The ROAD - A secret to small business success

This is a nice, short, motivational video you can watch to give your week a good start!

12 Ways To Build Memorability

Twelve Dozen Small Service Business Blog Ideas

I was encouraging a contractor to start a blog for her business yesterday. She was stumped by the subject matter. She knew that geekspeak about her products and services would bore customers.

I told her the purpose of a blog isn't to shout product information at customers. It's to build relationships. And then, every so often (but not too often), make a special offer or directly promote the company.

How do you build relationships? Talk about things that interest your customers. Here's a checklist of blogging topics for a small business focused on a geographic market...

Garden Related

• Growing a herb garden
  
• Organic gardening tips
  
• Beneficial insects
  
• What to plant this month
  
• When to fertilize
  
• Vegitable gardening
  
• Roses and other flowers
  
• Planting bulbs
  
• Garden design
  
• Interesting garden pictures
  
• Local botanical gardens
  
• Composting
  
• Community gardens
  
• Butterfly gardens
  
• Attracting birds
  
• Repelling pests
  
• Color in gardens
  
• Xeriscaping
  
• Bonsai plants
  
• Lawns
  
• Watering tips

Household Tips

• Closet organizing
  
• Cleaning
  
• Simple repairs
  
• Decorating
  
• Crafts
  
• Recipes
  
• Grilling
  
• Cooking tips
  
• Car care
  
• Conservation
  
• Safety
  
• Pets
  
• Elderly
  
• Health
  
• Fitness
  
• Coupons

Kids/Family

• Rainy day activities
  
• Healthy kid friendly meals
  
• Places to take kids in your community
  
• Day trips
  
• Parks
  
• Hiking trails
  
• Fishing
  
• Horseback riding
  
• Canoe/kayak
  
• Birthday party ideas
  
• Kid crafts
  
• Scrapbooking
  
• Dealing with bullies
  
• Games
  
• Local events for kids
  
• Kid safe websites
  
• Puzzles
  
• Contests

Seasonal
Write about the history underlying holidays, holiday parties, profiles of people, holiday jokes, etc.

• New Year's Day
  
• Martin Luther King Day
  
• Superbowl
  
• Amelia Earhart Day
  
• Ben Franklin Day
  
• Chinese New Year
  
• Valentine's Day
  
• President's Day
  
• Fat Tuesday
  
• Mardi Gras
  
• Ash Wednesday
  
• St Patrick's Day
  
• First Day of Spring
  
• April Fools Day
  
• Daylight Savings
  
• Palm Sunday
  
• Passover
  
• Good Friday
  
• Easter
  
• Earth Day
  
• Arbor Day
  
• May Day
  
• National Day of Prayer
  
• Cinco de Mayo
  
• Mother's Day
  
• Armed Forces Day
  
• Victoria Day
  
• Memorial Day
  
• Flag Day
  
• Father's Day
  
• Juneteenth
  
• Canada Day
  
• Independence Day
  
• Bastille Day
  
• Parent's Day
  
• Labor Day
  
• Grandparents Day
  
• Patriot Day
  
• Rosh Hashanah
  
• Yom Kippur
  
• Leif Erikson Day
  
• Columbus Day
  
• Halloween
  
• All Saints' Day
  
• Guy Fawkes Day
  
• Veterans Day
  
• Remembrance Day
  
• Armistice Day
  
• Thanksgiving Day
  
• Hanukkah/Chanukkah
  
• Christmas Day
  
• Boxing Day
  
• New Year's Eve

School

• School lunch menus
  
• School calendars
  
• Performances
  
• Superlatives and acheivements (e.g., "Choir wins state competition")
  
• Sports results
  
• PTA
  
• Test results

Community News

• Police reports/crime reports
  
• Local news
  
• Business openings
  
• Local events (e.g., parades, Founder's Day, etc.)
  
• Local business profiles/reviews

Community Organization Profiles

• Rotary
  
• Lion's
  
• Optimist
  
• Kiwanis
  
• Chamber of Commerce
  
• Garden Club
  
• Local missions
  
• Salvation Army
  
• Red Cross
  
• Goodwill
  
• Junior League
  
• League of Women Voters
  
• Political Clubs
  
• Historical societies
  
• Humane Society
  
• Museums
  
• Zoo

Performances

• Community theater
  
• Symphony
  
• Ballet
  
• Opera
  
• Local bands/touring groups
  
• Sports/tournaments
  
• Lectures

Any item listed can be the source of one or more blog posts. And don't forget pictures from the community, inspirational videos from YouTube, heartwarming stories you receive by email (source or rewrite them), and so on. And then there are all of the blog posts you can make related to your industry, the products you sell, and the services you offer.

