Thu, 26 February 2015
Do you know how your customer is thinking so you can sell them more effectively? Episode 58 So last week we talked about our customer oriented marketing. So today we focused about how your customer is thinking. So many times with contractors we just do a one thing fits all and then we go to the proposal to the estimate and we have one thing that just write everything down and we so differently about who is the customer how are they thinking. What do they want? So there are going to be some action items today that will help you be consistent in that area and I hope you win more jobs. So in order to get your message across you’re going to have to be very specific oriented because we get bombarded with so many messages each day that just by giving them a flyer on what you have or a brochure is probably just going to get thrown away in the garbage because we have so much information coming that we need to give very specific on what they want and supply that need.
The mass media, all the the media you are bombarded with how do you stand out how you get your customer to focusing on what you have to offer how do you get them to respond to the offer that you are presenting to them We have talked about everyone’s responses to text over email so send a text with a voice to it and be different. In order to get your message heard you really need to be creative we need to do something different you need to stand out your marketing needs to stand out your email your letter needs to stand out because you want that opened and you need to be memorable. Remember we talked about it on the first podcast about being boring well if you going to be boring sending out don’t waste your money . Because we know who our customers are or we need to know who our customers are. Not just by name but where they live approximately how much they make where do they work what type of cars do they drive. How do they think about things as far as price over value or value over price you really need to get down to the customer thinking their neighbors and friends are going to be very similar. So in reality your customer doesn't think the same way you do you , you don't think same way your customer does and if you do think that your customer thinks like you then in reality 25% of the customers that you approach are like you what about the 75%you are not connecting with what if you if you know how to connect , you would increase your sales ,you would increase your closing ratio absolutely. So from going after a particular type of customer makes a certain type of income now I've got the whole scenario of who what where why how in my mental database or personal database and now I to target that market more specifically and get better results so I can actually take the pie like we've talked before and make it smaller but make it more profitable . The other video lessons from a possible they did with a bunch of pressure washing conference it's really braw we didn't edited or anything so we gonna make it private or you can access it on the website here just click on this link and you're some really great nuggets there that will help you think I'm how are you can actually Sawyer customer who ever you choose that want to be. I have a video that I did at a pressure cleaning session on If you don’t know how you customer buys haoe can you sell them? L we will give you a link to you tube it is raw video and we did not edit it or anything but I just idea of who your customer can be what they buy who they are that's all based on time and money and it's broken down for you ,some really good stuff and so is for you just click on the links .
Direct download: Do20you20know20how20your20customer20is20thinking20so20you20can20sell20them20more20effectivley20episode2058.mp3
Category:pod cast -- posted at: 6:00am EDT
Comments[0]
|
Wed, 18 February 2015
In the last couple episodes that we've gone through in the beginning of 2015 we talked about how to set up your marketing goals, creating a game plan for yourself. Now within that marketing plan this week we want to focus on customer focused marketing. We’ve talked about our marketing plan in the past we have normally talked about a 10 x 10 which you can get in our resource sections tab and not overwhelm any one to start with 3 or 5 and work tyour way up to the 10t the key is to start. Sure one of the key factors that the Justin talked about on and I've done in the pass is said to get all the stuff done you need team member or members to help get the show on the road to get it planned out to get it situated and to get initiated and put it into a system that flows, of course you know like everything else getting it started in into that system is the challenging part but once it's all set up and going it flows freely.
I know one of the things for me in the past and it even now is that I had someone take care of my social media the post the pictures the engagement I am a firm believer in leveraging what I can do or have other people do because I can create the profit to have these things done so that I don't have to worry about doing it myself and even if you do you like doing it yourself I would urge you against doing that. Go create the profit to have someone else do it for you, you can overlook it you can make suggestions of what you like but really your main focus as the business owner is to take your business and make I a very profitable enterprise and to do that effectively you are going to have to bring-team members on so that you can do what you do best. So we really need to be doing is focusing on the customer. You are going to create a solid marketing plan for keeping in touch with your customer, how many times do you want to touch them, what do you want to send them a thank you for doing business is it happy birthday is it a Valentines or a St. Patrick's Day card do you want to send them a gift with the thank you could it could be brownies it could be just a little thing that you're using as a just keep in front of them I send out these little microfiber glass cleaner or screen cleaner with my contact information on that I send out occasionally just thinking about you just got these in wanted you to have. They are nice for cleaning your glasses or your iPad or iPhone something of that nature just keeping in touch with them on a regular basis so they don't forget who you are. So really you’ve got 3 areas of sales that you market to according to Dean Jackson you have the before the sale scenario, the during the sale and after the sale marketing and this customer marketing actually falls into the after the sale marketing 18 Jackson says is the after the sale Marcie this is probably were your most profitable arena is. Because this is where your lifetime value comes in on your customers as you keep in touch with them you have a better probability of marketing to them on specials on sales, things coming up on new products or services and gives you that opportunity to do business with them on a regular basis so it's not that first-time sale that is the most profitable it's the first time sell that get you the customers so that you can continue to market to them so that you will keep them for a lifetime and it's lifetime value that builds longevity and profit into your business.
