A David Creation

It is old news to say how successful Intel has been with their humorous and creative approach to advertising. Intel makes computer processors that no one but computer techies can see yet just about everyone who owns a computer knows Intel. They’ve stamped their logo in a visible place on computers everywhere. They have the reputation for building the best processors for computers.

So, as a marketing guy, I love Intel’s approach to marketing. They did not want people to just feel comfortable buying a computer that had “intel inside.” They wanted a cult following! Now they’ve secured their #1 status through their effective and downright funny ads. Great job, Intel!

How can you make your company have a fan based who loves you? Maybe a humorous commercial? A tagline? A particular service that no one else offers? A guarantee that is unbeatable? Or a leave behind gift or mascot? (think: Aflac)

View my favorite Intel Commercial.

A great way to begin or continue branding your service company is to target a couple small communities in and around where you want to work. Community advertising, in most cases, is very reasonably priced. Some neighborhoods are more organized than others and very active. You want to be part of the active ones. Ask if you can place an ad in their emails, newsletters and community postings. Another thing that works great is to discuss opportunities on how your company can help their community with projects. Let me explain, if you own a handyman business, you can suggestion that your company takes care of the community picnic tables and park bench repairs or replacements. Or if their is a clean up day, your company can provide the water, shovels, rakes, shirts, gloves and trash bags. You’d be amazed at the response you might get by suggesting these things to a community events coordinator or executive director.

One final piece of advice: don’t begin your conversations about paid advertising when you begin a relationship with a community. Wait a minute…didn’t you just say to find a community you can place an ad and market regularly? Yes I did. Let me be more specific. Typically when you connect with a community the paid advertising is separate from the community “volunteer” projects. In other words, an ad agency, printer or publishing company handles emails and newsletters. The projects around the community are run by homeowners! When you deal directly with homeowners, HOA directors and volunteers, always talk about how you can help their community. You want to become their painter! Their handyman! Their landscaper! When they need something, they call you. If you don’t have what they need, you’ll help them find it through your network.

Developing a relationship with a community takes time, a lot of time! You have to nurture this relationship possibly for years to see a real kickback of work. I’ve seen good results though in as little as 8-10 months. Don’t expect your phone to ring off the hook the first 6 months.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on a cloud computing CRM program called Zoho CRM for a year or so now.Zoho CRM is a lot like SalesForce but is a lot cheaper and has less features. However, it may not be long before Zoho because a possible threat to the expensive Salesforce giant.

Benefits of Zoho

If you are looking to go to the clouds for your business (online applications as opposed to software installed on your desktop) and you do not need a lot of bells and whistles, Zoho CRM will pretty much do the job. It is free for up to 3 users. I’d recommend the enterprise version, which is around $25 a month and gives you four unique users. You can access your data from anywhere around the world in real time. It also has a good email add on, integration to Quickbooks and syncs with Outlook. Zoho CRM also syncs with a Google Apps account. By the way, I’d highly recommend Google Apps for your business, IF you are trying to get away from Microsoft Exchange and a dedicated server.

The New iPhone and Android Version

For over a year, Zoho has promised Zoho CRM on an iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile phones. They have finally pulled through and created a Beta version. It is not an “App” but a mobile-browser version: m.zoho.com/crm#

The application, as I expected it to be is quite buggy. However, it is also awesome! It does not work well with Google Calendar at the moment and some of the functions are a little “sticky” or don’t work well yet, but I expect in a few months, Zoho CRM for iPhones and Androids will be a great tool for small business users. I do not foresee a Zoho CRM iPhone App in the near future, as that would be very expensive and this company is slow at developing.

The Bottom-line

I really wish I could fully recommend Zoho CRM for my customers both for mobile and online usage. If you happen to be tech-savvy and don’t mind overlooking a few minor bugs, then you should try this program out. It is an excellent start. I’ve already submitted a few of my request to Zoho, so we’ll see if they begin to fix those bugs. Give it a try, and let me know what you think.

