The 113 miles of Highway 87 between Great Falls and Havre in Montana is desolate. A half-dozen or so tiny towns have cropped up in places. But mostly there’s just the two-lane road, vast expanses of prairie, and the enormous canopy of sky.
Nineteen miles south of Havre – smack in the middle of nowhere – is the Northern Winz Casino. The 20,000-square-foot monstrosity of a building boasts 350 slot machines and a huge parking lot.
Now, I’m not privy to how well the casino is doing. But rarely have I driven past and seen more than 20 cars in the lot. And I’m guessing that, even on Highway 87’s busiest days, no more than a thousand cars pass the Northern Winz. (And how many of those are going to stop their purposeful drive to the airport or Canada to play the slots?)
This casino breaks one of Michael Masterson’s core business principles: Make sure there’s a market for your product or service before you set up shop.
One way to know whether there’s a market? If someone else is there before you. The Northern Winz is operating under the “Build It and They Will Come” theory – establishing itself on an otherwise bare stretch of land and hoping to attract customers. A better plan of action would have been to open up next to an already-successful casino.
This business-building “law” is true whether you’re a brick-and-mortar operation or an information-publishing start-up. Take a look around. If someone else is doing what you want to do… and succeeding… you have a good chance of making it work for you. If all you can see is empty prairie, you need to go back to the drawing board.
[Ed. Note: Master a few simple secrets of classic marketing, and you can sell snow to a polar bear. Discover 12 of the most effective marketing strategies around in Changing the Channel, the Amazon.com best-seller by marketing masters Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby. Pick up your copy today.]
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There might be other factors involved with Northern Winz; it’s most likely an Indian casino with federal subsidies, the sole purpose being employment rather than profits. I’m not suggesting that their choice of location is a good one; however, they may have had no alternative.