© 2009 Matt Michel

Bein' Generous

Matt posted in the SRT about a Starbucks givin' him a free cuppa' coffee because ... well, just because, and he tied that "feelgood" cuppa' to bein' priced right. I'd like to back up that advice with my own experience. As a plumbing contractor I was lookin' to do some kind of freebie as a way of attracting attention. I decided to have a raffle for a free water heater, installation and all, and wrote to our local paper about it. We gave out one raffle ticket per visit -- new and old customers alike -- for 6 months and, with a lot of fanfare of course, drew a winner. The publicity we got from that one give-a-way paid for that water heater installation 10 times over, and the winner has referred us to many of her friends.

3 years later we're still gettin' feedback about how great it was we did such a promotion, and when are we goin' to do another. Well, we are doin' another but in a different area -- Green Plumbing; but that's for another post. So? So be a real business and price yourself right. Why are so many of us afraid to make a good living?

Coke Can Marketing

I was reading the Bigger Pockets blog about real estate marketing when I experienced one of those blinding flashes of the obvious. It revolves around the use of marketing on coke cans, though you might call them soda cans or pop cans, depending on where you grew up.

Apparently, a baseball Mom/real estate agent attached a marketing message to soft drink cans and passed them out at ball games, generating leads. And why not? After all, Six Flags has been doing it for years. In fact, whenever I take a group of kids to the amusement park we embark on a quest for the appropriate soft drink cans to get the discount.

Imagine buying soft drinks on sale, printing a discount coupon or promotion on adhesive labels, attaching the labels to soft drink cans with instructions to save the can to get the special offer, and distributing these freely at youth sporting events, outdoor events and carnivals, home and gardens shows, etc.

If you're a Service Roundtable member, you won't have to imagine for long. We'll have something for you to download during the next week.

Telephone Customer Service Fundamentals

This is a great presentation to review with your CSRs and dispatchers on customer service over the phone. The only beef I have is the admonition to avoid ever telling the customer, "I don't know."

It's okay to say, "I don't know," as long as it's followed by, "But I'll find out."

Watch the presentation in full screen...

Stated Simply: Blogging Drives Traffic

According to Hubspot, blogging gives companies more website visitors, more links, and more pages indexed on search engines.

If you've got a good business blog, let me know. Email me at matt.michel@serviceroundtable.com. I'll share link here. Also, let me know about any related success stories, the time you spend, etc.

Are You Afraid To Let Your People Speak?

Corporations are scared. They're scared of their employees. They're scared of email. They're scared of social media. They're scared of YouTube. They're scared of SMS. They're scared of employees using email, social media, YouTube, and SMS to communicate. They're scared of employees communicating. They're scared of the loss of control.

Corporations want to control the message. They want to control every byte and bit of the message, so they smother the message and silence the speaker.

In Proofpoint's latest annual study of, Outbound Email Security and Data Loss Prevention in Today's Enterprise (Download The Report - pdf), Osterman Research surveyed the guys (or gals) in charge of email at 220 corporations with over 1000 employees. Here's some of what they found...

• According to the study, 19.7% of outbound email poses a "legal, financial or regulatory risk."
  
  
• A little more than half of the respondents (51.2%) are concerned or very concerned about that confidential and/or proprietary information will be divulged by email "sent from your organization’s SMTP email system."
  
  
• The same number (50.5%) are worried about email sent from phones (i.e., mail that may not pass through the corporate server).
  
  
• Similar numbers (49.8%) worry about third party webmail services, such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.
  
  
• Blog and message board postings have 46.2% "highly concerned."
  
  
• Social networking worries 45.1%.
  
  
• Instant messaging poses a "high" level of concern for 44.6% of respondents.
  
  
• SMS or text messaging worries 44.1%.
  
  
• Media sharing sites like YouTube worry 42.1%.
  
  
• Twitter, a web based SMS system, has 41.5% concerned.

