Replay, Anyone?

September 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

My position on selling ad space in this newsletter started as an experiment. My hope was to showcase suppliers and manufacturers so you could get to know them and their offerings, while at the same time providing a return for the effort and expense of publishing Hot Dog Cart News and Hot Dog Cart Radio twice weekly. We’ll see what happens.

I feel like maybe I’ve been taking my eye off the ball a bit, and I have decided to once again focus my efforts entirely on you, the hot dogger. I have a bunch of ideas for things that I think you’re going to like. In fact some of you are in the process of testing something new that I developed – and I’m getting good feedback. (Thanks Tim and Jeff.)

I asked you all to email me with your thoughts on advertising – whether you liked ads on HDCN or not.

The response was 100 percent, “Yes, we want ads!”

Here is what you said.

“Now I know full well how important your site is to you. And I know that it costs you money and time to produce. You need income, we need your site. I would hate to think that this site would some day be gone because you did not have enough revenue to keep it going.”

“You asked for opinions, so here’s mine – I personally like the advertising – it gives me options. And I’m a big girl, I can decide who to work with and who not to. If you should decide not to continue it, I would have no problem with paying a subscription fee for the newsletter. What the heck – it would be tax deductible anyway! ”

“I think the ads are a win win situation,for both you and your customers. I enjoyed the interview and the link to the website. In the end, it’s my choice and I understood that it is paid advertising and not an endorsement by you. If someone is unhappy with a product or service that you advertise, they need to resolve it themselves, not complain to you. If the complaint is not valid, then your advertiser and you are hurt.”

“I think advertising is a good for all. Knowing that it is an advertisement would be helpful. A resource for equipment and supplies is always good. Anyone starting to do business needs to learn that you research and then make an educated guess. Just provide a disclaimer. It took me six months before I bought your How to build a hot dog cart. Just the parts list with suppliers made it worth the purchase.”

I just read the post and listened to the interview, my thoughts are this company sounds like they are trying to do the right thing, but have just got caught up in the fast growth stage and may have overlooked some things that made a few customers upset. Overall their systems is a great business model that may need some tweaking.”

“As far as advertising goes, People need to understand that this is now your business. We are all in this to make $$$ and have a better quality of life. I feel you are providing a service, you offer a great course that outlines your opinion of how to run a successful hot dog cart based of your experience. You offer a great DVD on how to build your own cart that could save you thousands of dollars versus purchasing a cart out right. So, you have shown and documented in your course simple steps one could take to be up in running in a small business for very little money and in very little time. I for one searched hours upon hours over the net to find out everything I could about the business, about carts, about the health dept, and I still made a ton of mistakes even after doing my own research.”

“I feel if their was a place that people could find 1 stop shopping for information,product, and the ability to see and hear and even chat with others who are doing in the business, that is a huge resource. The fact that you bring in advertisers who want to market their product or even introduce their line to your members is great. It gives us doggers options all in one place. And I think you should be aloud to make a few bucks for allowing advertisers the opportunity to offer their best goods at fair prices to your audience. I would tell my advertisers that you better be prepared to be competitive and 100% ethical with your product because my members will sniff you out and espouse you if at anytime they feel they have been mistreated. If they are O.K. with that and are willing to stand by their brand than I would sell the ad space.”

“You asked about advertising on your site so here is my opinion for whatever that is worth. Advertising I believe is a necessity to keep your site for free I would believe. Its like a newspaper or magazine which needs advertising to stay in business. Also some of the other sites I frequent all use advertising to help them make a go of it. I’m sure just about every business which has been around doesn’t have 100% happy customers and owning my own business for the last 18 years I know I’ve tried to make everyone happy but I know that there are probably one or two that didn’t like me for some reason and never call me back and I get new customers due to the fact they aren’t happy with my competitors which is good for me. When a newspaper or magazine takes my money for advertising they don’t go out to my customers and ask if everyone has been happy with me they take it and print my ad. Of coarse if I was runnning some kind of scam that would be a different story, I would hope. I guess the slogan is let the buyer beware. You’ve got to make a living also and taking on advertisers is one of those ways.”

“I think ads are ok. Many of us have no idea where to purchase anything.”

So…

With your blessings, the ads will be back this week.

Thanks for all your feedback!

-Steve

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