The tourism ecosystem: Fraud and fairness

Tonight is our last night in Istanbul.  With my wife, we did the "tourist" thing today -- taking an organized tour of the key historic sites here for 70 Euros each; that's more than $170 total.  Did we receive value for money?  That is always a question when you are taking the tourist experience.  It is a somewhat artificial place, with systems, rules, trade-offs and side deals between hotels, tour operators and merchants.  After all, the consumers are not generally terribly astute about local prices, values and options and they have money to spend.  Of course, ripping people off generally doesn't help in the long run -- because with the Internet negative word-of-mouth can certainly spread quickly.   These days, there is little reason or excuse for anyone to be caught in the traditional "tourist trap".

Nevertheless, as the morning part of our tour ended, we were escorted into a carpet store.  The merchant apparently gave a good explanation of carpets and traditions, while serving some free tea.  (I missed that part of the action in part because i had more urgent biological needs.)  When I joined the rest of the group about 10 minutes later, the hard selling part had commenced.

I enjoyed the artful tactics of the Turkish carpet merchants, trying to extract some business from a captive, but very temporary, tourist group audience.  Prices magically dropped as the merchants sought to find the key hot spot that would convince the tourist to part with money.  This is the world of "high pressure sales", though of course everyone on the selling side denied they were up to anything that bad.  Nevertheless, our tourist counterparts demurred.  No one was going to spend any money here, no way.  After we left, one of the tour members, who had expressed some interest in the carpets, said she decided that the clerk were "harassing" her and, with that, she made the firm decision not to buy anything.

I suppose in certain conditions and at certain times, high pressure selling works.  It is probably necessary if your market is among transitory tourists.  You really only have one kick at the can, so you had better find some, any, way to extract the cash.  However, I think for most of our businesses in Canada or the U.S., these tactics are almost certain to backfire.  When it comes to construction marketing, I think in general it is far wiser to build your relationships and be patient, rather than push for the quick sale.

Fast and slow

Sometimes things move fast. Sometimes they happen slowly. But if you don't consider both patience and nimbleness in your marketing you will either obtain distorted results or fail to achieve your potential.

And some initiatives are fast and slow, both. These examples are from my business, but I'm sure you can find your own stories and experiences to relate similar perspectives.

The Book

In the fall, I set a goal to write and complete my first full-scale book by Christmas. I then planned to have it edited and distributed by March. I achieved the first part of the objective on time, getting up early each day for a solid block of writing.

My wife is the book's editor (she is a professional writer/editor). Every day she works on the editing for about an hour. Slowly, steadily, she is making progress. She may finish by the fall.

Then things may speed up a bit with the revisions, review, and production stages.

Is this pace unreasonable? Not really. It is a book, after all, designed for a long shelf-life (which can be adapted and updated easily with the new electronic publishing options). I could pay a small fortune and contract with someone else to rush the job but why not be patient? The book will be better and far more effective long term if I allow the editing to happen at its slower natural pace.

Online publishing and advertising

Within a few weeks, the first issue of the Design and Construction Report will be ready for distribution (I hope!). This publication is born from the initiative of the Design and Construction Network, which started as a modest online group in Washington DC and now has grown to thousands of members, within months.

The new publication is designed as a magazine -- we can arrange to print it on demand -- but has many differences from conventional publications. Some of the articles and ads include live video components and everything is hyperlinked and will be easy to connect. (The printed version of course won't include this live video; technology hasn't advanced that far yet!)
In the publishing space, the inception-to-launch of this publication is incredibly rapid, as was last fall's launch of Ottawa Renovates!

But neither of these projects would have happened without the foundation of long-term and "slow" relationships without immediate pressure or expectation of results. Sure, the call came to move quickly, but we only had the trust to start by previous knowledge and experience. You can't rush this sort of thing.

This blog

It's fast -- in that I update it every day and it only takes a few minutes to put an entry together. And some amazing, fast, and immediately rewarding business has resulted from this initiative. But it's slow, as well. Every day, week after week, I need to update entries and write more stuff. Without speed, it won't work; without patience, it won't last.

We all experience in business and life the complementary and conflicting demands of speed and instant gratification, and patience and long-term rewards. Marketing and business development is like that; you need to sow your seeds, but be ready to grab your opportunities. And some projects have naturally diverging rhythms. You can go fast part of the way, but if you try to maintain that pace consistently you will lose it -- yet, if you don't continue and if you give up before you reach your goals, you won't get very far at anything.

Probably the best solution is to set your daily goals and objectives over matters you can control and move quickly; and keep a patient eye on the things that take longer to nurture and develop. You'll ultimately get where you want to go, and enjoy the journey to your destination.