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a new era begins.
IMPORTANT: Inland Empire's new direction going forward and what that means for our clients…
Business is very rewarding; it’s also very tough, and expensive. That’s why not many people are cut out for it, as you and I know.
Below, I want to show you what’s inspired our new model as well as new elements we will be adding into our workflow as we continue to build our foundation.
The cost of building a business (the RIGHT way) is far greater than most people comprehend.
For all the glory, there’s an equal amount of sacrifice.
Historically, we’ve helped every business we possibly can at every budget level… even when it means we lose money.
Our margins the past year were roughly 10% of each client per month. You can do the math.
In order for us to help businesses like yours grow; We, ourselves, have to stay in business and grow.
Going forward in 2026…
We will still help every business we possibly can, *as long as we ourselves can also grow in the necessary, healthy manner.
FACTS:
The work it takes to build out:
Media content, marketing systems, and hire more people to help us both grow *plus the advertising cost required to show that work to thousands of your audience per month…
simply costs far more than what we’ve been charging.
That’s what they call “The Cost of Doing Business” I suppose.
Please understand: this is not a criticism of you or any of our truly awesome clients/partners.
Anything mentioned in this conversation is simply a matter of objective (business) fact, and we want to find the best possible solution for everyone.
The video below a great explanation of how we came to this imminent conclusion…
Please watch this entire video to see why we have to start charging more money in order to help our clients reach their goals.
You will likely learn a lot of helpful info about our industry as well as your own…
P.S. YOU are NOT a sucky customer… ;)
the why.
make sense?
Let me lay out a few very important facts about us, your business, and our beautiful region.
I’ve done the research and North Idaho is a business anomaly.
Everyone wants to be here.
Approximately 24% of all residents in Kootenai County are registered business owners.
That’s 3x the average ratio of supply to demand. Making the competition 3x as hard.
Whereas in more averagely balanced regions like Seattle, Portland, and Boise… only 7%-8% of residents are business owners.
Population is ALSO an issue for ambitious business owners here.
If the competition wasn’t bad enough, let me highlight that in North Idaho there’s only about 100,000 residents whereas in those bigger markets you have about 2-million to 3-million residents to market your services to.
Long story short… business is expensive to market, but business here is 3x more expensive to market.
What’s next?
Through Dec 31st we will still be operating as usual, and we will be reaching out to all of you, individually, to see how we can continue to grow together in 2026.
We are blessed to have such amazing, talented clients and we encourage you as well to keep your own value up, keep learning, and keep winning.
-Eric Kelso
Creative Marketing Director
P.S. Bonus video from me below explaining this and our advanced marketing for 2026