Marketing in a narrow line of service or product

     Large companies hire advertising experts to design marketing campaigns even for a product or service that is universally needed.  These companies often have many competitors and have to capture a portion of a very large market. There is often a large budget for their marketing efforts
     If your product or service is needed by a very narrow market as the case with my piano service business marketing becomes even more basic to turning a profit.  New customers are like gold in difficult times and finding new customers with the desire and ability to pay for Piano service in this economy has been very difficult.
     I  have found help in looking at my Dad.  There are shelves full of books in every bookstore about marketing techniques and they are helpful, but the most important thing about marketing I think is an attitude.  My dad did not always succeed but he had a tenacity about any task before him that I hope I also have.  The thing about marketing that makes it most difficult is that the results are not immediate.  The temptation if the market is narrow and you do not see immediate results is to scale back or give up.  This can be deadly to a small business.
     My dad worked for the McDonald Douglas aircraft company in St. Louis and was laid off when the Phantom jet program stopped.  He did a variety of things after that including working once at a maintenance job for a company that had workers on strike and Dad had to cross a picket line which was not only difficult but dangerous.  For a while he was a stock broker which he enjoyed but was not a big money maker.  Dad came from a farm background and enjoyed gardening.  He taught me how to work.  Whatever he put his hand to he had a determination about doing it well and sticking with it until the job was done.
     Marketing is part of the work in running a small company and I find my attitude about doing this job well and giving all that is in me to the task is at least as important if not more important than the techniques.  I still try to learn and practice good marketing techniques but I also try to imitate my dad's attitude about work when I give my attention to the task of marketing.