In this challenging market today, consistent and sometimes aggressive prospecting will be key to keep your business moving forward. The idea of aggressive prospecting is hard for most sales and marketing guys to swallow. In a good economy, prospecting was easy. A sales guy didn’t have to do it! Instead, the office fed him quality leads all day long. If he was good, he’d close the deal 50+% of the time and continue this cycle. Now, being a salesman is a tough business, and it takes years of training and doing to become an expert. But, being just a good salesman isn’t enough when faced with difficult times.

Lesson from History

Years ago, during and after the Great Depression, prospecting, lead generation and closing was all the same thing. A salesman had to hit the streets, knock on doors, make cold visits and calls and learn all about rejection to make a sale. If he did not prospect he made no money.  We can learn something from that era: aggressive and diligent prospecting works! If you want to keep ahead of your competition and grow your business in a down economy, you need to have a prospecting plan. You need to get outside of your comfort zone.

Where to Begin

To begin a prospecting plan in your service business, start by hiring the right people. Make sure they have NO head trash and are comfortable making phone calls and meeting new prospects. Once you find the right people, give them the proper training to refine their skills, agree to a good commission or salary and send them to the streets. Their goal is to meet and greet potential prospects that would be a good fit for your business and sign them up for an estimate or meeting.

If you already have a seasoned salesman who produces great results, he might make a good prospector. You will just have to break him down a bit and get him use to the idea of aggressive prospecting. In this market, you need “all hands on deck.” All your employees must pull their own weight too. If they are not onboard asking for referrals or selling additional work, replace them.  You are building a team, a loyal team. Your job as the owner or business manager is to motivate, encourage, track results and reward for a job well done.

The bottomline is this: if your company is consistent in this market to actively look for work, outside your normal source of leads, you will sail ahead of your competition and leave them fighting an endless battle of survival. Be a maverick!

Hiring a business consultant or coach does not mean you are unintelligent. Just the opposite is true! Any small business owner is wise to decide on hiring a business consultant. As a marketing manager, I come in contact with many owners who decide against hiring a coach. Unfortunately, a large number of my clients who opted not to work with a business consultant actively have canceled their services with me. This has occurred not because I was falling short in my role as a marketing guy.  It was related to three things: 1) They were short on funds. 2) They didn’t budget the time to do what they need to do, 3) They lacked a business goal or plan. When I work with companies who have a business manager or coach, they are more organized and take their business seriously. To them it is a business, not a job.

Hiring a business consultant will keep you on track. Why did Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Pete Sampras have a coach? They understood the value of becoming even better. Their coaches observed their techniques and provided quality feedback. A business coach does just that. He will create a business plan for you, establish realistic goals, help with personnel issues, finances and budgeting, sales training, marketing, help you “replace” yourself, and even design an exit strategy.  A business consultant can tell you if you can and should hire a marketing manager, such as myself! I typically work along side a business consultant handling the marketing section.

I have had the privilege of working with a number of quality business consulting firms over the years. I endorse Summit Services Inc. They work with service companies including Painters, Remodelers, Electricians and Landscapers. They are the most organized and results-driven consulting firm I know. Brian Nolan, Summit’s founder, has done an incredible job coaching some of the best painters in the industry. Summit provides monthly coaching calls, webinars, sales training, marketing management, field training, accounting services, peer to peer networking, and much more. I was talking to a potential member of Summit last week and shared with him that some of the most intelligent small business owners I’ve met have a business coach and/or are members of Summit. The point I made to him is, you are NOT a wimp for getting outside help. Some of the greatest business CEOs, managers and presidents of fortune 500 companies have business consultants and coaches!

So, I’d highly recommend a business coach for your business. If you are truly serious about running a business, you need good accountability to stay on track and achieve your goals. I’ve been around small businesses most of my life and the ones who succeed have a plan and work at it!

