The Median Post Chronicles Part 4: SWOT

The Median Post: The only newspaper that isn’t a newspaper. In whoever the people are who pay us we trust.

Overview of your business/organization (including some general details, such as where it’s located, who it serves, what it sells, size and scope of the operation …) 

A Profitable Day is a business offering marketing consulting services located in Lake Oswego. The company has a website, a google listing, and a handful of social media accounts, including a YouTube one whose videos are featured on their aforementioned website. In the About Us section of their site A Profitable Day claims to be seeking to help expand businesses customer bases and increase other business’s visibility through helping content reach the first page of Google and YouTube searches. This is made somewhat ironic by the fact that A Profitable Day itself appears to have picked a business name which causes accounts of what services it provides to get buried under a myriad of investing and financial advice articles. The scope of the operation appears to be limited to one Lake Oswego location. If this business is a part of a broader chain then its website not any of its supplemental material do not make this clear. 

Owners/founders

The owner, and the one whose name is featured most prominently on the A Profitable Day website is one Tom Brooks. A quick google search reveals him to have a LinkedIn profile with over five hundred connections. None of his accounts appear to reveal information which might be considered particularly interpersonal with him mostly using his profile descriptions to delve into the minutia of his various business dealings throughout the years. Scrolling to the bottom of his account does reveal a decent smattering of recommendations which he accumulated over the years.

Brief history of your business/organization (maybe include its organizational structure and operational culture)

According to Tom’s LinkedIn profile, he founded ExpressChecks.com, ExpressTaxForms.com, and ExpressInsuranceForms.com around 1998 starting out with a grand total of one customer. 15 years later that number grew to 35,000+ and he sold his business off due to its great success before going on to  found A Profitable Day that same year. Tom claims himself to be someone who has a proven track record helping small businesses to succeed in light of his own experiences getting one off the ground. With an additional 23 years worth of experience as a Regional Distributor doing bookkeeping work he might have a point. Through the framing of Tom’s LinkedIn profile it’s somewhat implied that A Profitable Day is Tom’s way of sharing his wealth of business and advertising knowledge, for the right price. 

Business street/mailing address

15800 Boones Ferry Rd A6, Lake Oswego, OR 97035

Phone number

971-206-9348

Hours of operation

Sunday	Closed
Monday	Open 24 hours
Tuesday	Open 24 hours
Wednesday	Open 24 hours
Thursday	Open 24 hours
Friday	Open 24 hours
Saturday	Closed

Primary services/products (describe how it operates, and give an overview of factors such as pricing, range of products, staffing ...)

“AProfitableDay.com is an internet marketing and video production company that helps small and medium-sized businesses with online visibility.”

Regarding staffing, the website and resources I consulted were not particularly clear about the involvement of anyone other than Tom. Even the automated chat bot meant to help one navigate the site bore Tom’s name. Concerning the range of products and prices there are two: video making services, and monthly subscription plans, both of which have a similar price scheme.

Website URL/social media (describe their website and which social media they use, likes, comments … Does their social media seem effective? Does their website work? Do they have an ecommerce section?)

https://aprofitableday.com/about/

The website linked has a very functional, all business aesthetic. There’s nothing exceptionally welcoming about it, but it does many of the expected things which provide a tolerable experience navigating it. These features include a chat bot, an index of basic categories listed at the bottom of the page, references to social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, a search bar, an e-commerce section, a choice selection of positive feedback being highlighted, and a decent sized libraries worth of articles and videos provided by the company. As far as negatives go, most of the text and website user interface is rather basic. This criticism can be extended to the video ads which the company produces themselves with almost all of them taking on a very generic, cheap looking, and forgettable aesthetic and presentational quality. There’s also the matter of website pop-ups, which involve a chat bot, a site trailer, and a prompt to sign up to receive a newsletter, which comes across as a bit much. To be clear, the site works fine, and is overall perfectly functional, though it’s a bit stiff and never particularly original.

Other current marketing efforts

There’s an ongoing Business of the Day section of the site which seems to be updated regularly. It’s a nice gesture on its surface which might in itself lead to reciprocal interactions. Social media activity is fairly generic/sparse though there are occasional mentions of satisfied customers, wishing of good tidings for holidays, links to articles written by Tom Brooks, and highlights of businesses which have collaborated before.

Observations about it’s geographic (where does it operate?) and customer markets (who does it serve?) and competition overview (include more details in your spreadsheet)

As mentioned, A Profitable Day operates out of Lake Oswego, and consequently serves the surrounding small to medium sized businesses around that area. Lake Oswego and by extension Clackmas County is among one of the most notoriously wealthy areas in Oregon on average, so it stands to reason that these customers might have more disposable income. Based upon information garner from the founder’s LinkedIn profile, A Profitable Day views itself as attempting to curate small business success. This sentiment is reaffirmed in the about section of the company website. 

Market trends, consumer trends or other information that is impacting your business/organization (use LBCC Library Market Research Guide; cite your sources).  

Value proposition

An entry level marketing consultant company helping to provide semi-professional advertising for small to medium sized businesses in the surrounding area. 

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths

• Experienced owner
• Largely favorable reviews
• Library of unique YouTube and Article content
• Provides links to past ads created for clients to give a better impression of what kind of work you can expect to see from them
• With only a single location and an intimately involved owner the business is likely ran fairly seriously

Weaknesses

• Lackluster Twitter and Facebook profiles and interactions with potential customers and businesses
• Comes across as largely impersonal
• Advertising being provided appears generic and easy to ignore
• The UI of the website is functional but not very sleek or pleasing to look at or navigate
• The name of the business makes it incredibly difficult to find in sources not directly provided by the company itself

Opportunities

• Name change
• Clean up the web presentation to make it more pleasing to navigate
• More personable employee interactions on company social media accounts
• Potentially highlight an award or vie for some kind of award to stand out more
• A more versatile pricing scheme

Threats

• Unoriginality of insight or content being provided
• With only one location, the appeal of approaching them for marketing consulting advice outside of where their business is located has the potential to be more limited
• The services offered are a touch on the pricey side
• The founder appears intimately involved with the operations of the business to the point where he might sell it off or liquidate it when he retires
• Very minimal social media engagement from people

Detailed marketing approach/recommendation based on SWOT Analysis with plan for implementing

To be honest, the business appears to be functioning fine. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing to set the world on fire but it’s not trying to break the mold either. Theoretically A Profitable Day might be significantly more reformable supposing it’s owner, who is approaching retirement age, stepped down and allowed someone with a new set of life experiences and guiding business principles to take the reigns, but as it stands the business appears to be a conservatively conducted one unlikely to do much remarkable anytime soon. Tom appears to have sold his last business, so supposing he does this again then a changing of hands at the reigns might usher in a new set of ideas determining the level of vibrancy and willingness to experiment is on display.

Link to Competitive Analysis Spreadsheet (Google Sheets)

WIP

Write about your company/organization’s Competitive Advantage, and your business/organization’s position in the market

Employee experience is in itself a solid competitive advantage, especially when said employee(s) have 10+ years of experience in a specialized field. My business is not a major player, nor does it seem to be trying to be, though it is a bordering on mid-size fish in a smallish pond.

Detailed marketing approach/recommendation based on Competitive Analysis with plan for implementing

A Profitable Day should stop being so explicit about attempting to promote itself through social media. Its seeming lack of subtlety and humor betrays a kind of transactional interpersonal style which perhaps appeals to the business minded, but is not particularly approachable or fun.