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View Full Version : can you ever sit back and let the work come to you?



huggytree
09-05-2009, 08:35 AM
ive been in business close to 3 years now

when i first started i figured after 1 year id have more business than i can handle...............................wrong!!

Lately I am feeling very close to not having to put effort into finding new business..The past 3 months are typically very slow, but this year my sales were double....i was busy!....

Im still sending out my mailers to 300 contractors ( i used to mail to 600)...i hit them every 3 months with mailers...they all know me!..I picked up 2 new contractors this past week and now work with 30 different contractors.

I still go to networking events a few times a month too....

i dont make cold calls anymore...my success rate was almost zero and it took alot of time and effort.

next year 1/2 of my business should be homeowners/referral work..i feel that homeowner work will eventually be most of my business someday

i just wonder if anyone gets to a point where they just throw their ad in the local phone books and do nothing else to find work...word of mouth and existing customers are enough to keep you busy...sure seems like im 75% of my way to that point right now.

Spider
09-05-2009, 09:22 AM
Congratulations, Dave! You have made great progress and I feel proud to have been part of your journey. You have received some excellent advice from members of this forum and you have used your presence here wisely.

To answer your question : Can you ever sit back and let the work come to you?

Yes, absolutely. My wife is in exactly that position - a small in-column ad in one local telephone Yellow Pages is the only advertising we do. All her business comes from repeat business and personal referrals.

But there is a caveat - she is a one-person business and wishes to remain so. Her flow of work is sufficient to require appointments of a week in advance. If she was wanting to grow the business, then more advertising and promotion would be required.

Can you ever reach a point where a business will grow without advertising? I doubt it. Business expansion demands effective promotion. If you want your business to grow, as you have told me you do, where you will be employing a number of plumbers, waiting for work to come to you will not cut it.

I think a business reaches a certain size in its growth where advertising become essential. Advertising is needed just to maintain size - companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola would begin to contract if they stopped advertising. To grow, they have to continually devise new and exciting advertising campaigns.

Most smaller companies wish to grow. If you still want to expand your business, then advertising and promotion will remain an essential component of your company. If you wish to stay a one-person business with a maintenance-level flow of business, a phone-book ad may be enough.

huggytree
09-05-2009, 09:20 PM
I make all the money I need by myself, but i am still interested in having 1 employee someday....some of it is just for the challenge of having an employee and i run into jobs where i could use a 2nd person.

i dont see myself wanting to have a 50 employee company.

From homeowner referrals wont the business grow on its own.....every year i should pickup more and more customers...maybe 10% growth per year?

if i want to add builders i definately must still keep up my fliers....they will never find me through word of mouth...plus you always lose ones occasionally due to price...usually lose 1 ,gain 2 has been the norm.

orion_joel
09-06-2009, 12:49 AM
You are essentially look at two different markets, both of which require somewhat different forms of marketing.

Builders/Contractors - As you have just said yes there is always going to need to be something here. Maybe something that you may like to try here is actually creating a newsletter, to send when you do your mail out. Do a focus each time. Maybe one time do Water Heating systems (Gas, Electric, Solar, No Tank) and just share a good amount of information that will get them interested in asking about the different systems. It is showing the builders you know what you are talking about and giving them something to show this a little. Just an idea.

Home Owner - This is really i imagine a whole different market. To some extent yes you may find that word of mouth and referrels work here, and they probably do work the best, however they do not work over the long term i do not think. Leaving the stickers you do and such will help to prolong this some what. However some people do not have the sort of memory that others do and if the sticker wears, then a year later they try to remember who they had do some work, and have not kept the invoice, they just go back to the yellow pages or asking around.

Maybe word of mouth will work for a time, however you should always be looking to bolster this at least somewhat to try and maintain almost an even flow of work.

Patrysha
09-06-2009, 08:03 AM
My father in laws business (concrete repair) was able to sustain itself through a yellow page ad and some community newspaper ads as the only direct paid advertising.

Referrals from past customers, people seeing the truck in the neighbourhood and on the streets and friends seeing the work afterward...combined it was all enough to keep his crew working through the season.

His was a three man crew and while there was lots of room for expansion, especially over the past two years...he had no interest in going after growth at his stage of life and career.

Word is my brother in law is taking over in the spring and I bet that there will be more marketing and expansion coming over the next few years as the company passes on the the next generation...

huggytree
09-06-2009, 08:52 AM
Ive been strongly considering sending customers a $20 off coupon for future plumbing work 1 week after the job is done....possibly sending them 2 of them asking them to give one away to a friend.

or just putting it on the back of my business cards and asking the homeowner 'how many coupons do you want?'...i can give them out when i do the job and am fresh in their minds.

orion_joel
09-06-2009, 09:16 PM
The question i suppose stands to reason do you need to do this, and is it worth the cost.

What i mean is if you for example next month get 20 customers and gave them each 2 coupons one for them and one for their friend. Over the following three months you get all 40 back when doing jobs. All up this will have cost you $800, and return an unknown value of work. Would you see this as the best way of spending $800 getting 40 jobs (potentially 20 as repeat customers and 20 new customers)?

If you are spending $20 per lead, is this cost effective? Are you going to be saving money on what it normally costs to gain a client from other advertising or spending more per lead. But then are they going to be higher quality leads.

