All Leads Are Not Created Equall!!

Dave Mac

At least for me, after reviewing my leads for the last ten months, it shows my closing rate for repeat and referall estimates is twice as high as it is with advertising leads.

The only thing i really do is send out a thankyou letter at the end of every make sure they know their satisfaction is very important to us, and ask them in the letter for any referalls.

Im wanting to go another step further, I want more leads and referalls, anybody have any programs in line to achieve this, any and all ideas are welcomed.

thanks
dave mac

PressurePros

Ask for the referral and reward them. There is controversy as to whether asking for a referral outperforms simply doing high quality work and expecting people to refer you. My numbers say absolutely. We send out thank you letters that ask for the referral and offer gifts the customer can choose. A lead that turns into work is worth $35 to me. I have a flyer that I include in each 'thank you' packet that shows gift cards from Borders, Lowes, Macy's and a couple of local restaurants. The customer can also choose credit on their account for next years work (I prefer this obviously so I up the ante to $50 for choosing that option).

I dropped the ball this past season as I had planned to get a program running that offered "Pressure Points" to customers. Every time a customer refers someone or uses our service they will accumulate points. Those points will tie in to affiliate retailers so that the customer can buy much higher ticket items (TV's ipods, etc) with their points. I'm going to finalize that this winter and get the program up and running.

Don't be skittish about asking for referrals. It pays off for everyone.

__________________
Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

Bryan C

Dave -

I don't know if this would work for your line of work, but in the PW industry, customers love before/after photographs. I have incorporated this into our thank-you letters. I send a picture something like this that they then can show friends and neighbors and have gotten some good quality referrals from it.

Bryan

Attached Thumbnails

 

kevjob

Superb

__________________
Kevin
Basement Finishing Highlands Ranch Colorado
Littleton Colorado, Basement Remodeling
Kitchen Remodeling Denver

Dave Mac

Ken and Brian great advice!!!!! I like very much.

thanks
dave mac

Brian

Dave,

Customer retention does 2 things-- it helps you hold on to past customers and it creates referrals.

About a month ago we did our latest newsletter. This past week we had at least 2 calls from customers from 5 years ago. It costs me less than $2 a year to market to them, so those leads cost me $10. I've already sold one job, and that customer mentioned the newsletter as the reason she called.

My numbers are similar to yours. The "R" leads are much easier to sell.

The past 2 years my marketing budget has been about 1% of revenues, and I'm turing down leads. A huge part of that is customer retention marketing. A good place to start for retention marketing is www.retentioncentral.com

Brian Phillips

__________________
Houston Interior Painting
Houston Exterior Painting
Houston Painting Contractor

Dave Mac

thanks Brian

DamionR

You're right... all leads are not created equal. Once you think about it... it's pretty obvious.

With repeat customers - they've already bought from you, have trust in you, so the sales resistance is drastically lowered. In most cases, you're rarely in competition at this point. The client has said "I loved you before, now come give me more of it".

With referrals it's almost as good. That previous client has said "I loved you before, now I'm telling my friends how good you are". Once again, sales resistance is lowered, as well as competition. It's no longer you saying how great a job you do, it's a third party.

The big thing here is... there is a relationship already established.

Now let's look at the rest of your advertising (purchased leads, print, radio, tv, direct mail, etc.).


THERE'S NO RELATIONSHIP!!!


So if you come at these type of leads with the same approach, you will have a much tougher time closing business. You'll get all of those objections, and runarounds, and "worthless tire-kicker prospects" that everyone complains about.

But you deserve it if you've done nothing differently to build the relationship with this type of prospect. And it doesn't change.

So... there are two questions here. The first is "How do you get more referrals and repeat customers?". That's for another post.

The second question is "How can I build the relationship with prospects before I meet with them, so they act more like a referral/past customer?".

An excellent way I've had success with is in a series of pre-mailers.

Obviously, you'd want to adapt this to your own business, but here's the concept of what we do:

1) The day the appt is scheduled, we mail out a packet of info to the prospect. It contains the following:

• A profile sheet on the person coming to their home (photo of the person, their background, their experience in the industry, personal info/hobbies/etc.)
• A list of testimonials for that person coming out - past prospects who have said great things about him/her.
• A list of testimonials for the company in their area.
• Product brochures
• Information sheet on the company

2) We attempt to capture an email address for EVERYONE when scheduling an appt. Prior to the appt, the prospect can receive the following emails (based on how far out the appt is booked):

• Confirmation on their appt, the person coming out, and a link to that person's personal webpage - which also lists all of the information we mail out.
• Case Study/Testimonial from a past customer with problems similar to this prospect's
• Highlights of the company, staff, and awards we have won.
• Free downloadable ebook with general information on the problems this prospect is facing, the options that are out there, why some are better than others, etc.
• Another testimonial from a past customer with problems similar to this prospect's.
• Notification that we will be calling to re-confirm the appt today. Also letting them know they can call us or simply reply to this email to confirm.

Obviously, all of these emails not go out - it's all based on how far out the appt is booked. The first one goes out immediatly, the last one goes out two days before the appt. The others are sent based on the amount of time till the appt. So, if the appt is 3 days from now - they do not get the others. If it's two weeks from now, they would.


So why has this drastically improved closing percentages, as well as average dollar sales in the past year? (Closing percent up about 8% overall, dollar amount up about 20%)

• Know anyone else in your industry doing this?
• There are many points of contact before the prospect even meets with us. This lowers sales resistance drastically.
• We're able to educate the prospect on why they want to use our services over other options they have through the brochures, the testimonials, and the information we feed them.
• The prospect knows who is coming out to their home before that person shows up. This again drastically reduces sales resistance. It's amazing the maount of people who reschedule and request that we still send out the same guy.
• We're establishing the person and the company as the authority in the industry. It doesnt make sense for them to pick anyone else.
• With this authority, we're validating the price structure of our services. Good things don't come cheap, cheap things don't come good. Sure people still have problems with our pricing, but it's not because they think it's overpriced. It's just swallowing the actual amount. This is overcome with the various financing options we provide.

Something for you to think about. Obviously, I've spent the last year developing this system and it is pretty detailed. But for the $22 we spend on each prospect for this marketing, it's worth it.

Hope this helps!

__________________

- Free Contractor Marketing Tips & Performance-Based Lead Generation Services.

Brian

Damion,

That's a very good approach. How automated is it?

Brian Phillips

__________________
Houston Interior Painting
Houston Exterior Painting
Houston Painting Contractor

DamionR

The emails are 100% automated. Once the prospects info is entered into the database... it is datestamped. Then, based on that date and the date of the appt, the emails go out automatically. For example... email #1 goes out immediately once the appt is approved. The second email goes out 2 days after the datestamp, as long as the appt is more than 2 days from that date, etc.


The snail mail mailers are not automated completely, but we've done as best as possible. here's how it works:

1) The Call center people, in their off time, pre-stuff envelopes with as much information as possible. For example. we pre-stuff all brochures based on the type of lead we generate and the company profile.

One person in the office, at the end of the day, takes all of our appts and creates the premailers from there. She prints out testimonials based on the prospects location, then grabs the inspectors profile sheet and his personal testimonials. All of that stuffed in the envelope, address hand-written on envelope (I'm anal about that)... put on the postage.. and in the mail bin it goes.

All in all, it takes her about 2 minutes to do the complete pre-mailer. If we're doing 30 leads per day.. that's one hour of her day.

__________________

- Free Contractor Marketing Tips & Performance-Based Lead Generation Services.