This is Part 4 of the FindMyBuyer series. If you've been following along, you know the numbers (Part 2) and the pricing (Part 3). Now let's talk about the question that keeps every small business owner awake at night: where the hell are my customers?
The Advertising Black Hole
In the fencing business, advertising costs were climbing every month — £5,000 one month, £7,000 the next, sometimes hitting £12,000. And I couldn't tell which ads were generating the sales. I was throwing money at the problem hoping something would stick.
This is the trap most small businesses fall into: they advertise everywhere and measure nothing. Facebook, Google, local papers, trade magazines, word-of-mouth — every channel gets a piece of the budget. But there's no way to know which one is actually bringing in the work.
The first rule of absorption costing applies to marketing too: if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And if you can't manage it, you're bleeding money.
So I started paying attention. Really paying attention.
The Magazine Experiment
I began running small ads in local magazines — quarter page, eighth of a page, whatever the budget could afford. They were cheap compared to other channels, but the results were completely inconsistent. One month I'd get three calls from a single magazine. The next month, nothing.
Then I started noticing something. The placements that generated calls weren't random. I started paying attention to WHERE the ad was placed in the magazine, not just that it was there.
Front page: Most expensive at around £20,000 a month. Out of budget. But everybody sees it.
Page 3 (first right-hand page when you open): Significantly cheaper, and somehow generating far better results than a random page buried in the middle. It was the sweet spot — visible, affordable, effective.
Centre spread (double page): High visibility, strong results, but more expensive. Worth it if the magazine was reaching the right audience.
The insight hit me like a two-by-four: ad SIZE matters less than ad POSITION. A small ad in the right spot beats a large ad buried on page 47.
Most advertising advice talks about budget size and creative design. Nobody talks about position. But position determines whether people actually see the ad in the first place.
Testing in Parallel
Once I figured out the winning placement strategy, I rolled it out across multiple magazines simultaneously. But I didn't just run the same ad and hope. Each magazine got a unique phone number or code. Customer calls the number, I know exactly which publication generated that lead.
Within two months I could see the pattern clearly. Magazine A was bringing in solid leads. Magazine B was generating nearly nothing. Magazine C was somewhere in the middle. The data was unambiguous.
So I did what any sensible business owner should do: I cut the losers. Killed the budget for Magazine B entirely. Doubled down on Magazine A. Put a bit more into Magazine C to test if increased frequency would improve results.
What happened next was the opposite of what most business owners experience when they scale advertising. Advertising costs went DOWN while leads went UP. I was spending smarter, not more.
Don't spend more on advertising. Spend smarter. Test placements, track responses, cut what doesn't work, and reinvest in what does.
Where Your Buyers Actually Are (It's Probably Not Where You Think)
Remember from Part 2: 95% of my sales came from OUTSIDE my franchise territory. I only discovered this by tracking WHERE the customers came from — literally a column on a spreadsheet.
Most small businesses have no idea where their best customers find them. They assume it's everywhere. It's not. The answer is usually 2-3 specific channels that generate 80% of the business.
For my fencing business, it was two specific magazines and word-of-mouth from existing customers in one particular suburb. That's it. Everything else was background noise.
Once I knew that, everything changed. Why waste money on Magazine B? Why keep paying for generic Facebook ads? Why spend on channels that barely register?
I reallocated the budget to the channels that worked, and the business got stronger. Simple as that.
The Modern Version: Where Are Your Buyers Online?
In 2026, the magazines are gone. But the principle is exactly the same.
The channels have changed — Facebook groups, LinkedIn, local directories, niche forums, YouTube, TikTok — but the fundamental question hasn't: where are YOUR buyers already looking?
The question isn't "should I be on social media?" It's "which specific groups and pages do MY buyers already belong to?"
You wouldn't take out an ad in a fishing magazine to sell electric fencing. But that's exactly what people do when they post in random Facebook groups or boost a generic post to "everyone aged 25-65 within 50 miles." They're advertising in the wrong magazine. They just don't realise it.
The carpenter advertising fencing in a group for accountants gets accountants interested in fencing. The electrician posting to "Handymen and Tradespeople" gets people looking for the cheapest quote. Meanwhile, the high-end landscaper looking for referral partners never sees their work because they're not in the right group.
The best advertising doesn't interrupt strangers. It shows up where your ideal customers are already looking.
Page 3 of the magazine in 2000 is the Facebook group in 2026. It's the online community where your buyer is already scrolling. The position matters. The audience matters. Everything else is noise.
How to Find Where YOUR Buyers Are
Here's the practical version. Do this today:
1. Ask your last 10 best customers: "How did you find me?" Write it down. Look for patterns. You're building a list of channels that actually work for you — not channels that feel like they should work.
2. Track it. Create a spreadsheet. Every new lead goes in with the source. After a month, you'll see the picture. After three months, it's undeniable.
3. Search Facebook for groups related to your trade and your customers' interests — not YOUR interests, THEIR interests. If you're a plumber, find groups for homeowners, landlords, property managers, and new homeowners. Find groups about home renovation, bathroom design, older homes. These are the places your buyers are already thinking about their problem.
4. Check local directories and review sites. Are your competitors listed? Are customers searching there? What does the conversation look like? This is your "page 3" in the modern world.
5. Or let FindMyBuyer do it for you in 2 minutes. Answer a few questions about your business and we'll tell you exactly which communities, groups, and platforms your buyers are using — with direct links to join them.
The Long View
The advertising and placement lessons from that fencing business have stuck with me for 25 years. Every failure since then has taught me something, but none quite as vividly as watching £100,000 a month disappear and then learning how to turn it around.
Most business owners never get the chance to fix this. They keep spending, keep guessing, keep hoping that bigger budgets or better creative will solve the problem. They never realise that the problem is position, not production.
In the final part of this series, I'll tell you why I built FindMyBuyer — and how everything I learned from failure went into creating a tool that does in 2 minutes what took me 90 painful days to figure out.