MegaMarketer Coachcast for Contractors

Learn how to market in a Covid-19 world.

2020 is here and now is your chance to get your year off to a roaring start! Listen to Justin's top five marketing tips for getting your marketing off on the right foot this season, eliminating marketing stress, and finally getting the results you've been hoping for year after year.

Key Lessons Learned:

Hopes and Dreams

• Everyone wants basically the same things: more income, more time with our families, less stress. But we often fail to determine how to get there or put systems in place to help us.
• There is a simple marketing strategy that you can use to make 2020 the best year for your business yet.
• Doing the same things you've done every year before now are not going to get you where you want to go. Follow these five tips to supercharge your 2020.

Tip #1: Quit Thinking Your Old Marketing Will Suddenly Have New Results

• Contractors often run the same ad year after year but the world looks much different now than it did in 2016.
• If it's not helping your image or your lead count, dump it and start over.
• Start with fresh messaging and better targeting and watch your market respond.

Tip #2: Set A Marketing Budget

• Only one in eight contractors set a marketing budget at the beginning of the year, even less do it right.
• If you're aggressively pursuing market share, it's going to cost you 6%-8% of your topline sales. Moderate marketers spend 4%-6% and marketers looking to just maintain results will spend 2%-4%.
• If you want aggressive growth but are spending 2% or less, you're not going to get the results you want.
• Marketing is an investment in yourself and your own business. Wisely spend what it takes to reach your goal and you'll be rewarded.

Tip #3: Set Something In Motion, No Matter How Small

• Look at your year and divide it into four seasons, two peak and two off seasons. Figure out how much you will spend to promote during those times and then decide how you will deliver your message and what media type to use.
• Just doing this will put you ahead of most of the competition.

Tip #4: Zig While Your Competition Zags

• Most contractors still use the competition as a model but you can't stand out by being the same as everyone else.
• Typical contractor marketing is sterile and boring, this makes it practically invisible to homeowners.
• Your marketing should be the most unique and interesting part of your business. Show off your unique personality and how your benefits separate you from the competition.

Tip #5: Quit Manic Marketing

• Instead of panicking at the last minute and throwing something together, have ads ready to go that fit the season and the situation.
• A little bit of planning now will eliminate the majority of your marketing stress. You know the products and services, and you understand the seasonal patterns that are coming. Get ahead of them now.
• If you wait until the phone stops ringing to react, it's already far too late.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

800-489-9099

[email protected]

Summary:

In this month's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is on the podcast today with Lynn Wise and they are covering a common experience for many contractors. Every contractor knows how frustrating it can be when a customer says that they can do the work themselves, so why do those same contractors do the same thing with their business?

Key Lessons Learned:

Do-it-Yourselfers

• Everybody has had the experience of talking to a potential customer who believes that they can probably take care of the work themselves. There is a ton of content on YouTube so they think they are only a couple of videos away from being an expert.
• This conversation is an opportunity to come to their rescue and remind them they would be dealing with electricity or advanced machinery, and they are better off deferring to the professionals.
• We all have a tendency to believe we are capable of taking care of ourselves and ignoring the advice of professionals. When that's combined with our desire to save money, we can see why so many people believe they can do the work themselves.

Contractor In Charge

• Lynn Wise developed the concept of Contractor In Charge after being in the contractor industry for 15 years.
• The reality is that contractors don't have enough time in the day or resources to manage every single aspect of their business. Contractor In Charge is a centralized solution that allows contractors to focus on growing their business by providing exceptional service.
• The main services include answering inbound calls, making outbound calls for scheduling tune ups and preventative maintenance agreements, sending out marketing campaigns, and full service bookkeeping. They also use a method of cash flow management based on the KPI's of the industry.
• The main reasons that clients come to Contractor In Charge are many contractors feel like they are being held hostage by an employee and want to get out, or they've realized that they don't have the right skills to keep growing their business.
• Fear of the unknown is the main reason people shy away from working with them. They don't know what they don't know, but they are intimately aware of the mess they are already in.