Before people purchase a product or hire a service company, they typically will do at least two things: 1) View a companies’ testimonials and 2) View their work or images of products. How do people view your current website? Do you have good testimonials and a quality portfolio? What about effective and short video clips?

Videos are growing in popularity do to companies like YouTube and Vimeo.  A YouTube video, for example, actually can help drive traffic to your website. In any case, videos are an effective marketing source. If done correctly, you will see sales increase. If the video content or filming is poor, you will see your “bounce rate” go up (people will leave your site). Video advertising should be look upon as a piece of the marketing pie: websites, proximity mailers, newsletters, customer marketing, video, events, etc. A quality video is worth the investment.

If you commit to doing a video on your website as a service company, I’d suggest filming simple clips of your office staff, your shop, your crew, customer testimonials or even your sales process.

Visit the links below to see how some larger companies use video testimonials to sell their product/service. The clips are short and simple, yet effective. You’ll see two types: testimonials and how to videos.

1. 37Signals: “What Customers Have to Say” Section
2. Highrise CRM Tour: Short How To Videos
3. Apple’s iPad Video: (was on home page) After watching the video ask yourself, “Do I want one?”
4. Kindle on Amazon.com
5. Plumbing Company in Boston (good videos: though I would have let people know how long the clips were before clicking on them and slowed it down a tad)

I recently decided to give the voice to text application, Jott a try, and so far, I really like it. I am fast at typing on my computer and iPhone. However, when I’m driving my mind thinks about a lot of things: reminders, appointments, follow ups, ideas, etc. I cannot always get out my phone and type everything down the moment I think about it. Now, with Jott I can voice what I want done and in seconds, my voice is recorded, turned into text and recorded in the proper place. For example, if I want to set an appointment on my Google calendar with a client for 1:00PM on a Friday, I call the toll free Jott number, Say “Google Calendar” and after the beep I respond with “Marketing Meeting with Client Today at 1PM.” I then hang up…and in a few minutes, my Google Calendar displays “Marketing Meeting with Client” at 1PM.”

Jott is a great way to send yourself reminders and voice memos via email or right on your calendar. So instead of texting while driving, use Jott on your mobile phone. Oh, and you don’t need an iPhone. It works with just about any device. The cost is around $3.95 a month. If it saves you time, it is definitely worth it. Jott also has a more expensive subscription for Salesforce CRM users. This price is $25 a month. To me, it is very steep, and I don’t know who would use it as Salesforce alone is already pricey at $65 per mobile user.

I recently purchased a $.99 App for my iPhone called Swipe that makes receiving credit card payments easy while on the go. I am testing this App to see how easy it is to use for mobile users. I thought this would be a great tool for service companies. With a few simple clicks and entering a credit card, a Swipe user can accept payments in seconds and email receipts. So far, I’m very impressed with this new App. For Blackberry users, try this free Credit Card App.

Most paint companies I work with request an up front deposit. Getting the deposit can be difficult if you don’t do it on the spot. If you had a mobile credit card application for your mobile device, the customer has no excuse but to pay right away.

It might look something like this, “Mr. Franklin, I’m really looking forward to working with you. All I need is a signature approving our proposal and what method of payment you wish to use for the deposit?” if they don’t write you a check which would be great then you’d say, “Oh and by the way, we take VISA, MasterCard and American Express, and I can run the card right now and send you a receipt. What card would you like to use?”

The major complaint most folks have with Credit Cards is the transaction fees. The second complaint I hear often is, “I can never collect a deposit in a timely manner.” Well, even though there is a transaction fee, you might want to at least consider pushing the deposits on a credit card. It is easy, and you get your money typically in less than 24 hours.

Oh…and depending on the types of services you perform, Swipe makes it easy to type in a list of services and pricing. So, for Painters, you can have a “Color Consultation” $95 fee or “Painter For a Day (full day) $500 etc.

The setup for Swipe was very easy. The hardest part was looking up my merchant account from Authorize.net.