Marketing Smart In Todays Economy

Mike Finley

I'll say becareful what you wish for.

MattCoops

I never understood contractors selling discounts.
Your spending money to reduce the sale of your goods/services.

A different approach could be finding out how much money the prospect is wasting using what they have now.
Then show how you can reduce that amount by making an investment with your company.

It's so easy to do it now, with the way our economic cycle is flowing. People want to save money. And they are actually willing to spend to save.
There's so many energy-efficient products out there. And the whole "green" element is a big hotword amongst customers.

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
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Mike Finley

You have a point to some degree, but in my opinion you rely FAR, FAR, FAR to heavily in a belief that everything revolves around price, price, price.

There is as much for being said getting the phone ringing with tons of sh*ty leads to wade through from val-pak coupon clippers as their is from getting the phone to ring less with high-quality, targeted leads.

That coupon mentality is the same mentality used by salesman at Service Magic... we will give you a crap load of sh*t leads... hey, if you sell one job you've paid for it... YEAH! --- that's just one methodology, and it's definitely not the end all, holy grail of marketing.

woodmagman

In the service industry, were most are mom and pop type shows. The only thing a discount does is take money from the wages of those doing the work. In big business the major suppliers asks the product supplier to supply more product at less cost, and on an assembly line that is easier done. Most of what contractors do is a one off thing. No savings there and really already undervalued as it is a one off item.
Do discounts work….yes, do you really want your sales taking money out of your pocket. Paying Peter by stealing from Paul…in my opinion.

Tinstaafl

Bud, I don't want to sound like a plumber, but I'd feel more comfortable with reading your own [quite often well thought out] opinions and recommendations here, rather than others' copyrighted material.

Maybe just paraphrase and provide a link?

SiderTom

Just because you advertise a discount doesn't have to mean you make less money. If you pay attention to the boxstores, you will see that things are on sale every day. While occasionally they throw in a loss leader, usually it is just a discount off an inflated "list price". One week it may be buy three get one free & the next it is 25% off. All along they are getting paid what they need to make things work. You would be surprised how many people are triggered by the word free. These are just ways to get people in the door. I will often add an extra 10 to 15% to the price before presenting so I can discount it for the customer. When we give out $500 off coupons at the home shows, we just add it in to the price before taking it off. It all comes down to knowing what you can sell your products or services for and still be able to make a profit that is acceptable to you. Sometimes this may be 10% over list others it is 10% over cost. Either way I am still making money.

neolitic

I'd like to know how you got to be
an expert on "today's economy"?

No one on the face of the earth
has ever faced today's economy.
Credit markets have never locked up
like this before.
The last time that we had anything
even remotely like what we are facing
you were 16 years old.
What was your coping strategy then
exactly?

How about an article on how to be a
bull**** artist in today's economy,
oh master of the universe?

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neolitic

Yes, that is what is known as a "fluff piece."
The kind of thing with which the Sunday
supplements are filled.

Same questions still stand.

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neolitic

That's what I thought.

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neolitic

It seems that you started a thread
with a pretty bold premise, considering
the state of affairs.
I asked you a question.
You ask more questions.
What
makes
you
an
expert
on
today's
economy?

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neolitic

Should I post your weasely little
PM as your response?
Or will you answer in the open?

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neolitic

There you go.
At least that was out in the open.
I ask no forgiveness for scepticism
of self proclaimed experts.
Especially those claiming knowledge
of current market conditions.

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WarnerConstInc.

Neo, its cool man he got my goat too about this whole discounted service and cupon and haggling crap. Its cool though cause I got blocked or something, that just means I dont have to deal with it.

neolitic

It's cool.
I normally just ignore his little threads.
Just that title sounded particularly
pretentious...even for him.

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marc

We do print ads and they always have an offer and experation date.
I try to think like a retail store would instead of a contractor.
I actually think that a TV/Appliance store is a bigger competitor than another contractor.
Why I say that is because we are both after the same money. People could buy a large screen tv or bay window. They both cost around the same so if a customer has $4,000 to spend I would prefer they spend it with me instead of them.
That's why we advertize sales. People buy things that are on sale. As a matter of fact I bought the shirt I'm wearing right now when it was on sale. I ran out and bought the sneakers I'm wearing because I saw a flyer stating that they were on sale for "this weekend only" The new truck I purchased 2 months ago was on sale.
People call me all the time and say they have a coupon that states they can save $2000 on a complete siding project. "We would like to set up an estimate. We have one of your coupons" I hear this all the time. Our retail price sheet takes these sales into effect. I certainly hope nobody thinks we just eat the $2000.
Also......I would mention the coupon and actually give my customer one if they didn't have one already. Nothing worse than getting a call 2 days after making a sale and they tell you they just recieved a coupon in the mail and ask you why didn't you give me the sale price.
I'm not saying that we get all of our business from these print ads but I get a fair share of business from them. This year to date we have sold $281,978 from coupon ads. Could I have sold that much without an offer?............IMO....NO

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Marc

Carport King

For us we have been getting killed on price. Contractors have been discounting or giving away there services.

