Advertising pays

Dear Morrie
I was interested to read that The Bug would be running a special feature on marketing.
As a small business operator, I was wondering if you could give readers the benefit of your wisdom and experience on the subject.
I know you are one of the nation’s most successful business operators, so I look forward to your advice.

Interested
Southport

Dear Interested
I’m always keen to impart my knowledge to anyone involved in the cut and thrust of Australian business.
In fact I’ve previously offered myself as a professor, lecturer or tutor in business at some of our major universities, only to be rebuffed by shortsighted airy-fairy eggheads who wouldn’t know a bottom line from their own bottoms and who baulk at anyone who’s had one or two run-ins with the authorities.
It’s no wonder young kids graduating with business degrees from these tertiary institutions are going on to gain a PhD in failure when they hit the real world.
The one glimmer of hope for my academic career was back in the mid-80s when my good friend Bondy set up his own university and promised to make me head of its fuculty of business.
I liked the sound of that, but of course the plan hit a snag when a little technicality like Bondy’s bankruptcy meant he had to offload the whole shebang.
Nevertheless, I’m pretty free with my advice – as this column proves time and again – so in a way I consider myself to be a teacher of the next generation of Aussie entrepreneurs.
On the subject of marketing, regular readers of this column may be familiar with some of the developments I did with my old mates Bondy and Skasie.
One of our early ones was a canal estate near Broken Hill.You might think that developing and selling such a project would be akin to coaxing excrement to a higher altitude. But, if there’s one thing Bondy taught me, it was that every such project lives or dies on its marketing.
That’s why we advertised the development almost exclusively overseas under the project name “Byron Bay West”. We soon had stacks of enquiries from Asian and American investors who’d heard all about Byron Bay and didn’t want to miss out on another boom.
It was a similar story when we advertised our Daintree South development, located just outside Charters Towers, and the Maralinga Mews project a little way north of Adelaide.
Skasie went on to do his own thing in the resort sector. Unfortunately, he forgot one of the golden rules Bondy taught us and eventually paid the price for actually building resorts after selling shares in them.
Still, we can both look back and laugh about it now. In fact we did just the other day.
But, to get back to the issue of marketing, I can only suggest that a good advertising campaign can work wonders.
It certainly has in some of the other schemes I’ve initiated over the years such as the time in the mid-70s when I offloaded a whole fleet of Leyland P76 cars by advertising them in Russia as “Aussie Rolls Royces”.
This was well before good old Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and Ruskies were starving for any sort of Western consumer goods.
Then in the early 80s I found myself stuck with seven shipping containers full of Lego building blocks I’d bought sight-unseen from a bloke in Denmark. You know the type – plastic blocks that kiddies snapped together to make little houses and whatever else took their imagination.
But the blocks I’d acquired were rejects, having come out of the factory all twisted. Many were only half-formed. It was no wonder they were cheap.
But with just a bit of thought I soon worked out how to get rid of them, and make a handsome profit.
It was the time when civil war was still raging in Beirut and had been for some years. The place had had the shit shot out of it, if you’ll pardon the expression. I figured kiddies over there probably wouldn’t recognise a house without shrapnel marks or other bits and pieces missing.
So I advertised my stock in the Beirut papers as “special edition Lebanese Lego” and got rid of the lot by mail-order in two weeks.
So you see, good advertising and marketing have been the keys to my success and, as I mentioned earlier, I’m never afraid to share my expertise.
To that end I’ve established an exclusive mailing list for business types who want a few tips on marketing.
Now, admittedly, my advice doesn’t come cheap so if you want to join you’ll have to be prepared to hit the bin for a couple of Ks as starters.
If you or your friends are interested let me know and I’ll sign you up.
Just send me a cheque made out to Clever Advertising Sells Heaps and I’ll soon get things moving at my end.
Bugger it, to save your time and mine, just make it out to CASH.
I’ll be in touch.
Morrie

Morrie Bezzle is executive director of Russell Island Water Pumps Pty Ltd (T/A West Stradbroke Island Developments), general manager of Portable Panic Rooms (formerly Budget Shipping Containers Ltd) and chairman of Jon, Single, Tonne & Associates.