required demonstration. The value required explanation. The relationship required trust built over repeated contact.
This is sales fundamentals. The first visit isn't expected to close anything. It introduces you. The second visit establishes familiarity. The third begins building trust. Eventually, you're the person they think of when the problem becomes acute.
The pandemic made this harder, but it didn't change the underlying requirement. Persistence wins. Making circuits through a defined territory, showing up consistently, bringing something useful each time rather than just another sales pitch.
Territory Design Matters
Geographic concentration isn't just about efficiency. It's about building density of recognition.
Houston spreads across enormous distances. Driving across the city to visit scattered prospects burns time without building momentum. But concentrate on one area, and something different happens. You become known. Word spreads between neighboring businesses. The guy at the dealership on the corner mentions you to his friend two blocks away.
I suggested this owner assign territories by zip code rather than by account. Own everything in a defined area. Every sale in that zip code earns commission regardless of who initiated the relationship. Now there's incentive to build presence, not just chase individual deals.
Finding Partners Already in the Room
Here's where we found something interesting.
Used car dealerships don't photograph their own inventory. They hire services that send photographers on regular circuits through the lots. These photographers already have relationships with the dealerships. They're already on site regularly. They're trusted.
What if those photographers could add a complementary service? Apply the odor treatment while they're already there photographing the vehicle. One visit accomplishes two tasks. The dealership doesn't need to coordinate with another vendor. The photographer earns additional revenue.
The franchise owner had considered this but never pursued it aggressively. The timing didn't align perfectly since photographers typically work early in the vehicle preparation process while odor treatment works best as a final step. But the relationship infrastructure existed. Worth exploring.
This pattern shows up repeatedly: someone else already has access to your target market. Finding partnership opportunities with complimentary service providers often beats trying to build relationships from scratch.
Geofencing for Hyper-Local Targeting
Traditional digital advertising made no sense for this business. Pay-per-click campaigns for automotive products would burn budget on consumers searching for car fresheners rather than B2B buyers.
But geofencing offered something different.
The concept: define a geographic boundary, then show ads only to mobile devices within that boundary. We'd used this strategy for a client selling heavy equipment. Their competitors had dealerships across the freeway. We showed ads exclusively to people standing on competitor lots. When prospects pulled out their phones to research prices, they saw our client's messaging.
For this franchise, the approach could work two ways. Target specific dealership locations to reach decision makers and employees. Or target consumers on those same lots with messaging about vehicle cleanliness. Create demand from the buyer side that pushes dealers toward the solution.
The cost runs around $5 CPM, meaning five dollars reaches a thousand ad impressions. Dramatically more affordable than search advertising because you're not competing for expensive keywords. You're reaching a precisely defined audience that nobody else is specifically targeting.
The Referral Unlock
The owner mentioned an early near-win. A Lexus dealership expressed strong interest, then everything stalled when corporate headquarters got involved. They wanted to explore a larger rollout across multiple locations. The individual dealership deal died while corporate deliberated.
This happens frequently. But there was a silver lining in the story.
The dealership manager had discovered a photography service through exactly the kind of organic referral this business needed. One location used the service, colleagues at other locations noticed the quality, asked who did the work, and suddenly the photographer served all seventeen stores in the group.
That's the growth pattern to pursue. Get into one location. Do exceptional work. Let the internal network carry the message. The first few accounts are the hardest. After that, momentum builds.
The Path Through Awareness Challenges
There's no shortcut for businesses facing awareness problems. Digital marketing can support the effort but can't replace direct sales activity. The market has to be educated one conversation at a time.
What makes it manageable: geographic focus, partnership leverage, and persistence measured in months rather than weeks.
The dealership down the street that keeps saying no today may say yes after the sixth visit. Or after they lose a sale to a smelly car and suddenly remember the person who kept showing up with a solution.