They are in a mode of selling at cost just to make it threw this mess. Paying there expenses and labor and keep there name out there.

We went back to the drawing board and came up with a different plan of attack. We now have a bare bones [industry standard] price. Just bottom down and dirty product and price.

Then we set up a menu of up grades and priced them separate. This has worked for us so far. Our closing rate went back up to 54%.

The best thing is by doing it this way our client has made there choice on how much to spend.

Our industry standard is at low margins but because of our sales ability we are able to almost always sell up grades and much better margins.

So I hope everyone just steps back a bit and look at there situation and remember it's the little things you can do that can help you the most.

MattCoops

Everything we sell is "on sale". It's just not discounted.
We advertise how it will better your household rather than how cheap it is.
After all, we're not really marketing to price hunters.
I know a lot of people are gonna go to Home Eepot / Lowes and get the $0.69/sq ft tile. There's nothing around that.
I never understood conducting a bath remodel for thousands of dollars using "cheap" materials.
Like those shoppers who want "a porcelain tile that looks like travertine".

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Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
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Mike Finley

If I showed up at your business with the 6 O'Clock news in tow with two of your customers, one whose job you quoted at $5000 and the other at $5000 and both jobs were identical and then asked you how did they both come to $5000 when one of the customers had your $500 coupon what would you say?

Would you look right in the camera's lens and say "Hey man, that's how we do business, we inflate the price $500 and then give the customer $500 off! That's my scam."

Would you? Probably not, no I'd imagine you would back peddle and squirm and lie like a scumbag caught and exposed ripping people off.

Just so you know - In many states these mark up to mark down tricks are considered violations of the civil code and deceptive trade practices, in other words they are illegal.

I'm sick and tired of scumbags ripping people off with bulls*t scumbag tactics and making it harder on the rest of us who operate ethically by tainting our industry.

Keep up the good work there remodel bud, these are your peers you agree with so strongly.

Remodel bud you have 300 post and half of them are replies like this:

or this one your reply to the scumbag:

Your transparency is ridiculous. Your only reasons for being here as you stated yourself to increase your internet 'Cred' are at the expense of polluting this forum with your used car salesman tactics and twisting of important ethical issues to the rest of us.

Your atta boy replies to scumbags using scumbag ethical tactics are not helping our industry, just because you want to pretend the end justifies the means and being a scumbag doesn't matter because you're marketing and that's justifiable.

If you can't see the differences I wish you would just leave, enough is enough.

If you have something to contribute do it without dragging our industry through the mud with promotion of underhanded and unethical tactics that won't pass the test of scrutiny by the public or encouraging deceptive trade practices through your all incompassing stamp of approval of it's "Marketing" or its "Salesmanship".

You have an inordinate amount of posts that start off with a marginal "tip" that then slides into a shadow area of slightly unethical behavior - you should really think about that and what you are promoting since you want so badly to be regarded as a home improvement marketing/consulting guru. You should keep in mind all your posts that go south like this show up on internet searches that your potential clients can easily find.

SelfContract

This web site needs word "filtering" features . Ask Nathan to "turn-on" these special words:

ass, lick, suck, scum, tea bag, nuts, peanuts (just kidding), piss, ****, etc... and etc...

Everytime these words submitted/typed by me later, they will be shown as "*****" characters only! ...testing..testing...1..2..3..etc..

neolitic

Mike,
You see this makes you a "bitter old man"
with a "very sour attitude that is not helpful
to people at all."
Just like me. Gee, I hope I got all of that right.
Buddy can't correct me since, "I'll just IGNORE LIST
your posts so I don't have to read them."

Don't criticize the Buddy, after all it's his forum,
he makes the rules, and no other opinions
are to be tolerated.
God forbid anyone ask him to back up
any of his claims to fame.

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