The Benefits of Delegating

• Contractor In Charge professionals are all certified in accounting and a variety of other technical skills. Each associate has in depth training that allows them to be the best at what they do, whether that's answering the phone or managing cash flow.
• There is also the benefit of not having to train anyone to take care of those aspects of your business. Contractor In Charge is plug and play.
• Contractor In Charge saves the average company between 40-45% of a per hour charge compared to what it would cost to have an employee handle all these tasks.
• It's hard to understand and see the impact of not having someone available to handle things like phone calls all the time.
• You can waste plenty of money rushing into things like marketing or hiring the wrong people, by outsourcing and delegating to people that specialize in those things you can get all the benefits and avoid the downsides.
• Nobody expects the contractor to know everything, but they do expect things to get done. If your business is going to last, things like accounting and bookkeeping need to be handled properly. To be successful you need to have the right programs in place.
• Just like the customers that believe they can do everything themselves, not handling things correctly will cost you. Just by having someone who simply knows what they doing answering your phones can completely change your business.
• Another side benefit of delegating the phone work to Contractor In Charge is they can help your CSR's avoid making those awkward collection calls to people in their own community.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

[email protected]

Contractorincharge.com

813-438-3666

[email protected]

Mention you heard of them from the Hudson Ink podcast before Dec 31, 2019 to get your set up fee waived!

Summary:

In this month's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is talking about one of the biggest holidays of the year and how you can leverage the holiday season to better connect with your customers while also growing your business.

Key Lessons Learned:

Marketing During the Holidays

• You may have noticed that many businesses started preparing for the Christmas holidays well before Halloween was even done with.
• Even before we've carved up the turkey, we are already planning for what is going to go under the tree.
• During the winter holiday season, more money will change hands than during any other time of the year. The trouble is this money is not typically spent on preventative maintenance.
• Emergency calls will come just like always but just because your market is distracted, that doesn't mean you can take time off from your marketing.
• The most effective tactic for service businesses to get their customer's attention is to get into the holiday spirit with them. You have to be a little more creative but the goal is to stand out from your competition and connect with your customer. If you can do that, you win.

Holiday Marketing Tactics

• Create a holiday themed offer. Package your services into a holiday offer where you defer the payments. Give them a little bit of breathing room because finances are typically pretty stretched after the holidays.
• Zig Ziglar once said "You can have everything in life that you want, if you'll simply help others get what they want." You want to sell more products and services, your prospects what to find more cash for the holidays while keeping their home efficiently run. If you make it make sense and let the customer justify the move in their own mind, their answer is much more likely to be yes.
• Be santa's helper. For mature homeowners a gift certificate for a home service can be very valuable. You can offer them to your existing customer base and let them do the marketing for you.
• You can be as aggressive as you like with the offers, but be careful because you don't want your existing customers to feel slighted.
• Sponsoring local holiday events is another great way to get your message into the market. There are huge crowds involved with these kinds of events and they will see you as linked in to the community.
• Be PR savvy during the holiday season. Find new ways to get your ideas into the hands of the news outlets. Most local news stations or newspapers would love for an expert to give weekly content that is relevant to homeowners in their area.
• Don't be too pushy or salesy, this isn't advertising. It's a long term strategy and the more homeowners that see you as an authority on their home's comfort, the better.
• Have a float in the local Christmas parade or donate some presents to kids in need. We deal with our customers on some pretty rough days in their life, is that how you want homeowners to remember you? We decide our customer's perception more than we think we do.
• Decorate your website for the holidays. Look festive and join in the spirit of things. Web traffic jumped a 150% on Black Friday and 210% on Cyber Monday last year. Join in the fun by adding a few holiday elements like a wreath to your website. Contractors are typically seen as cold and industrial, break that tendency by decorating your site and social media.
• If you're having trouble building your social media, tag your friends and family in holiday photos. Their friends and family will see those pictures more often and will be more likely to share them as well.
• Consider recording a holiday greeting video for your site. Be warm and personal and let customers see into the real people in your business. When a prospect sees happy employees and people they know from the community, they are more likely to do business with you.
• If your website is not optimized for local traffic it's time to do something about that. More searches and web traffic is being conducted on mobile than ever before. Mobile traffic is increasing 20% to 30% each year, and if your site isn't optimized you are losing that traffic.
• Change up your phone greeting and include a quick "happy holidays" or "Merry Christmas". Even if it's someone calling to complain, it will be a quick reminder that you are dealing with real people that want the best for their customers.
• It's kind of ironic that the biggest sales day of the year is the day after Thanksgiving. True thankfulness is a lost idea for most of us. Make it a point to reach out to your customers with a heartfelt gesture and tell them how much it means that they chose you for their business.
• To many contractors, this seems like a wasted effort, but we've seen this investment pay back the following year in added activity and referrals. Doing something different and unexpected is a good thing and will set you apart. When people feel a connection with you and feel appreciated, they will pay you back with their wallets.
• It's eight times more expensive to get a new customer or buy one back than it does to simply keep the ones you have active and engaged.
• Not many contractors will make these adjustments and take the time to create a seasonal offer, because they take added effort. Not many contractors are willing to do what it takes to be as successful as they could be.
• Long term success doesn't come from doing one big thing right one time, it comes from committing yourself to doing all the little things right on a consistent basis.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

