For the past year I have been talking about the shift in demographic for our business. How it has moved to older and wealthier people and away from the middle class. It is a luxury service and that is the case for a lot of luxury services. When I was in the BMW and Audi dealership selling my father’s cars I didn’t see a single other person in there under the age of 60.
The issue is this demographic doesn’t need dog walking, but something funny has happened these last couple months. I dove deep into our advertising. Changed it around and suddenly we have new midday dog walking clients and we have clients in neighborhoods I thought we were out of.
It is all swinging around, and I don’t know what it is. I thought I’d lost my touch. That I lost the ability to appeal to people in my demographic or with similar interests to me. I used to go to meet and greets and be able to connect with people about craft beer or college football, and now I’m not going to meet and greets. I’m not the one taking on the new clients. Of course I feel out of touch with my client base. I am out of touch with them. I’m not in the field anymore.
It isn’t as simple of a matter as looking around and observing what is in their home. What kind of products and services they interact with. Which determines the language I use in my advertising. A client that I do see regularly told me I was overthinking all this and that personalized services for your pet is all I need to say. It cuts to the heart of the matter. That the old line of you pay us for our time and what we do with it is up to you is still our best method.
The fact, very well might be, that I am having far less problems than I realize. That my own anxiety gets the best of me and turns no problems into major problems. That I invent problems or it could be that the demographic I thought I lost is now returning to using the services. I don’t have the answers and I am not sure getting them is that important.
David Huzzard Writes 