No Service Magic

silvertree

Look, I don't don't about much of this, but someone coming here and being a fan of SM on their first post usually means what AW said. But I want to move on, if you want names why don't you buy mailing lists. A lot cheaper and all your own.
And SM leads work for you, well that's great, you don't hear that very often on any forum.

__________________
Vote for Pedro
Kitchen, bath, St Paul remodeling
Minneapolis Remodel Blog
203K Loan Consultant Minnesota

naptown CR

Its a industrial site. We moved there a year ago. I WAS NOT the first tenant to occupy this site. And I have closed many SM leads. Maybe you should try taking a class in selling or maybe you are full of S***.[/quote]
Getting a bit testy are we

Jmfocus

I don't need to prove anything to you Smith.

Jmfocus

Naptown,

Yea maybe a little.

naptown CR

And I have closed many SM leads. Maybe you should try taking a class in selling or maybe you are full of S***.[/quote]


then you are the bottom feeder or plant I suspect you are

Jmfocus

I realize that but for me it really isn't about SM, its about a database. I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg up front to get them and I am closing many of them simply because I make contact with minutes of them pushing the "enter" button. Believe me, I wouldn't stick with it if it wasn't working for me. The maintenance jobs are ongoing and make the construction ratio acceptable.

Jmfocus

[quote=then you are the bottom feeder or plant I suspect you are[/quote]

Think what you want.

Jmfocus

I think the SM Support guy should throw me another 10 leads for some of the crap on this thread. I"m on my 7th beer, house all to myself, no kids or wife, and finding it hard to keep my buzz. Lets have some real dialog about marketing.

Silvertree, I appreciate your effort.

naptown CR

I think we will have to agree to disagree


Are we having fun yet

Jmfocus

Good with me. I'm on #8 and starting to feel better. I haven't had an online heated exchange in years. Wife won't let me. And lately it seems all I do is work, sleep, and eat. Though occasionaly they let me play drums at the local honky tonk.

Jason@API

Interesting, because you showed up here playing the beat of a different drum...

I won't discredit your experiences, but being your first post and giving praise to SM was certainly fishy!! I personally have never used SM. I will never use them with this kind of feedback coming from other brothers of the trade. That's to keeping things simple and less stressful.

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Newberg House Painter / Twitter / Facebook / Merchant Circle
Please do not contact by phone or email for solicitation.

Jmfocus

How many of you have a lead tracking system in place? How many know what it actually cost you per customer/ per lead? Do you base costs on marketing costs or value of project. Every call you get comes from somewhere. Do you know where? How much did that call/lead cost you? Not trying to educate anyone, just trying to spark dialog. When I see people assume that because they paid for a lead they expect a job to come from it, I wonder if they have the same prospective when they get a call from another form of advertising they paid for! Or maybe its different because they spent the money upfront and never really did the math when the calls came in.... I don't know. But to me that makes no sense. I knew what my cost per lead AND cost per customer (different) was before I signed up. To me it made sense and until the numbers no longer make sense, I will continue to use this service. But it isn't a decision based on emotions/ misperceptions , but facts/numbers. When I first spoke with the sales agent I asked what the lead would cost. I knew going in if it made sense. Anyone in this thread could do the same thing if they know their numbers. If you don't know these numbers for your specific business then advertising is a crap shoot for you... shooting from the hip.

naptown CR

the differance is that a lead that costs 150.00 and has a close ratio of 30% costs substantially less than a lead that costs 50.00 and has a close ratio of 5 % do the math I am going to bed being on the right or correct coast

Scribbles

Everyone hates SM, I don't get it. I have been advertising for 6 months. I have spent $670 so far on newspaper ads; I have received 2 jobs, total billing $925. $600 phone book ads, 0 jobs, 0$ billing, $240 my website, 3 jobs, $1240 billing, SM $340 (includes signup fee $100) $5,820 billing. Thank god for old contacts, billed 38K through referrals, and old customers. Does it work yes, are the jobs easy no, and is it for everyone, no. But it is a viable advertising source.

If I have one piece of advice, spread your dollar around, what works this month may not work next. Don’t give everything to SM, or to the newspaper man, or any other company. No one cares about your company or family like you don’t forget about that.

A W Smith

Whats the overall cost in lost good will a business will suffer by hiding behind a lead service company? Figure that out in your excel spread sheet? You really cant assign an average cost per lead/customer. Because the cost is different for each lead. even from the same source. there's gas and hourly expense to get to and write up the job. leads that are three counties away are more costly to me then one in the next town across the river. So you are wasting your time Jmfocus doing meaningless math. The problem is not to be found in the math. the problem lies in lead qualification.

