Just a quick diversion from our 101 Tips series!

Today I want to talk about 6 really effective Marketing Tools that bring in customers by the truck load!

These 6 marketing tools are:

1. flyers with good copy

2. vehicle signage

3. a well constructed and crafted website  with good SEO (search engine optimisation) and with good copy

4. well designed business cards

5. a great USP and good copywriting

6. a well designed system of generating solid referrals

Next time I am going out on a limb to tell you the marketing failures that really suck! I’m going to name and shame the things to stay right away from!!!

101 Tips continued:

21. Have controls and mechanisms in place so you can see what is happening at any time in the business – this refers to systems, so if you want to see how many quotes (and conversion rates etc) you are doing in a week then you can quickly find this information

22. Learn to delegate, but also teach your employees about effective prioritisation - this is a good point! The only way you can delegate is by teaching your staff to do all their jobs properly and in a systematic way. This takes patience but pays dividends in the long run. Regarding prioritisation, I guess this applies to your senior staff, say managers etc.

23. Relax, treat the business like a game, and you will think better - This relaxing attitude comes with time, especially after you install and implement systems in your business.

24 Give your business a full health check at least once a year – just like we all should go for the annual health check – to make sure everything is working properly. In the same way we can give the business a once over each year. I think this applies really well to your marketing strategy. Each year you should see what works and what doesn’t in your marketing. Get rid of the marketing deadwood so to speak!

25. Analyse what you already know because what you assume you knew may have changed – what can I say. yes I agree with this. Don’t assume anything, keep asking questions and seek answers.

101 Tips continued:

16. The more people you you hire, the greater the potential headaches, yet the greater the potential gain. Balance your objectives – No Pain, No Gain is the cliche! However, if you put in place good systems you should be able to train up staff to be productive in your business without too many headaches.

17. Employ positive people – this goes without saying.

18. Avoid negative people – ditto the last tip. At all cost avoid hanging around negative people, they just suck the life-blood out of you, and you will find it hard to be creative in your own business.

19. Respect your employees. Value their work and praise them when they do a good job – this is really important, we all need to recognise positive results with positive reinforcement.

20. Never assume you are right. Before you criticise ask for the facts. It’s amazing how often you will be wrong in assuming the worse of people rather than the best- my brother-in-law often says, “It is better to be nice, than right!” In other words, you don’t have to have the last say or always have to correct people or always have to be right, rather, just be agreeable and you will get on just fine. Also, get the facts first before tearing someone apart!

What are your thoughts? Can you add any good ideas to the tips? If so, please leave a comment.

101 Tips continued:

Note: Just a reminder that this list of tips I found in a big cleanup in my office has been collecting dust for years. Some of these tips are sort of not related to us, nevertheless, we can get some mileage out of them…hence I will see how they can relate to us anyway!

11. Concentrate on your voice control & volume to improve your professional impact- another mmmm! Look, I do agree with this, however, the sort of presentation you will be doing in front of your lawn mowing and gardening customers will be in the form of asking questions and taking notes. If you have had any experience with acting (as I have, and here is the proof - look for my name, Gerry Faehrmann, at the bottom of the linked page) you will understand the importance of voice control and volume. However, I think we can relax a bit on this point for now.

12. Buy a nice suit, spend the extra money. It is worth it- this is quite comical…well, we are contractors / tradies after all. Okay, we are not going to buy an Armani suit, but it is really important, that if you want to project a professional image, then you need to have a uniform that looks the part

13. Be professional in your customers’ eyes at all times. As soon as you relax you lose the sale and their respect – one thing I have learnt from Business Coaches and from my own experience is as soon as you have given your quote (and told the customer that if they decide to go ahead you will have the job completed within 7 days) you say your courteous goodbye and leave immediately. Contractors that hang around for a chat do not project a “I am very busy” attitude.

14. Work backwards. Start off with how much you want to earn, and then work backwards to the amount of activity that you need to implement to generate the desired revenue – this is standard when you are writing your business plan…always start with what you want to earn for 52 weeks (be adventurous as well!), and break this down to weekly and monthly figures. Then you can work out how you go about getting the weekly targets with the different marketing tactics etc.