Another consideration, is if you give them out are you going to put a limit on use eg, $20 off when you spend $200 or something. No limit could leave you doing a lot of little jobs eg change a washer, or something and giving a big discount on a small job. The final consideration could you handle the work volume. Eg if you have in the next 2 months 100 clients you did this with, and gave 2 or more cards each, and were to get them all come back could you handle the work load, and would it improve your level of work consistently, when you may need to or could add that extra employee you would like at some point?

There are a lot of things to think about i suppose. Just be sure they are all going work out well.

huggytree
09-07-2009, 09:21 AM
While I am getting more and more into service there is still alot of small stuff i dont do. Its really rare to have a job in the 1 hour range...most small jobs are 2-4 hours

is it worth $20 per new customer to expand my customer base...yes...ill put an exiration date of 2 years on them.....im just trying to expand my referrals quicker and keep more existing customers keep my card....

im still tossing the idea around....ill make a decision in a day or 2

if i got 40 calls this next month costing me $20 each it would be a dream come true....id be able to hire an employee next month....more realistic is probably about 2 or 3 a month

orion_joel
09-08-2009, 07:56 PM
If you are ok with spending $20 per referral, then you don't even really need to think about it do it. Just do it in a way that you can be sure of validity, eg 2 year expiry (if that what you want to go with), only one per transaction etc etc. The last thing you want is someone saying yeah ill take 5 for friends only to have them ring up a week later and want to use them all at once, claiming it does not say other wise.

Vivid Color Zack
09-15-2009, 04:57 PM
$20 would be a great incentive to use you as my plumber.

If you're willing to do that I say you get them printed up right away.

dbelmont
09-20-2009, 03:55 PM
While I am getting more and more into service there is still alot of small stuff i dont do. Its really rare to have a job in the 1 hour range...most small jobs are 2-4 hours

is it worth $20 per new customer to expand my customer base...yes...ill put an exiration date of 2 years on them.....im just trying to expand my referrals quicker and keep more existing customers keep my card....

im still tossing the idea around....ill make a decision in a day or 2

if i got 40 calls this next month costing me $20 each it would be a dream come true....id be able to hire an employee next month....more realistic is probably about 2 or 3 a month

You've really got 2 things going here. The idea of mining for referrals and how to offer a special that makes the phone ring. Let me talk about the referrals first.

Referrals are the thing that is keeping the lights on right now for me in my home inspection business and related areas. But I think it's effective for me because I adopted a system that is easy, fast and convenient to use since I knew I would never find the time to keep up with anything complicated. So after researching possibilities I signed on with Send Out Cards that makes staying in contact with my past clients a piece of cake. As well as being cost effective which was and is of great importance to me

I use the system to stay in touch with my past clients and and make sure they know all the services I offer. (I'd bet anyone $10 that if I asked your past customers what specific services you offer they couldn't tell me. Yes, they'd likely remember what you did for them but is that your only service and do your past clients know you do that?)

Generally I touch my past customers about every 3 months. Nothing hard sell but informative and sincerely solicitous (they are after all my clients and I want them to feel special) on how they are doing. Always offering to help them if they have questions or concerns.

I send them a custom printed greeting card 4 to 5 times per year. (5 times for first year clients and 4 for 2nd year and beyond.) My cost per card including postage is currently 1.06 which means I spend 5.30 per client the first year and 4.24 per year afterward.

I always include a comment about some service or services that I offer. Since they know what I did for them I'll often include a sentence or two about a different service that they or someone else might be interested in. Again no need for hard sell. Genuine information.

And then I ask for what I want. The referral. I'm not embarrassed about asking and you shouldn't be either. I do it in a direct manner which does vary from cycle to cycle so my note doesn't seem stale.

"If you know anyone who might need my services I would appreciate the recommendation"

"I want to ask you for help in finding good clients like yourselves. If you know anyone who fits the bill please send them my way.

From where I sit the benefit of a good referral system when you are busy is it lets you be more selective in your work. And like now, if you're not busy it pays off by sending you business you didn't expect.

And I've also found that referrals are usually not going to beat you up on price. They've been pre-sold by your old client and price just isn't the priority it can be with work for other sources.

I've also found this effective in introducing a new service. Let's me mine those who have already employed me for more work on the new service. Including special pricing offers. Since they are going to folks who already know me and have hired me it becomes just one more way to maximize my business from existing clients. (and in this economy that's vital for me)

But the truth is I think it's effective because most folks don't bother. My clients get a card from me every 3 months to remind when most business people do nothing at all. So what I do stands out. The system reminds me so I don't forget and sending the card takes less then a minute for an existing client since I only enter their info once.

So here's an offer for anyone who is thinking about setting up a system to stay in touch with your client base. If you are thinking about a referral system you'll probably do what I did and examine several options (like buying your own cards and doing all the work of mailing yourself ). Since I'm confident that you'll like the Send Out Cards system better I'll let you test drive the system for FREE.

No hassle. No sales picth. Just a free test drive. With the opportunity to send 5 quality greeting cards to anyone you like. On Me. . Drop me an email (cards@wisehi.com) or a Private Message if you're interested in taking a look and I'll send you the login details for your guest account.

If anyone wants to talk more about specific ways to have a good referral system please let me know as I have a wealth of info and I'm always glad to help.

Don Belmont