Not This Saturday by Ken McGaffin, 24 November 2006
The last thing Susan Webster wanted to do this morning was to go into the office.
Susan was in the habit of going in every Saturday to plan the week ahead. She liked the silence, and the atmosphere of her oak-paneled office helped her to think.
But after what she’d been through in the last seven days she just couldn’t face it. She was determined to have some time to herself and relax with the weekend papers and a cup – no, make that a large pot – of strong coffee.
Susan had given up her job on Wall Street to become the new CEO of the family firm, Virginia Veg.
Her great-grandfather had established the business over one 100 years ago: it had quickly grown to be one of the largest employers in the small community in which she had spent the first 18 years of her life.
But despite her great-grandfather’s early success, Susan’s childhood memories of the factory were of a dull, depressing place where her father had worked too many hours for too little return.
When Susan came back from New York to take over the business, she knew that she faced a challenge – but a challenge on this scale?
The facts facing Susan were stark:
- Sales had been falling steadily in real terms over the past 10 years.
- Costs were out of control. The factory was overmanned and layoffs were inevitable.
- The bank was getting very edgy. Virginia Veg needed a major boost in sales but Susan just couldn’t see where it was going to come from.
And what a week she’d just had.
On Monday, she’d seen the latest numbers – a record loss in the fourth quarter.
On Tuesday, she’d hauled in the management team and asked them for their ideas - blank faces all around.
On Wednesday, she had a stormy meeting with her advertising agency. She needed something a lot different from the tired old clichés they’d been spewing out for the last 10 years.
On Thursday, she had a meeting with the web designers. They were young and ... well, they were just young. Thinking about a website was not one of her top priorities.
And Friday was the last straw. Jack Butterfield was dropping Virginia Veg from his shelves – that was 30% of sales. She’d phoned Jack throughout the day, but her calls weren’t returned. In her heart, she knew it was pointless: Jack Butterfield was not a man to change his mind.
So this Saturday morning, Susan sat down with her newspapers. She scanned the news and business sections and then checked her stocks.
Her high-tech investments were doing nicely. Perhaps she should give it all up and start an Internet business–that might be an option if Virginia Veg really did go belly up.
“But no, I’ll not worry about business today,” she thought, and pushed the broadsheet sections aside. Susan picked up the lifestyle magazine with its glossy photographs and human-interest stories. “That’s more like it.”
She read first about the holiday resort of Stonechester – it must be 15 years since she’d been there.
Then she moved on to an article on the growth of vegetarianism in the US – standard stuff but interesting nonetheless.
Next an article on how dogs were the most pampered pets in the country. “If the growth of vegetarianism continues,” she thought, “there’ll be a lot more meat for those dogs to be pampered with – not that vegetarians would be too keen on feeding their dogs meat.”
She sat upright.
“Wait a minute. What would vegetarians feed their dogs? Surely they’d hate to give them meat?”
She eagerly scanned through the articles again. “Wow, there are over 20 million vegetarians in the US and over 60 million pet dogs. Could there be a market for vegetarian dog food?”
“And if there was, wouldn’t vegetarian dog food be a brilliant product to sell online? I could stay with Virginia Veg AND get a chance to start my own dot.com.”
Susan drained the last dregs of her coffee, grabbed her coat, and headed to the office.
This is page three of the HMTL version of Wordtracker's Free Keyword Research Guide.
Contents
- Introduction
- Why Keywords Matter by Ken McGaffin
- What You Can Do With Wordtracker by Ken McGaffin
- Not This Saturday (offline keyword research) by Ken McGaffin
- Convert Traffic Using Wordtracker by Bryan Eisenberg
- It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Emotion by B.L. Ochman
- Gauge the Size of the Market by Stephen Mahaney
- In Paid Search, Keywords Are Key by Kevin Lee
- Find the Keywords and You’ll Find the Marketplace by Ken McGaffin
- The Wordtracker Breakthrough by John Alexander
- Adopt a Healthy Position by Neil Davidson
- Designing an Online Marketing Strategy by Robin Good
- Only People Buy by Nick Usborne
- Where To Use Your Keyword Phrases by Ken McGaffin
About Ken McGaffin
Ken McGaffin is an experienced internet marketing consultant. He has worked for major pharmaceutical companies, advertising agencies, government bodies and non-profit organizations.