Okay, this level of paranoia seems a bit over the top. Do corporate executives really think that one out of five emails poses a risk? If every fifth email poses a risk, employees are spending so much time on non-productive activities that it's hard to see how anyone could get anything done. Risk aside, the productivity cost of email would exceed its benefits and CEOs would simply shut off the pipe for most employees.

And do nearly half of corporate decision makers really worry about 140 character messages texted or tweeted? Apparently.


Big Risk Or Much Ado About Nothing?

Significant numbers reported real problems with data loss...

• One third of companies (33%) have had customer information "exposed" (whatever that means).
  
  
• Over one quarter (28%) have had intellectual property "exposed."

That seems serious, but these are companies with 1,000 or more employees. Of the 220 companies, 145 had more than 5,000 employees and 60 had more than 20,000 employees.

Take a company with 10,000 odd employees. Chances are good someone's going to say something he shouldn't from time to time, though it's probably not going to be anything that will damage the company.

The report didn't define how serious the "exposures" were. All we know is a significant number of huge companies felt something about customers or intellectual property was exposed that shouldn't have been.

When I worked as an automation engineer at a Fortune 500 level durable goods manufacturer, I presented a paper at an international robotics conference. A guy from a semiconductor magazine liked what I had to say and wanted to interview me. Before granting an outside interview, I was supposed to involve corporate PR, and did.

The level of micromanagement was incredible. It frustrated me and I'm sure irritated the time pressed editor of the semi-conductor magazine. I wasn't sharing secrets or even non-secrets. I was simply offering technical opinions about factory automation with a trade magazine in a wholly different industry.

Eventually, the piece ran. The semi-conductor guy never called again and intimated that our PR department was too difficult to work with. I understood.

Years later, with a different manufacturer, I was given the opportunity to write a guest column for a trade magazine. My superiors analyzed every word, looking for ways each could be twisted like a pretzel into some obtuse indicator of corporate weakness that would cause customers to switch business to a competitor. It was so frustrating that I didn't attempt to write again until I changed jobs.

I suspect that much of what gets classified as the exposure of customer or proprietary information is about as secret and confidential as the yellow pages. Corporations have a need for control and the bigger the corporation, the greater the control reflex becomes.


Big Corporations Go Big Brother

In response to their concerns about data loss, nearly all of the corporations adopted acceptable use policies regarding email, social media, etc. That's not a bad idea.

Make sure the troops know what concerns you. People are generally smart enough to avoid crossing the line if someone takes the time to draw it and explain it.

Is a greater response needed? Apparently corporate decision makers think so...

In this year’s survey, more than a third of all US respondents—38.4%—reported that they employ staff to monitor (read or otherwise analyze) outbound email content. An additional 23% of companies surveyed said that they intend to deploy such staff in the future. This technique is even more common in the largest organizations—48.3% of US companies surveyed with more than 20,000 employees employ staff to monitor the content of outbound email (and 21.6% say they intend to deploy such staff in the future).

Does this seem a little creepy to you? It's not simply email that's checked. These guys are monitoring YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, MySpace, and so on.

If your "job" is to find a problem, you will. Thus, the monitors look long and hard until they find a "violation." The miscreant is then disciplined or fired, justifying the need for continued corporate oversight.

I realize that corporations operate in a litigious environment today, but come on! This big brother behavior strikes me as a waste of resources. Worse, it sends the message that the company doesn't trust its people. The company doesn't trust their discernment. It doesn't trust their integrity.

What happens in this environment? People do what I did. They shut up. The don't try. They refuse to engage. Eventually, they leave. And the company is the big loser every step of the way.


Large Corporations Aren't On The Cluetrain

Shortly after launching the Service Roundtable, I read The Cluetrain Manifesto. I found it powerful. It explained what I was observing in the online world and experiencing with the Service Roundtable. Below is the preamble before the 95 theses of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.

While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happytalk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it.

However, employees are getting hyperlinked even as markets are. Companies need to listen carefully to both. Mostly, they need to get out of the way so intranetworked employees can converse directly with internetworked markets.

Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Does it sound like most of the corporations surveyed in the Proofpoint study are on or off the cluetrain? Personally, I don't think most have a clue.

As a small business owner, you don't face PR executives more concerned with avoiding the utterance of the wrong thing than saying the right thing. You can speak to your customers with a real voice... yours.

And you can let your employees speak. Sure, someone might say the wrong thing. That comes with humanity. Humanity separates your company from the stainless steel, monolithic, unfathomable, cold corporation. Yours is a company of humans; humans your prospects and customers can relate with.

