I walked the Harvest Moon Festival, Saturday afternoon, with hot coffee in my hands as the first real chill of fall settled on the park after Friday night’s rain.
A booth of ceramic fish with crossed eyes and goofy grins surely caught festival-goers off guard, warming their hearts and brightening their day with a smile.
Small stuff. But it’s what a good weekend is made of.
Your business had its own version of it. A full table. A line at the register. Someone holding up what they just bought like it was the best find of the day.
Then Monday came. None of it went anywhere except your camera roll.
That’s not because you don’t have a Facebook page. Almost everyone in Ely has one.
The problem is what happens after a festival weekend. A flurry of posts while it’s happening.
Then quiet, because there’s no next festival on the calendar to post about.
People notice a quiet feed.
Same as they’d notice a shop with half its lights off, even with the door unlocked and you standing right there.
Here’s the thing: last weekend is already gone. You can’t step into the same river twice. Next Saturday won’t have that same crowd standing in front of your register for that same reason.
I got talking with a North Country Trail volunteer at the festival. That trail runs through Ely, on its way across eight states, the same one I drove out to meet a young man on a few weeks earlier. A former student of mine had just walked into Ely from Vermont as the ninth person ever to finish all eleven National Scenic Trails in this country.
Every one of those miles came down to a single next step, taken enough times in a row.
An old friend of mine used to put it simpler: no piece of wisdom was ever printed as widely as “no deposit, no return,” right there on the side of a bottle. You don’t get a return you didn’t put a deposit toward first.
This week’s fix has two parts.
First: post at least two different real photos this week, not just one. The full table. The line. The thing someone bought and loved.
No caption tricks or editing app.
Just what was actually true.
Second: send a short thankyou email to the list you built in columns two and three. Thank whoever came through last weekend. While you have them, mention the gift certificates from a few weeks back. Get people thinking about them now, while the goodwill is fresh, so you’re not introducing them cold in the middle of the holiday rush.
Keep doing both. A couple of honest photos. The occasional short email. None of it looks like much on its own, and that’s the whole point. Small deposits, made often, turn the quiet stretch between big weekends into a business people notice. The river’s already moving toward next Saturday. Reach in before it does.
Richard Stuart builds websites and revenue systems for owner-operated businesses from his home in Ely. Have a question you’d like answered in a future column? Send it to [email protected]. If something’s quietly costing you customers, let’s talk: richardstuart.me.