[email protected]

hudsonink.com/holidaycards

800-489-9099

In this month's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is flying solo and talking about how to keep your phone ringing during the upcoming slow season.

Key Lessons Learned:

Marketing Your Service Business

• The HVAC world is and always will be driven by weather, and there is nothing we can do about that. When the AC isn't running full blast all day, the chances of failure goes way down.
• There will always be peaks and valleys in your lead counts, but good marketing makes everything more consistent.
• There are two ways to keep your lead flow consistent, a strong maintenance agreement plan and strong customer engagement.

Your Service Business on Social Media

• Social media is not just for teenagers. According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of US adults have a Facebook account, and two thirds of those people visit the site at least once per day.
• In many ways, the adults have taken over Facebook and driven the kids away. Now they're on other social networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.
• Facebook may not like it but it's great for service businesses. In 2018, the average age of Facebook users was 55. Along with being older those users skewed towards medium to high income.
• Facebook is becoming one of the fastest growing search engines in the world, but what people are searching for is completely different from search engines like Google. People are on Facebook to be entertained and catch up on other people's lives.
• That doesn't mean that you can't capture someone's attention, you just have to use a different strategy to stand out.
• Any posts on social media need three things: they have to be engaging, it has to be relevant, and it has to be interactive.
• Our eyes decide what's worth out time before we ever read a line of copy. Spend time on the design of your post and you will see your interaction increase.
• You can have the most beautifully designed post but if the person doesn't care about it, it's not going to matter.
• If you don't have a plan to add value to your audience with your posts, don't bother. People want to hear about things that will benefit them, and if you can do that without being pushy and salesy, people will interact with you.
• A customer is 82% less likely to drift to a competitor if they feel like they have an ongoing connection with you. Social media gives them that forum and allows them to be heard.

Dealing With Negative Feedback

• You can't please everyone, there will be some people that complain on social media but it's better to know about the problem so you can fix it.
• When a problem does pop up, interact with that person and try to make it right. When other people see that you handle complaints in a professional manner and in good faith, it can actually work in your favor.
• 76% of people will give feedback if they are given an easy way to do so and they're asked. Social media makes it easy because people are willing to talk about their experiences.

Common Social Media Mistakes

• Advertising to an empty room. Your follower number is the maximum number of people who will see your posts organically, but if the only people that follow your page are employees and family members it's not very valuable.
• It takes some work on the front end to build up your follower count but it's worth it.
• Consistently posting on social media is a challenge for many contractors. It's common to see business pages with only a handle of posts each year and it's not enough to keep that business top of mind with their customers.
• Most people don't want to hear from their contractor everyday, the best frequency is once per week and only as long as the information is valuable and useful to the homeowner.
• Be careful where you are sending your audience, when you share a link to another website you are pushing your customers to someone else's business.
• The best scenario is sharing articles that are on your website. That makes you the expert while also contributing to your search engine rankings.
• With the right marketing strategy and a little bit of effort you can see a lot of return for your money and time. Putting these little systems in place will smooth over your slow season and make your lead flow a little more consistent and reliable.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

[email protected]

[email protected]

https://hudsonink.com/

Phone: 1-800-489-9099

How Hard Are You To Do Business With?

Summary:

In this month's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacobs and David Tester talk about getting the most out of your sales calls. Learn about the five most important pieces of info you need to get out of every phone call and why great marketing can't overcome a bad sales process.