Your voice, your true, real, authentic voice can be a competitive advantage for you, as can the voices of your employees. Speak. And encourage your employees to speak. Speak through email lists. Speak on blogs. Send tweets. Join Facebook. Connect with LinkedIn. Sign up for Plaxo. Make a video and host it on YouTube.

When your customers ask questions, engage them. Start a dialogue. Don't worry if others might see you deal with an upset customer. Don't worry if you find yourself forced to acknowledge a mistake.

Everyone knows people get mad. What's better, to have an angry customer spewing venon while you hide and fret, or to have an angry customer engaged by a concerned empathetic owner? Your good response (note: good response) with an upset customer in a public forum can do more for your business than 10,000 direct mail pieces.

Everyone knows companies make mistakes from time to time. What's unusual is the company that stands up, acknowledges error promptly and without coercion, and fixes the problem fast. Look, if you screw up you're going to fix the problem anyway, so why worry about public exposure of the problem if its accompanied by a rapid, proactive response? That won't make you look like a sucker. It will make you a hero.

Speak with authenticity. And allow your team to speak. But before you start, read The Cluetrain Manifesto. Order it from Amazon in print or audio versions or read in online for free. Read it and either review it with your employees or buy them copies.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

Would You Rather Call a Strange Plumber or Visit a Strange Mosque?

I saw this whine by Jenny Allen and found some truth in it...

Our house is an old farmhouse, and it has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, except the shower in the upstairs bathroom doesn't work. The shower per se works, but if you use it water streams from the ceiling down below into the living room, and then you have to stick a bucket underneath to catch the water. It's like living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, only with much lower property values. So please limit yourselves to the downstairs
shower. Thanks!

Speaking of the downstairs bathroom, sometimes the toilet doesn't flush. That's because that piece of wire that connects the bulb thing inside the tank to the rod thing sometimes comes unhinged. The wire is actually a replacement for the real piece of hardware; in fact, it's a bit of coat hanger wire that our friend Augusta rigged up when the toilet broke years ago. She got tired of waiting for our plumber, who promised to come and fix it but never did. Just lift the tank and hook it up again.

Try not to call our plumber unless it's an emergency. I'm afraid of our plumber, who barks at me, but plumbers call all the shots here. You do not want to rankle your plumber, because the other plumbers are all tied up, and then you won't have any plumber. Our plumber has been coming to our house longer than I have, which is twenty-six years, and he seems to think I am some kind of interloper, a Janey-come-lately.

"Jeff," I said on the phone when I asked him to come and turn the water on this spring, "I've known you for twenty-six years, and I'd like to ask you a favor."

"Depends what it is."

"I always call you by your name, and you never call me by my name, and I wonder if you could call me by my name."

"I know yah name!"

"Well, thank you for turning the water on," I said.

"All right," he said, and hung up.

Jeff's phone number is on the attached list of other repair and service people, who will not bark at you but will probably not come. They are too busy in August to come. Whatever the problem, you'll have better luck just fixing it yourself.

"I'm afraid of our plumber, who barks at me," writes Allen.

"Whatever the problem, you'll have better luck just fixing it yourself," she adds.

Wow. Is there any more damning criticism of the state of service companies than that? I think a large segment of the DIY market exists not out of consumer cheapness, but that consumers perceive it's simply easier to fix it yourself.

Calling a contractor, for most people, is unsettling. It's filled with uncertainty and unknown.

• Will you get a responsive company that will treat you well?
  
  
• Will the serviceperson be pleasant or gruff, treating you like an idiot?
  
  
• What kind of person will show up? Will he or she be honest?
  
  
• How long will it take to get someone to show up?
  
  
• Will someone arrive when promised or will you wait and wait and wait?
  
  
• Will the work take days to complete?
  
  
• Will it be done right the first time, or will you have to call the company back again and again?
  
  
• Will the serviceperson make a mess and not clean up?
  
  
• Will you get ripped off?
  
  
• Will you know what the costs are before the work begins or will you get an unpleasant surprise?
  
  
• Will there be an unpleasant conflict?

These are some of the questions that cross consumers' minds. Your marketing should address these issues. You should address them on your website, in your yellow pages ads, and in your direct marketing.