Then there's the position of power you lose by having to cold call a lead. I want my leads to call ME! I don't call them. You have to make the impression that the lead wants and NEEDS YOU. Not you wanting THEM. anytime you cold call you are starting at a disadvantage. You are skipping right over lead qualification and begging the lead to hire you over two, three, or in service magics case a dozen other contractors that got the same lead.

Jmfocus I noticed in your initial post that you make no mention at all of a web presence. Why is that? You never had a domain or web site? If you did what was the url? You seem to have tried everything, and i mean everything else. almost like you are reading from a marketing script.

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Al Smith
http://www.awsmith.com

A W Smith

yeah cause as every one in marketing knows we're all just a bunch of blue collar alcoholics right? Yeah, keep trying to fit in SM employee.

__________________
Al Smith
http://www.awsmith.com

mhillc

Yeah what he said.
SM them no good c suckin f ers

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" DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME "

A W Smith

My web site pays for itself with the first closed call of every year. Everything beyond that is cake. I also put ads on Craiglist daily which cost me in dollars absolutely zero. just the cost in time to edit an ad so it lets me place it daily. and the time i have to set aside to place it strategically at 5 pm on weekdays to stay on top of the list when husband and wife get home and fire up their pc. on weekends i post in mid morning. I get a call a day off of Craig. close on about a half to a third even though they are "bottom feeders' in mosts opinions. But like I said. Sell yourself. Not price.

Others find me on my two business land lines. which is probably the costliest advertizing I pay for. And no I dont pay for display ad's. In fact just the other day I got a call from yellowbook about advertizing. asked if I wanted to "update my listing" I said, "well, no, not if I have to pay for it." she said "well dont you want your business to grow?" I said "im listed on your site search results right? I think we are done with this conversation. gbye" You see if you have a business phone line all directories are compelled to list you for free. Otherwise they lose search releavance. You may not appear in the top of your listing search resiults (unless you are lucky in name like me.) but trust me. you are there.

another strategy is business card placement. In resturants by the cash register ot lumber yards or sub shop community bulletin boards. These rarely wotk for me. the calls I get from those cards are almost always advertizing sales calls. in the past 25 years I can count on two hands the qualified leads I got from business card placement alone. I just use them as contact hand outs. Ir the first thing I hand to a prospective client from my left hand after hand shake with my right.

Jobsite signs work mostly if the drive by can actually see work being performed to draw attention. Most drive bys these days have learned to ignore jobsite signs just like they block out billboards and web site banners. they are too busy texting on their cell phones at 45 mph.

Newspaper ad's? No one reads newspapers anymore. 18 years ago I tried a display ad in a weekly "sentinel'. was about 125 a month back then. the leads didnt even cover the cost so after six months I cancelled.

sribbles I can say keep plugging away at that web site, that in combination with a business phone line will pay off. The longer it stays in existance, the better the pay back. SEO your site. If you have a business line go to superpages and stuff your online profile with as much information as possible. including a link to your site. ITS FREE.

There is an inherant lead tracking problem with that though. Aftertalking with a potential clint I always (just about) ask them how they found me. Some shrug and say. "Uh.. the internet! " which doesnt tell me much.

__________________
Al Smith
http://www.awsmith.com

Jason@API

I don't stop there. I ask 'where on the internet?' and if they can't remember, I offer suggestions to help them, like AngiesList, Craigslist or Google. If they say Google, I ask them what key words they used to do the search. If they say Angieslist, I ask what was it about my presence there that attracted them. If they say Craigslist, it's a no-brainer... I also have a yellowpages.com ad and unfortunately I haven't asked questions pertaining to that one yet. To really nail it down, we have to keep asking, so we know more about how people are researching. This helps in narrowing down the kind of advertising that is effective.

btw... any relation to A W Tozer? (teasing... it was the A W...)

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Newberg House Painter / Twitter / Facebook / Merchant Circle
Please do not contact by phone or email for solicitation.

Jmfocus

I can't assign an average cost per lead because the cost is different for each lead????? OK! Got it Smith!!! Math can now be thrown under the bus.


You really do not know what a cold call is do you? You keep funneling those bottom feeder Craiglist calls. You get a call a day and close on 2 to 3...... oh wait that's math.... nevermind.