Key Lessons Learned:

Why Your Sales Process Matters

• Web traffic on cell phones is up 220% over the last 5 years so your website has to be mobile optimized to take advantage of the growth in mobile traffic.
• 70% of homeowners will forget about you in the first three months if you don't reach out to them after your first invoice.
• The breakfast of champions is feedback. The number one thing you can do today is to call your own business and see how hard it is to get a hold of you.
• Is your team answering within three rings? If not, you're losing business. Your team should be on red alert when the phone rings.
• Are you listening with the intent to understand, or with the intent to respond?
• Are you speaking with empathy while trying to build rapport? Or are you speaking so fast that the person on the other end feels lost and confused?
• Is your automated answering machine too complicated, so that you're frustrating the caller and driving them to your competition? Automating and outsourcing your inbound calls may save you time while making it harder on your customer. If it's preventing you from booking an appointment is it worth it?
• Answer the phone and take care of your customer, don't make them work through multiple automated menus just to speak to a real person.
• You can generate any number of leads for your business but if your sales process doesn't work well and captures the caller's info it can make those leads worthless.
• The little details of how you deal with customers as they call in can add up to significant revenue for your business or be a considerable but mostly invisible expense.

The Big Five Pieces of Information You Need From Every Call

• When someone calls, coach your team to get their first and last name.
• Next up is the caller's phone number.
• An easy one to forget is to also asking how the caller heard about you, so that you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing.
• The final step is to invite them to schedule an appointment with your business.
• They called you for a reason but life often gets in the way. By collecting that info you can call them back if you get disconnected and show them that you care enough about their problems to reach out again.
• Listen and take notes before trying to diagnose the caller's problem. It's very easy to go right into the technical details of the call but that's also an easy mistake to make. Most potential customers don't know the details and it's not a great idea to make your customer feel dumb.
• You should make your customer feel good about the overall experience. Use their first name during the conversation and keep asking questions to get to know the customer better.
• It's important to follow a script for every call and to check in and listen to your calls as they happen. The worst time to think of something is the moment it comes out of your mouth, have a script instead. Without randomly checking the calls you can be confident the script is probably not being followed.
• Do not quote prices on the call. Nine times out of ten their inquiries or concern has nothing to do with price. Always ask why the caller is asking instead.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

godavetester.com

Email [email protected] for your free script.

Phone: 800-489-9099

Summary:

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and Jimmy Hiller talk about a problem that is plaguing the industry. Hiring is something that every business struggles with but Jimmy has some unique advice that will make it easier for you to find the right people for business.

Key Lessons Learned:

The Origins of Hiller

• Jimmy had his first job as a senior in highschool pumping gas but he didn't have a lot of direction in his life. His father guided him to become a plumber and after working for several years and getting his Master's licence went into business for himself.
• There are three things that Jimmy attributes his success to. Jimmy knew he always wanted to be a business owner and it's important to know what you want in the first place.
• Jimmy was also willing to do whatever it takes to make his business successful. That meant going out and learning the things you don't know right now.
• The third element of success is tenacity. The world will knock you down and you have to make the decision to get back and move forward with your life if you want to succeed.
• In terms of daily struggles, finding good people is the ever present and greatest challenge to building a great business.

Hiring The Right Team Members

• Early on Jimmy had relationships with everyone that worked for him, but now that his business is so large that's not really possible. Now he lays the foundation for the kinds of people they are looking for within the business.
• The first thing they look for is a good attitude. Are they going to show up and be happy to work there, as well as put in a good effort.
• Next they look for skill, but they've got the training and knowledge so if the person has the right attitude Jimmy's business can impart the skills.
• If you effort, attitude, and skill on a foundation of integrity then you have what Jimmy calls the "perfect picture of an employee".
• When hiring people it's important to have an established and reliable process. For Jimmy that includes drug testing and background checks.

The Zig Ziglar Connection

• One of Zig Zigler's more famous quotes is "You can have everything in life you want, if you help other people get what they want."
• Jimmy listened to Zig Zigler for many years, he was actually fortunate enough to become Zigler Legacy certified and can now teach Zig Zigler's methods.
• When a customer calls you they want to solve their problem. Your business needs the revenue the customer has to keep the business going. The employee that services that customer wants to provide for their family or rise in the organization. As the business owner, it's your job to help them achieve those goals.