Finding a new service company is unpleasant and unsettling. To give you a sense of the discomfort, imagine walking into a church, temple, or mosque during services for the first time. That feeling of unease is similar to the consumer's feeling of unease when calling you.

Now, imagine a friend recommends his or her church/temple/mosque. The friend tells you what to expect, how to act, and what to wear. You might still approach the service with trepidation, but you would feel much better about. Your friend's attended and survived. You can too.

It's similar when a friend recommends a service company. This is why people turn to friends and neighbors first when looking for companies. This is why referral marketing, affinity marketing, and social media are so important for service companies.

Let's say you know the pastor/rabbi/imam from a civic club. You mention something about he pastor/rabbi/imam about attending a service and receive a warm welcome and personal invitation. You feel much better about attendance.

Similarly, people who know you personally, as the owner of a company, are going to feel far more at ease calling your company for service. This is why it's so important to get involved in civic clubs, networking groups, the chamber of commerce, and more. The more people you know, the more opportunities you will create. And to make sure everyone knows what you do, always wear logoed shirts.

And when you are fortunate enough to be invited into someone's home, act like a guest. Be polite. Be friendly. Be helpful.

It's hard to imagine a worse example of service than Jenny Allen's plumber, Jeff. The guy's been serving her home for more than a quarter century and the upstairs shower is unusable. The toilet downstairs doesn't flush and was jury-rigged years ago.

What do you bet Jeff is the type of tradesperson who sips coffee at the supply house, complaining about his customers, griping about DIY, moaning about how cheap people are, and lamenting his lack of business.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

Parrish Services Makes Inc 500 ||| 5000

Congratulations to Service Roundtable member Alan Givens and the Parrish Services team for making the INC 500|||5000 as one of the country's fastest growing businesses. It's companies like Parrish Services that will get the economy moving again.

Read More

What Alex Walter Says About The Service Roundtable

"Having been a Service Roundtable member for some time I...

1) Receive many times my monies worth.

AND...

2) I continue to get very good new ideas related to marketing, sales and technical issues.

AND...

3) I realize that it would be a big mistake to do without the Service Roundtable as it continues to remind me of the things I should be doing and need to be doing to have my business thrive. It's like having a friendly tap on the shoulder when I need it most."





Alex Walter
President
Absolute Home Comfort
Aurora, CO


Only $50 per month with no contracts.
Why not try it for a month? If you don’t like it, quit.

Click To Join The Service Roundtable

Nigel Temple on Small Business Marketing

Nigel Temple is a British marketing consultant. This short interview is not only filled with solid marketing advice for small business, but it's a good example of using the Internet and video to share expertice and stimulate interest. Because the advice is solid and the video was not an excuse to shill non-stop, I was compelled to learn more.

Put Your Logo On Shopping Bags

I'm always looking for good ad premiums that are inexpensive and that homeowners will use. Peaden's Robert Wilkos came up with a brilliant way to keep the Peaden name in front up customers. After a happy call, he mails them a shopping bag with the company logo.

Personally, I would never bring my own shopping bag to a store. When I'm handed similar bags at a trade show, I usually leave them in the hotel room. However, as a marketer I can't judge the effectiveness of a promotion based on my preferences and biases.

It seems like every grocery store is selling reusable bags with the store logo. And while I think it's flat out silly to give the store $1 for a reusable bag when the store provides disposable bags for free, I have noticed people using them. Since the stores provide recycle bins for the disposable bags, I wonder if people buy reusable bags because they want to make a statement. If so, there's emotion involved and it's always beneficial to be associated with positive emotions.


Cost

Moreover, the bags are cheap. Depending on the quantity, the cost is around a buck a bag. Look around. You might find even better pricing.


Imprinting

What do you print? Your logo, your website, your phone number, your unique selling proposition, a promotional message, or anything else you want. Since the people who use the bags will handle them weekly, whatever you print will be burnt into the consumer's subconscious.


Usage

You can send the bags to your customers after a happy call or with a satisfaction survey like Peaden. You can also give them out at home shows (though I suspect bags given out at home shows will follow the route of trade show bags). Personally, I would assemble a promotional kit with product and service literature you want to emphasize, insert the literature in the bags, and hand the bag to customers following a service call. One of the pieces of literature should be a note suggesting the consumer use the bag when grocery shopping, followed by verbiage about your company's recycling methods.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

News That Doesn't Depress: Durable Goods Up, Consumer Spending Up

U.S. durable goods orders, excluding transportation, increased unexpectedly in May by 1.1%. In addition, consumer spending rose 0.3% in May.

