Prime location, great coffee, friendly staff. He figured customers would naturally find them.
Six months later, they was struggling to break even while the chain coffee shop three blocks away had lines out the door.
"I don't get it. Our coffee is better. Our prices are fair. Why isn't this working?"
Because in today's world, good isn't enough. Even great isn't enough. If people don't know you exist, it doesn't matter how amazing you are.
The Field of Dreams Fallacy
"Build it and they will come" worked in a movie about a baseball field in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't work for businesses in the real world.
Your potential customers are busy. They're distracted. They have habits and routines. Even if you're better than your competition, breaking into those routines requires intentional effort.
The chain coffee shop three blocks from Mark didn't succeed because their coffee was better. They succeeded because they made sure everyone in town knew they existed before they opened their doors.
The Attention Economy
We live in an attention economy. Your customers' attention is the most valuable resource, and everyone is competing for it. Your competition isn't just other businesses in your industry - it's everything else demanding your customers' mental energy.
Passive marketing assumes customers are actively looking for you. Active marketing goes where customers already are and earns their attention.
Passive vs. Active Marketing
Passive marketing: "We have a website, so people can find us when they're ready."
Active marketing: "We're going where our customers are and starting conversations."
Passive marketing: "We post on social media regularly."
Active marketing: "We engage in conversations where our customers hang out."
Passive marketing: "We offer great service, so people will refer us."
Active marketing: "We have a system for asking satisfied customers to share their experience."
What Active Marketing Looks Like
Active marketing doesn't mean being pushy or sales-y. It means being intentional about creating touchpoints with potential customers.
For our coffee shop, active marketing might mean:
- Partnering with the office building across the street to cater their morning meetings
- Setting up a coffee cart at the farmer's market on weekends
- Sponsoring the local business networking group's monthly breakfast
- Creating a loyalty program that rewards customers for bringing friends
The Relationship Building Approach
The most effective active marketing builds relationships first, sales second.
Instead of: "Try our coffee - it's the best in town!" Try: "What's your ideal way to start the morning? We're always looking for ways to make people's days better."
Instead of: "We're having a grand opening sale!" Try: "We're new to the neighborhood. What would make this the kind of place you'd want to hang out?"
Creating Your Own Luck
"Lucky" businesses aren't actually lucky. They create more opportunities for good things to happen.
They don't wait for customers to find them. They go where customers are. They don't hope for referrals. They make it easy and rewarding for people to refer them. They don't assume people know about their new service. They tell everyone who might benefit.
The Compound Effect
Active marketing has a compound effect. Each conversation, each connection, each relationship builds on the others. The coffee shop customer who becomes a regular brings their friends. The business owner you help at a networking event refers you to their colleagues.
But this only happens if you're actively creating these connections. Passive marketing doesn't compound - it just hopes.
Action Steps You Can Take This Week
1. Audit your current marketing activities for passive vs. active. List everything you're doing to attract customers. For each item, ask: "Am I waiting for customers to find this, or am I taking it to where customers are?"
2. Choose one active marketing channel to focus on. Don't try to be everywhere. Pick one place where your ideal customers spend time and commit to showing up consistently.
3. Create a weekly outreach plan. Schedule time each week to proactively connect with potential customers, referral partners, or past clients. Make it a recurring calendar appointment.
The Bottom Line
Your product or service might be amazing, but amazing in obscurity doesn't pay the bills. In a world full of choices and distractions, good businesses with active marketing beat great businesses with passive marketing.
Build something great, then make sure people know about it. That's how businesses really grow.
