Pull you car in to one of these Interstate Stores and you find a multitude of gas pumps for cars, completely separate from the 4 acres of parking for the big rigs.
Inside, you might find a franchised fast food outlet (McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, Popeye etc) Some have more than one. Plus cooler after cooler of soft drinks and exotic elixirs. Plus, the isles and isles of packaged food.
If you wander into the chrome and mud flap section you will see every kind of CB radio and antenna on the market as well as truck TVs, DVD layers and hundreds of movies. Some have truck taillights and wiring harness as well as load restraining sticks and tarps.
But for the ultimate educational experience for the small business owner, make a fact-finding trip to the toilet!
Most big league truck stops use every opportunity to sell you something. Even in the john. There are ads in the stalls, ads over the urinals, ads near the sink. All suggesting additional purchase before you leave the giant store.
Let’s boil that down to small business advertising applications. Most advertising is passive. You drive by a billboard, turn the pages in the paper, listen to the radio as you do something else. But in the john, how can you not read what is plastered there? You are pretty much stuck there, for a while anyway, inches away from the ad. Forced attention, A foolproof advertising method. The "read-through" rate has to be near 100% every time.
This is not to suggest small businesses put large signs in the wc and encourage customers to visit and ponder. But if your store toilet does get some traffic, consider your own silent billboards in there.
Take a cue from the truck stops, make and use signs promoting specials and spur of the moment purchases and pout 'em everywhere.
Just like Internet pages have links to other areas of interest, your signs can suggest other areas of the store with different products and specials.
Ads in the john are just the tip of the iceberg for the astute small business owner. Use every available resource to educate your potential customer as to what you do and what you can do for them. Sell the benefits everywhere, even in the john.
You've seen 'em in the movies. Big truck pulls into a truck stop, trucker gets out and makes his way to this little hole in the wall that they call a truck stop diner. If you're not a trucker, this is not a place where you want to spend a lot of time. We're talking about the bottom of the barrel as far as food, service and just about everything else, no offense to the owners of these places as they do provide a valuable service. What service is that? We're going to let you know. Just keep reading.
Truckers don't have an easy job. Those that have to drive cross country sometimes drive into the wee hours of the morning. For these guys, truck stop diners are a life saver. All of them are open 24 hours. Usually they're staffed in 8 to 10 hour shifts. For the most part, they're very small. Some only have seating for maybe 50 people tops. Others are a little larger and can seat a couple hundred. The staff size is usually pretty small as they don't get a lot of business at once, even though most of these are located on main highways.
The first thing a trucker gets when he walks into one of these places is not a menu and not his food. He gets a cup of coffee. This is standard. And after that cup is finished it is immediately refilled, no questions asked. This ritual goes on until the trucker leaves. Some truckers can go through five or six cups of coffee easy.
The menus are usually pretty small. These places specialize in keeping truckers awake and filled. So if you find more than six or seven menu items, you're doing pretty well. The food itself is for the most part not that great. These places work on a very small profit margin because they don't get a lot of business so they have to cut costs where they can. The help is one area. The food, unfortunately, is the other. You're pretty much safe if you stick with something simple like a hamburger. But if you try to go beyond that, with some of these places, you're taking your life in your hands.
The decor of these places also leaves a lot to be desired. Truck stop diners give new meaning to the word "dive". On top of that, a lot of them will have their share of crawly things creeping about. The truckers don't complain because all they want to do is fill their bellies and get enough coffee in them to stay awake for another ten hours.
The prices are reasonable for the most part. Of course if you compare them to the quality of the food itself you may think they're a little overpriced.
The truth is, if we didn't have guys who worked on the road for a living, these places probably wouldn't exist. That may either be a good or bad thing depending on your own personal view of the situation. But if you're not a trucker then you probably want to steer as clear away from these establishments as possible.
Both Big Mike Mcdaniel Mcdaniel & Michael Russell are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Big Mike Mcdaniel Mcdaniel has sinced written about articles on various topics from Sales and Negotiation, Trucks. copyright 2006 Big Mike McDaniel - all rights reserved. BIG Mike is the Small Business Advertising Expert and recommends