The Red Balloon

By Walt Carvalho

There are many business owners who insist that the best way to promote their business is through the process of “word of mouth”. In many ways I would say that I would agree. There is no better way to promote you than through the words of someone else.

Let’s take a look at this great system of business growth:

Lisa buys a red balloon at the market for her sister, Kate. It’s an awesome balloon. It had a very remarkable shape of a heart with many smaller hearts attached to the outside of the larger one. It was the design of a master, who could create such an illusion and still be able to fill it full of helium.

Kate loves her new balloon. She decides that she is going to tie the string, which is connected to the balloon, around her wrist and have it float above her everywhere she goes. She takes it to the dinner table for supper. She has it with her as she does her homework. Kate even has it when she watches a movie before going to bed. She had never seen a balloon as beautiful or intriguing as this one. Finally Kate ties the balloon to her bedpost. Staring at her prized possession above her, she drifts off to sleep.

The first thing that Kate sees as she awakes is the sight of that beautiful red balloon as it hovers above. She ties the string once more around her wrist, as she gets ready for school.

Kate’s mind wanders as she says good-bye to her sister Lisa at the door. She knew that her friends at school would love her balloon and would probably each want one for themselves as well.
Just then, Lisa shouted out, “Kate look up”! Kate quickly looked up in front of her house into the sky to see her magnificent red balloon floating up toward the clouds.

“I thought I tied it good enough” she whispered, as she began to cry.
Lisa, seeing this, quickly put her little sister in her car and drove to the market where she had originally bought the balloon. “Excuse me sir”. Lisa says,”I can’t seem to find another balloon like the one I had bought here yesterday. Do you know where I can find another one just like it”?

“No, I’m sorry Miss”. The store owner replied.”That was all I had in stock”. “I don’t even know the name of the balloon manufacturer who made it”.

Lisa then sadly dropped Kate off at school, as her red balloon was now completely out of sight.

What a sad story for Kate, Lisa and that balloon manufacturer. Kate could have had her balloon replaced while all of her classmates could have bought some for themselves (if they knew who manufactured it). Kate’s classmates friends and families could have seen or read about these great red balloons online and so and so on.

Instead of that happening, the chain was easily broken by a simple mishap and a company not being properly connected to people

If the balloon manufacturer was connected with the proper social media tools, all of Kate’s friends could have seen the balloon online, Lisa could have easily ordered another balloon for her sister and all of them could have seen the entire collection of all the other products this manufacturer provided.

If social media tools were involved, this process could multiply quickly, but instead, this entire process came to a screeching halt.

The moral to this story is: If you are not properly connected to your customer base today with the new marketing tools that are now available, you must ask yourself one simple question: Why not?

Photo Sunny Marry