Create your system presented it to your team members and have them go through it so that they can actually finalize the system and put it in and write it down so that's the step-by-step process on how it's done what it looks like what their options might be and then put everything into a a book so that when someone new comes iyour system is in place just go to the booking follow step one step to step three step four. Put the process together so that everyone can follow and once s in a while I updated it and redo things as we talk about how well it's working or what we think may work better. I keep track of all of the results as I market to our keep in touch with my customers The nice thing about that is that you can review it on a quarterly basis and figure out what's working maybe you're not getting the response you want with your surveys you might try different approach I may try mailing a different way there's lots of things you can do. I believe this particular marketing plan is where the bulk of your long-term profit is going to come from is the way that you keep in touch with your current customers.
As a side note on relating to your customers as we talked little bit about in the podcasts how do they think why do they act or ask certain questions that if you're having a challenge doing this probably one of the big things you might want to do this year is learn about personality profiles what types of personalities do people have how do they actually dress how they react, what are some of the keywords that they say it will help you tremendously in relating in selling to that person and you won't get as frustrated. So ultimately in the end take and put together your systems your what you want to do to keep door customer focused marketing and keep your customers engaged I hope we gave you ideas to make this happen today take some of those ideas be creative on ways to keep your customers engaged because like I said before the longevity of your business is how you interact and keep your customers engaged so that they know who you are still in business and you never give them a chance to forget about who you are. Now make 2015 a banner year.
Direct download: The20One20About20Customer20Focused20Marketing20and20Keeping20Them20Engaged.20episode2057.mp3
Category:pod cast -- posted at: 11:00pm EDT
Comments[0]
|
Thu, 12 February 2015
Bonus interview Lynn Wise, Advisor, author of Build it! Grow it! Sell it! Nine Steps to a Thriving Contracting Business. #56
Tonight today were interviewing Lynn Wise who is a business advisor and an author of a new book just came out in September Build it Grow it Sell it nine steps to a thriving Contracting business. A novel thought a thriving contracting business considering over 30% of contractors don't even make profit. Lynn started out in the plumbing business as a teenager went to college got her MBA went to work for the Yellow Pages and advertising also worked for IBM had a distribution she is a very well-rounded and a very educated person who has a love for contractors because that's what she started out. The great thing about this being an advisor using advisors, coach or mentor is that they get to see things that are in front of us that we don't really seeour selves, sort of like you can’t see the forest through the trees sort of thing. Your business is probably your biggest asset in your life you spend your waking hours in your business trying to make it work and you're committed to making it to become as successful as possible. And sometimes you just need someone to help you peel back the layers so that you can see the beauty that's below. Lynn says she helps you see the picture you are painting and it's really a beautiful picture. you just need someone to nudge you. We talk about the coaches the mentor the business advisor and sometimes we as contractors don't really see how that really applies , but you know Tiger Woods has a putting coach,a driving coach on every hole he has his caddy, don't think that he could to make that amount of money that he makes if he tried to coach himself.
Because of Lynns varied background in the contracting business, retail and the distribution and advertising she actually brings in a fresh approach from a different perspective and more creativity into the mix of things. Your business consists of four main areas sales marketing operations and distribution. It's understanding those four areas and the rules that go along with them to make your business profitable. Lynn has a unique approach to business because she likes to think about the business with the end in mind. Once you figure out what you actually want to do with your business in the end you might want to sell it, leave with your family have your employees invest in it. How do you build value into your business once you decide what the endgame is Lynn has unique approach is called a value builder system that you can actually go to her website down below later and look at and the take the test ,the test will give you a score on how you're situated right now to sell your business. For anyone who is contemplating selling the business the best time to start is now.To get the maximum of your dollars in return for your business is for taking out anywhere some 5 to 7 years to get your business ready to sell at the maximum dollar amount of course if you're in a hurry you will take a big loss on selling your business to get rid of it quickly. There are areas that are really key to helping you sell your business forget ready for sale at a much higher rate than most. The one main area is your uniqueness in the marketplace what makes you difference.Yyour uniqueness can add up to 50% extra to the value of your business let me say that again your uniqueness can add up to 50% extra value to the sale of your business. Okay so here's the one question I was going to ask the very beginning from a woman's perspective. How do I actually question is how do you contractors mess up in the area of not really relating to their buyer. In over 70% of the contractor sales cases the woman of the household and it could be the women were single women, single heads of households how are contractors messing up.Lynn states it’s important for us as contractors to know the psychology of the buying mind of our our customer. Because women are the large percentage of buyers for the contracting industry it might be a good thing for contractors to integrate women into their salesforce into their business to help them understand more of how to attract that particular customer.