15. Think profit, not sales – this is so true…your business plan needs to take into account the dollar quality of jobs you take on. Please don’t sell yourself short. The “Zero To A Hundred K in 30 Days” Blueprint demonstrates this with the Fixed Price quoting system.

What do you think of my commentary? All I am trying to achieve here is to add my take (that is, my experience and knowledge) to the different tips that somebody else wrote years ago.

101 Tips continued:

6. If an order comes in by mail or over the fax or phone, don’t process it, try and generate more business and upsell it – the message here is like at McDonalds where they take your order, and always they ask you “Would you like fries with that?”.

7. Concentrate on your positioning and angles of campaigns and spend less time on fancy artwork – this is so true…if you don’t have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) then don’t waste your money on fancy (and ill-thought through) flyers that won’t bring in any business anyway!

8. Send a newsletter that tells your customers that you are interested in their needs – this is so easily done in the gardening related industry. You can write a short letter or newsletter to your customers about different gardening topics depending on the month of the year or the season. This newsletter can be via email or snail mail.

9. Keeping your customers informed of what you are doing –  let your customers know what you are doing – personalise your business, tell them when you are going on holidays, what equipment you have bought for the business, etc

10. Develop an action plan, and action it! – your plan of action only needs to be a few lines, just make sure you start implementing your ideas, that is, create a list of things to do and start ticking them off!

start making those little 1% changes to your business each week…and you will have a thriving business in no time

or more simply known as,

The “Nought To A Hundred K in 30 Days” Blueprint.

I am working pretty hard on getting this Blueprint (Report) together, spending a fair bit of my spare time putting together all the ideas and knowledge I have gathered over the last 19 years in the Lawn and Gardening Industry.

The “Nought To A Hundred K in 30 Days” Blueprint is a report based on:

1. over 19 years of industry experience
2. ideas and marketing knowledge shared with other successful contractors
3. marketing knowledge developed from experience, attending lots of seminars, reading copious marketing and business books, and
4. 3 years part-time of formal university study resulting in a Masters Of Business Administration from Macquarie University (in Sydney, Australia)

The Core Business Model of The “Nought To A Hundred K In 30 Days” Blueprint takes into account the following 7 factors:

1. you can hit the ground running with less than $300 in advertising costs
2. you can create a pipe-line of jobs just like Turning On A Tap
3. you are motivated for success
4. your competition is minimal
5. you will charge more for your service than you thought possible
6. you will under promise and over deliver
7. you get out of bed early each day, that is, You won’t be sleeping in!

The Blueprint report also explores the following:

1. the core Business Model and why it’s a go-er – that is, How To Implement The Strategy Successfully
2. Forecasting For Success
3. 6 Long-Term Business Strategies that support the core Business Model
4. 4 Business Strategies that I Do Not Recommend, and the reasons Why
5. and much much more ( the report is around 30 pages of solid information)

I am hopeful The Blueprint report will be ready for release in early 2010.

So to be 1 of the first to read The Blueprint, please make a Comment (and leave your email address), or alternately, hit the Grab The Content Feed (RSS) button on top Right Hand corner of the is page.

Thanks again for calling by. I will resume writing my regular weekly post next week.

In these less than glamorous times we live in (with the roller coaster Global Economy), we should be forever mindful that Marketing our Business should be our Number 1 focus!

In my mind, there are 7 Key Elements You Need to Successfully Market Your Business in Good Times & Bad.

These 7 elements are:

1. Marketing is Your Job First and Foremost – Marketing should be your #1 Priority Always
2. You should make it Your Business to do something everyday to market your business
3. Focus on getting Quality Leads (or Prospects) – in other words, it is far better to have a few Quality Customers than lots of low paying customers
4. Aim for Expert Status – become the expert in your field, otherwise develop your own niche
5. Don’t worry about branding your business so much, rather build Your Profile with consistent and effective direct response marketing efforts like flyers, website, referral systems
6. Establish an online presence – this something we are working on to provide for Free to our future Contractor partners
7. Always remember Your best customers are Your existing Customers – it is 9 times easier to sell to Your Existing Customers than to Prospects

Just how do You know whether Your Customers value Your Service? The answer is in the asking, that is, by surveying Your Customers! You will never know how well You are performing if You never ask!

