Before you bid on every town, look at the van

The van is not a circle.

This seems obvious until somebody draws a generous radius around a business and calls it an opportunity. On the map, every place is a neat little possibility. On the road, there is traffic, a bridge, an awkward appointment and a person who would quite like to finish the day near where they started it.

If we're expanding a service campaign, I'd like the person doing the visits in the conversation. They know which journeys combine sensibly. They know which short-looking trip eats an afternoon. They know when a job needs equipment that isn't carried on every visit.

An advertising map knows none of that by itself.

Take a repair service with a modest team. The existing area keeps the diary manageable. A proposed expansion adds another group of towns. Before discussing how much demand we might attract, ask what accepting those jobs would do to a normal week.

Can the business offer a separate visiting day? Is there a minimum job size or a travel charge? Does somebody need to qualify the request before promising a visit? Put the real arrangement on the page. Don't let the customer discover it when the desk rings back to explain why the apparently simple appointment is a different offer.

I like a little list with three headings: places we serve routinely, places we consider under stated conditions, and places we cannot currently cover. The conditions need to be understandable, not a clever paragraph that boils down to “we'll decide later.”

Then try a small extension if the team actually wants it. Record which places we're testing and which kinds of job make the travel worthwhile. Ask the desk what happens to the enquiries. Check whether the visits fit the diary as expected.

A request from the new area is useful evidence, but it isn't automatically a useful job. The business still has to get somebody there, do the work and come back.

The embarrassing thing is that this discussion can take less time than the grand expansion presentation. One conversation with the person holding the van keys, and half the beautiful map starts looking rather silly.

I'm happy to be ambitious. I'd just like the ambition to fit in the bloody van.