Leave us with the thought on getting your business to the next level. . Why are you working so hard in this thing called the business? Then you still feel like you're trapped. And if you feel like you're trapped Lynn says give her a call the information is below a 30 minutes free consultation no strings attached to maybe just help you see things in a different light. Lynns contact informatiion
Value Builder Free assessment Get Started Click here
Direct download: Bonus20interview202020Lynn20Wise20Advisor2Cauthor20of20Build20it2120Grow20it2120Sell20it2120Nine20Steps20to20a20Thriving20Contracting20Business.205620-.mp3
Category:pod cast -- posted at: 6:51am EDT
Comments[0]
|
Wed, 4 February 2015
Today we have a special guest Tony Leary our local Google expert who knows about Google local and why for contractors it’s so important for it to be correct. So in Tony’s research he found out that in order to rank in Google local and on the google local listing s you need a website. In order for your business to have a pin marker on Google maps all your information needs to be organized. Google is the searcher and pulls all the information about your business out of all the different directories so if it's not consistently the same then I could actually hurt your rankings. A new word for me this week was citations. I heard about citations has the information that has been collected about your business and then Google searches for those in the different directories. We talked about the pros and cons of a professional service like yest and others that makes you fill out a massive profile and stuff like that and they're good if you haven't done it but if you have done it or had someone else before fill out directories then it won't fix the things that been done incorrectly it just push more information out and it will take a while to remedy the situation.. So if you've been doing this yourself or have had it done by a service and its not correct the thing that would probably help you out the most is to find someone like Tony that could go through and physically find the errors and correct the citations, he knows where to search and find out where the inconsistencies are and redo it so that's the big difference between the companies that make you fill out all the info and push it out , they both have value you just have to decide what is the most important to your other growing of your business right now. So with a company like let’s say yext takes all your information you fill in for them to process it for you if you make a mistake there's really no one there to go through it to double check see if all that stuff is congruent with what's going out with Tony he manually checks and takes a look he can double and triple check to make sure that what is there is correct.
Problem most important thing is to find the source of the incorrect information is and then cleaning it up. Also the your categories if you are not sure what you need to put your business and you don't have the expertise then you could actually hurt your business ranking as opposed to helping.
One of our other guest on this podcast we interviewed found out through his service that 50% of the contractors using his a mailing service didn't have websites which I thinks crazy but because I think that at minimum a minimum website you need just to confirm that you're a viable business weather you like it or not that is the world we live in.
For those do-it-yourselfers Tony has a free newsletter that he has available and you can get the access at the bottom of the post. But if you're like me I’ve got enough things that I need to do and I do well it is much more prudent to bring Tony on as team member to help while I do what I do best. So let’s talk about Google reviews to go along through Google maps or Google local and how important it is to tie in everything Google especially reviews? I found it with the whatever business I do on the Internet invariably every time that I have they say I’m calling you because I like the reviews that you've gotten so being Google and Google local being number one or being in the top don't forget to get the Google reviews because one is great but two is better the good reviews and local. It's really helpful in when someone writes you a review they put the services that you provided and even the neighborhood helps your ranking which I thought was kind of interesting because Google just wants supply relevant information to the people that are searching nice little point of interest. Probably one of the biggest shortfalls of Google reviews are that it's hard for people to leave reviews is not the easiest thing to find. So you have to give instructions to your customers to get to the Google reviews. You can go to white spark www.whitespark.ca They have a tool on their website at the top. A review generator handout. That you can create a simple PDF form and give your people to write Google review for them. So really what we are talking about here is with Google it's called inbound marketing because people are really looking for your service is like the Yellow Pages googles like to new Yellow Pages if you're not in Yellow Pages and how can anyone find you Once you get past word-of-mouth marketing a local search marketing actually provides you the second highest return on investment through all studies that have been done. Go to www.Google.com/business that's going to Google my business dashboard. That's when you would find your business listing claim it through phone call or postcard if you haven't done that already. For more tips and go http://cartographymarketing.com/about/ Stop by and get his newsletter and feel free to give him a call Tony Leary Cartography Marketing Local Search Specialist tony@cartographymarketing.com Phone: 727-386-8792
Direct download: Bonus20interview20with20Tony20Leary20a20Google20local20Expert2055.mp3
Category:pod cast -- posted at: 11:29pm EDT
Comments[0]
|