Sales Growth and Marketing Success for the Home Contractor

More Sales, More Business For The Home Improvement Contractor

Monday, 22 March 2010

Make Your Company EASY To Do Business With

You can't win the game if you don't show up to play. When you stop making your prospects WORK to get your business, you'll stop working to get their business.

1. Include A Low-Risk Offer: Here's a quick way to hamstring your
lead flow--tell prospects to "contact you for more information." It
seems like a perfectly logical next step from your perspective, but
think about it from the standpoint of the prospect. Many times
you'll discover that people are still in "information gathering'
mode and aren't quite ready to call you. A phone call (or showroom
visit) represents a sizable risk to them. A good low-risk
offer can increase your lead flow by 20% to 200% without changing
anything else in the ad.

2. Call Back: Believe it or not, failure to communicate with
prospects in a timely manner is a major reason businesses lose
customers. A sunroom dealer from California reported that when he
returned a call from an interested prospect, he was told that he
was the only one of three companies contacted that actually called
back. The job turned out to be $60,000-- It pays to just call back!

3. Let People Use The Internet: Give prospects a chance to respond
to your ad via a website and you'll see an increase in results.
Why? When people go to a website to request more information,
there's no chance that they'll get bugged by a sales person. It's
the ultimate low risk response mechanism.

4. Have A Real Person Available: We all know the feeling--you're
trying to call a company to ask a question about something, and you
can't find out how to talk to a real person. You hate it. I hate
it. So why subject your customers to it!? First best is to have a
live person answering the phone; if you use an auto-attendant, make
sure there is an option given right away to talk to a live person.

Making is easier for your prospects and customers to do business with you will set you apart from 90% of your competition and position your company as a professional, reliable and trustworthy choice.

Until next time, I wish you much success.

Mike Jeffries

Closing Success System

1-866-926-5100

PS: The Lead Generation Success Handbook and other great business building programs are now available at: www.ClosingSuccessSystem.com/products

POSTED BY: Mike Jeffries AT 09:15 am | Permalink | E-mail this

Monday, 15 March 2010

Home Shows Do's & Don'ts

If you're planning on exhibiting at an area home or trade show this season here are some tips on what to do...and what NOT to do.

These shows can be a great source of a lot of leads, but it's not about the amount of leads you generate, it's the QUALITY of lead that will make you money.

I strongly advise my clients to stay away from the "win a TV" drawing, just to collect contact information.

What you get is a bunch of people whom you have to follow up with that have no real interest in your service and are just looking to win something. That's a lot of wasted time.

Instead, make your exhibit appeal to your ideal customer. Instead of your company name on your banner, create a headline banner that hits the hot button of a prospect.

Prepare and offer informational material to give someone that will help them make an informed decision... remember, you must educate your prospects.

And remember to follow up! 70+% of trade show and home show leads are NEVER followed up.

Finally, while you're looking for the "Hot" prospect, the now buyer, and lowest hanging fruit, don't forget those folks who are just looking, gathering information or thinking about a project, but just aren't ready to buy yet. Establish a simple drip follow up to keep you in front of them throughout the year so that when they are ready to buy, you're the company who's card or letter is on their refrigerator.

I've put together a simple 1 page Home & Trade Show Do's and Don'ts cheat sheet with these and other tips.

Click Here to download.

Until next time, I wish you much success

Mike Jeffries

866-926-5100

PS. This is just one of dozens of lead generation strategies you'll find in my Lead Generation Handbook. Click Here for details.

POSTED BY: Mike Jeffries AT 09:11 am | Permalink | E-mail this

Tuesday, 09 March 2010

Who Is Your Ideal Client?

Do You Know Who Your "IDEAL" Client Is?

Simply put, your ideal client is someone you enjoy and it is a profitable relationship for BOTH parties.

It's the type of client or customer that makes you say, "Gosh, if everyone was like that, it would be great".

Yet too often you're out there chasing down prospects & leads that don't fit the criteria as an ideal client, just to get some business. This often results in no sale, or if you do get the job, a customer that's more trouble than he's worth.

Knowing the characteristics of your ideal client allows you go focus your marketing, closing and follow up strategies on people just like them. The goal is to reverse the 80/20 rule.

Analysis First

A good place to start is by segregating your clients by volume. If you are like most companies 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your clients. This is the 80/20 rule and it continually astonishes us how well this works for clients in the contracting and services businesses. It is pretty likely that many of these 20% clients are ideal but not all of them will be.

Ideal Client Characteristics

Volume/Activity

Payment History
Administrative Burden
Service Burden
Longevity

These are broad categories and you will need to define specifically what you mean for each one.

Here are some examples of breaking these down into more specific questions:

Volume/Activity

What is the size of their projects?

How many complaints, go-backs, re-dos etc.?

What is the average profitability per project?

Where are they located?

Payment History

Do they pay on time?

Do they negotiate after the price is fixed?

Service Burden - if applicable

How often do they ask questions about the service or project?

Do they demand exceptional or costly change orders?

Are they generally unpleasant to deal with?

Do they restrict your ability to service similar clients?

Longevity

Do they give referrals?

Do they come back to you for additional work?

Are they happy with you company?

Once you have identified your ideal client characteristics, then you can use them to screen your prospects, target your message and focus your lead generation efforts.

Keep in mind that many of the characteristics may be intangible.

Look for ways to define those intangible characteristics so you can better choose the targets you really want.

Until next time, I wish you much success

Mike Jeffries
866-926-5100

POSTED BY: Mike Jeffries AT 08:45 am | Permalink | E-mail this