You can forget about how profitable Your business is, if Your Customers are not happy! So the obvious thing to do is ask Your Customers how they rate the performance of Your service!

In designing a Customer Satisfaction Survey, you will need to identify the critical areas of performance that your customers can judge you on. These criticals areas may include whether:

1. you delivered your service on time
2. your service was acceptable
3. you provided adequate after sales service
4. you responded well to after sales enquiries
5. you delivered at every point of contact with customers

The key customer performance areas (that can be rated on a scale of 1 to 10) include:

1. product/service quality
2. on time service delivery
3. additional services provided
4. staff courtesy
5. staff professionalism
6. staff knowledge of products and service
7. complaint resolution
8. ease of doing business
9. invoicing and accounts
10. general expectations versus reality
11. responsiveness to enquiries
12. after sales service

It will help in your own business to identify the Points Of Contact that you have with Prospects and Customers, then to see how prospects and customers rate you on these interactions.

These Points Of Contact with customers include:

1. Initial telephone enquiry – how is Your telephone (Bedside) manner
2. Prospect expectations met with when quote will be done
3. If prospect goes ahead with quote, when can they expect the job to be completed by
4. Your in person bedside manner
5. Your presentation – uniform and manner
6. Your phone manner with arrogant prospects and customers
7. Your phone manner with irate customers

Last week in “How To Improve The Sales Figures In Your Lawn Mowing Business” we spoke about the 3 generic ways that any business can improve its sales and turnover figures.

These are:

• Increase the number of customers – ie getting more customers from an increased level of advertising and promotion
• Increase the frequency of sales to existing customers – ie customers buying more often
• Increase the dollar value per sale – ie putting your price up

The 3rd way – by increasing the dollar value per sale – is worth exploring to see if we can open our eyes to further possibilities!

A price rise is a rather unimaginative but highly effective way of increasing the customer spend with you. However, you could also look at providing your products, services or both in bundles that are presented with an emphasis on quality or more features.

…products, services or both in bundles that are presented with an emphasis on quality or more features…

What is good with this is you can charge more for your service because you have differentiated yourself from your competition!

You may:

1. Launch a premium version of existing service or product ie mowing with a cylinder or barrel mower
2. Increase the price in line with inflation – make sure this is documented in your flyer
3. Charge for incidentals like tipping, remove grass clippings, an add on service that does not take too long
4. Charge a premium for immediate service – charge a premium for weekend work especially if you have been called out at late notice – do not be afraid of capitalising on customer’s desperation
5. Bundle your service with other suppliers
6. Offer a discount for services that run for more than 6 hours - larger jobs can be completed with extra staff – in the end you make more per hour!
7. Develop new services that can be bundled with your existing service – new services may include Mulching (chipping) service, irrigation installations and repairs, tankwater installations, trench digging service for plumbers and other irrigation contractors (where trenching machine is already used in your irrigation business) etc

In any business, the sales number can be increased by doing the following 3 things:

• Increase the number of customers – ie. more customers
• Increase the frequency of sales to existing customers – ie. customers buying more often
• Increase the dollar value per sale – ie. putting your price up

When you are looking to improve your bottom line by improving the Sales number consider the following:

1. Brainstorm with your customers (via surveys), friends and staff on all the possible ways that you might be able to increase sales
2. Can you increase your sales by improving your marketing strategies – ie. are there new markets (residential, corporates, factories, strata etc) that you could sell to, can you add new features to your product and services bundles, can you bundle with other products, increase the price or improve your advertising
3. Could you provide incentives to encourage employees, staff or sub-contractors to improve their sales or improve the level of customer satisfaction
4. Could you improve on sales and telephone script training
5. Could you improve on conversion rates from leads to sales
6. Could you employ more sales people

One last thing is…try not to be all things to all men! Make a point of specialising in a certain area of landscape management…create a niche for yourself! By creating a niche you make it easier for customers to seek you out!