Keeping The Hiring Pipeline Full

• There is a shortage of people in the industry so looking for the right pool to find people is crucial. For Jimmy one of the best places to look is the military.
• The discipline that the military instills aligns very well with working in the trades. Jimmy has developed a close relationship with the nearby military base and offers a lot of people coming out of the military employment opportunities.
• Jimmy's business developed a training program that has trained over 470 soldiers and 94% of them have found a job in the trade.
• Jimmy has employees that have worked for him from anywhere to 18 years to just six months. His business is hiring anywhere from 10 to 15 per month depending on the market they're in.
• If you're in a smaller population area, the first thing to realize is that there are qualified people out there. There are kids who are graduating from highschool that want to get into a trade but just don't know what the path is.
• Getting someone in the business when they are younger gives you the opportunity to train them exactly the way you want to and gives them a great foothold in the industry.
• Hiring employees is an investment, you have to make sure you are finding the right individuals. You have to put in the work to find them but they are out there.

Increasing Interest In The Trades

• The industry needs to reach out to highschool guidance counsellors if they want to increase interest in the trades.
• They are realizing that college is not the best answer for every student. If you have any kind of training in the trades, you can find a job somewhere.
• You have to show up and get in front of the guidance counsellors and they will get you in front of the students. Highschool teachers want their students to be successful and the trades are a great way for people to build a successful life.

The Smart Contractor vs The Wise Contractor

• The smart contractor works hard and learns from his mistakes and never makes those mistakes again. The wise contractor finds somebody who has been where they want to go and then never makes those mistakes.
• Mentors can open your eyes to a world of opportunity that you didn't even realize existed.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

[email protected]

[email protected]

800-489-9099

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talk about preparing for the slow season instead of reacting to it once it's already here. Find out why being proactive can pay off for your business. Right now is the time to get a game plan for the fall.

Key Lessons Learned:

Make Sure You're Offering Maintenance Agreements

• Servicing maintenance agreements during the off season is the only way a lot of business owners keep their techs busy.
• With any new customers you serve you should be doing your best to make sure you sell them a maintenance agreement.
• You can access of pair of scripts to help you with the maintenance agreement conversation with your customers within your Hudsons Ink coaching resources.
• So many contractors lack a compelling maintenance agreement to offer their customer and that's a big problem. Maintenance agreements are a great way to keep your techs busy and avoid laying people off during slow seasons.

You Need To Focus On Customer Retention

• Leads and customers are hard to come by, so once you have them make sure they stick around.
• Get all the customer's information that you can when you're in their home so that you can follow up with them and market to them more effectively.
• Don't get so busy during the busy season that you forget about marketing. You should always be on top of mind for your market so that when someone searches for your service in an emergency your business is the one on the top of the list.

What You Should Be Focusing On Social Media

• Email addresses are extremely valuable to your business, don't forget to ask the customer when you visit them at their home.
• People often wonder what to post on social media or doubt that you can generate business with it but in some ways it's possible. As long as you're saying something interesting, people will be okay with you talking to them.
• Social media can be a great tool to keep people engaged with your brand, but it's important to keep it professional.
• One day you will want to communicate with them regarding a sale, as long as you are adding value to the relationship most of the time people will be happy to see what you have to offer.
• Being active on social media is a great way to foster a sense of community but it can also help you recruit new employees as well.
• Be careful about what you are sharing. As much of the content that you share as possible should go to your website.

Reputation Management

• Lots of business owners get a lot of sales through word of mouth but technology has moved that process online. Reviews are the new word of mouth.
• You should have a process in place for gathering as many positive reviews from your customers as possible.
• If you do get a negative review, having a plan to gather positive reviews is a way to protect yourself from the impact by diluting the negativity.
• Feedback in reviews is an opportunity to grow, positive or negative. Negative reviews may reveal areas of your business that actually need to be improved.
• Techs should be looking to prevent issues before they leave the home.
• Beware of companies that gather reviews for you and make sure you are the owner of them. Also be wary of paying people for reviews.

Focus On Getting Referrals

• Take get so busy trying to fill up the schedule that you forget to ask for a referral.
• Make sure you leave a lawn sign and cloverleafing the surrounding homes so that you can get those referrals.
• Don't get so busy that you forget about the simple things that are going to help your marketing.
• Build a list of people that you can follow up with and generate business once your phone starts to slow down.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

800-489-9099