Just been watching Yaro Starek’s video/slideshow on my laptop where he shows himself living the ‘dream lifestyle’ earning big sums while traveling the world on long vacations.

The Yaro slideshow is just a fun thing really,but watch it for the two unique case studies on people starting on that lifestyle path themselves by doing well with sites on  acne treatments and magic tricks.

I’m doing the dream lifestyle thing myself right now. Instead of sitting in my home office in Australia I’m in Francine’s Cafe in Windermere in the English Lake District, logging on by using a pay-as-you-go wireless USB dongle.

Last week I was updating some sites from a hotel in Bangkok in Thailand, this coming weekend I’ll be online from Rob Puddy’s traffic workshop in Bristol, the week after I’ll be logging on from Frank Garon and Dr Mike’s seminar/workshop in London. The week after who knows where? Paris, Barcelona, or Barnsley

Ok, I just did some thinking about outside the box ‘marketing’ for Francine’s Cafe I don’t know the people who run it so it was just an experiment on my part.

The cafe is on one of the most tourist packed streets in England, it’s always busy, especially on holiday weekends like this one. But equally there are a huge number of cafes, bars, and restaurants to cater to the large numbers of visitors.

Sitting there facing the window, drinking coffee and eating my chocolate croissant and watching streams of people pour past, I noticed that every few minutes a couple of family stopped to look at the menu by the entrance. But no one came in, and although I’m told that it’s often busy, right then it was almost empty.

What’s going to bring them in I wondered? Is it a poorly written menu putting them off? Are the prices too high? Are people just checking all the cafes before making their minds up where to eat?

Then I thought about how we’d do it online. Testimonials. Happy customers. Social Proof.

So next time someone stopped to look at the menu I stood up and walked outside (I’d already paid my bill) and personally recommended the place as I left.

Guess what? They thanked me and went in

Now how to scale that? Could the cafe give a local friendly looking person free coffee to keep walking outside and luring customers in with a testimonial?

Or is that too sneaky?

I’m sure it would work though

What’s certain is that when there’s so much choice these cafes shouldn’t just rely on people walking in off the street, they need to ‘lure’ them in. And there are plenty of things they could be doing and plenty of things that we (I mean YOU) as a marketing savvy person could be doing to help them get more business. So if you’re not quite making enough online you could always think local and work out how you can help the businesses in your area get more customers. Then sell yourself and your ideas to them, and help get them more customers. For a fee of course.