Durable goods orders had been forecast by the Commerce Department to decline 0.4%. A Reuters survey of analysts projected a 0.6% decline. The 1.1% increase was a surprise. It follows revised data for April, where durable goods jumped 1.8%.

Moreover, machinery orders increased 7.7%, an indication that businesses are investing in factories. Non-defense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, is considered to be a proxy for business spending. It rose 4.8% in May, after being forecast to fall 0.6%. We have to go back to September, 2004 to find a similar increase.

The government stimulus is finally starting to affect the economy as "social benefit payments" led to a 1.4% rise in personal incomes in May. After tax income rose 1.6% and disposable income increased 0.2%.

Spending only rose 0.3%, suggesting that consumers increased savings, and they did. The savings rate rose to 6.9%, the highest level in more than 15 years. Apparently, consumers are showing greater individual fiscal responsibility than the government.

Not all is good news. While existing home sales have increased, new single family home sales continued to slide, dropping 0.6% in May. However, signs do suggest the fall in home construction may be about turn. Median prices increased 4.2%, from $212,600 to $221,600. Demand for home loans increased.

So what does all of this mean? While no one's doing cartwheels over the data, it's stronger than expected. It does suggest we're at the bottom of the recession and things will start to slowly pick up.

For business owners, this is the time to aggressively grab market share. Your competitors will likely remain timid, resulting in less competition for your marketing and advertising messages. As the spending picks up, you'll get more than your current share.

Free Marketing Ideas – Part VII

This is the final post of the free marketing ideas series. Next week, I’ll start a new series. In the interim, keep checking the Comanche Marketing blog. Also, you can follow my updates through the Service Roundtable, Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook.


21. Speak At HOA Meetings

Homeowners Association (HOA) meeting vary from rigidly formal to loose. Some are well attended. Others are not. However, all are attended.

Some HOAs feature regular speakers at their meetings. Those without speakers probably would include them if it was easy to find someone with something relevant for the audience. That someone could be you.

In the Internet age, almost any functioning HOA has a website. Simply search for homeowners associations by neighborhood name or by town. Some municipalities even list the HOAs with full officer contact information on their websites.

Offer the speak at each HOA meeting. Send a letter or email to the officers indicating your willingness to speak and propose topics. Here are a few…

HVAC: The upcoming refrigerant phase out
Plumbing: Water conservation
Electrical: Advances in lighting technology
Pool: Salt water pool systems
Pest Control: Natural pest control solutions

Propose a length. Generally, these organizations want to give speakers no more than 15 to 20 minutes.

In your letter, promise to follow up with a phone call (assuming you’ve got the phone number) and give the recipient your number if he or she wants to call sooner.

The same approach can be used with garden clubs and with other service and civic clubs. Don’t worry about rejections. Focus only those who welcome you. Give everyone who attends a gift certificate with your company (remember, a gift certificate is little more than a coupon people keep).

A template for HVAC and plumbing contractors will be released soon on the Service Roundtable.


22. Teach Home Improvement Seminars

Years ago, I attended a two hour home improvement class offered through the city’s parks & rec department. I don’t remember the subject of the class, but I do remember who taught it. The class was taught by a Home Depot employee.

It turned out that a number of classes offered by the city were taught by Home Depot employees. I wondered if Home Depot was encouraging employees to teach these classes. It wouldn’t surprise me.

So why would a big box retailer encourage, and maybe even pay its employees to teach home improvement seminars? It’s simple. Teach a home improvement seminar and you’re positioned as the expert by default. Home Depot benefits by driving people to the store to ask for more information and to buy stuff.

Obviously, contractors have different objectives. You don’t sell over the counter to homeowners, so you’re trying to stimulate future service calls, replacement leads, and project quotes.

You can be successful, but only if you avoid even the hint of solicitation when teaching. People attend these classes to learn, so teach. Offer reasonable DIY advice that any homeowner can manage.

For example, an air conditioning or electrical contractor might advise homeowners to install outlet insulators for the energy savings. Or the contractor might instruct homeowners to check the breaker box before calling for service. Don’t try to turn the homeowner into a technician or plumber, but don’t be afraid of offering helpful advice.

Here are a few topics that might be appropriate for a home improvement seminar…

• How to build a pool
• How to select an air conditioning contractor
• Strategies for cutting home energy
• Water conservation strategies in the home
• Your home’s electrical system
• All about ants and other pest protection
• Conduct you own home energy audit

To find opportunities, start with your own community parks and recreation departments. Next, see what opportunities are available at area home and garden shows. Many host free seminars to help attract homeowners. Some colleges and community colleges offer non-credit continuing education classes.


23. Write Home Improvement Articles

With the Internet, anyone can publish today. Add a blog to your website or create a free one using Blogger or Word Press.

Write about the homeowner problems you uncover in the course of your daily service work. Tell people how you solved the problems. If the problems are preventable, tell readers how.

If you are overly promotional in the body of your article, it will backfire. People won’t read it. However, it is okay to include a promotional paragraph at the very end.

Post your articles on the article sharing sites. When posting on another site, link back to your blog or website in your promotional paragraph.


24. Promote Your Writings

When you post new articles, let people know by email and by social media, such as Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, and so on.

© 2009 Matt Michel

Call To Action

On the way to church Sunday, my wife nearly backed over a contractor walking across our driveway. Give him credit. He was industrious, walking neighborhoods on a Sunday morning to try and make something happen.

I've personally witnessed a lot more door to door activity in my neighborhood over the past six months. It's a sign that fencing contractors, cleaning services, painters, yard services, pest control companies, and other home services companies are looking for work. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, none of them offer a reason to call. About all they're doing is leaving a business card in the door. None include a call to action. Why should I call any of them? Simply because they leave a business card in my door?

At the very least, include a rubber stamped discount on the back of the business card. Create a call to action with a deadline. Always tell the prospect what he should do, why he should do it, and when he should do it.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

Finish Strong

Need a lift? Watch this short promotional video for the book “Finish Strong.”

Free Marketing Ideas – Part VI

Continuing the series...


17. Make Your Fax Cover Page A Marketing Piece

When you send a fax, do you use the Microsoft Word fax cover page template? Why? Why not promote your company? Tell people what you do, offer reasons for calling your company, and give the recipient a coupon. Make your fax cover page a marketing piece.

While it’s true that we send fewer faxes, every now and then, its easier to fax a document than email it. Some situations, such as those requiring signatures, necessitate a fax. If you’re going to print and fax the cover page anyway, why not make it work for you?


18. Paperclip A Business Card To Every Bill

We all like to do business with the people who do business with us. It’s human nature. So every time you send in a bill, paperclip your business card to it. The late Tom McCart swore to me that he got one or two leads a year from paperclipping his business cards to bills.

One or two leads is nothing to get excited about, but a few business cards costs almost nothing and it takes little effort to paperclip them to a bill. More important, it supports the marketing mindset where you are constantly marketing.


19. Promote Your Company In Your Email Signature

While we may not fax much, we do email. A lot. Make sure you promote you company in your email signature. List the company name, what you do, your mission, your website, your contact information, and any awards and recognitions. This can be set to automatically be added to the bottom of any email you send using Microsoft Outlook or other email clients.


20. Save Old Yellow Pages (Cross Out The Companies Out Of Business)

When selling equipment replacements, major project, installation, or remodel work, use the transitory nature of the industry in your favor and against your competitors. Scan copies of old yellow pages directories for inclusion in a presentation book and cross out the names of companies who once advertised, but are no longer in existence. When showing this page to your prospects, comment that “A lot of companies come and go, but we’ve got a solid history, which means we’ll be around to honor all warranties and take care of your needs well into the future. Isn’t nice to have a local, family business you can rely upon?”

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

Lee Rosenberg's 100 Simple Business Practices

Often there is little difference between a successful business and an unsuccessful one. Rather, there are little differences... lots of little differences.

Lee Rosenberg presents 100 simple business practices that every service business should perform. Undoubtedly you already do many of these practices, but you probably do not do all of them. This document will serve as a reminder of many things you should do, but may not. It will also give you a few new ideas, things that you hadn't really thought about. Add one or two new disciplines from this document and your business will improve and/or avoid the fatal pitfalls of companies long forgotten.

The file was prepared as an Adobe Portable Document File (pdf). Click to launch Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader and download the file.

Click for more Freebies from the Service Roundtable.

21 Free Marketing Ideas