How To Drum Up Business

George Z

I think what is meant is Word of Mouth is not enough.
He did not say do a bad job.
It depends how many leads you need coming in.
If you need about ten leads a week your customer base
is not enough to support that.
There are exceptions of course.

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ron schenker

Oh Oh Mike's in trouble now!

Alan Mesmer

I own a very small excavating company in N.E. Ohio. I currently run a small Yellow Pages ad 2" square. It is as large as they allow to stay in the main listing column(one of those square ads right in the column). There are pages and pages of 1/2 page ads for excavating in our book. I was ready to lay down some large cash but after sharing a few beers with the Yellow pages salesman he actually told me that I would get noticed more here in the column than with a larger ad. I was amazed that he down-sold me but I went with his advice. I actually have received quite a few calls from homeowners for small to mid-sized jobs with this ad. I asked a few customers why they picked me from all of the others and some said that the others "looked too expensive" from their ads.
Although 20% of my business comes from the Yellow Pages, most of my work comes from word of mouth and targeted direct mail marketing. One thing that I do is make sure I find out how the customer found me. It has changed my way of looking at advertising for sure!
Alan

Mike Finley

LOL,

Put your guns away, those weren't fight'n words. I would explain it further but George Z summed it up perfectly. Doing great work is a given.

housedocs

well said Mike

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"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure". -Mark Twain

Always Greener

My guns are down ... I just a replying to the post that’s all, and for us word of mouth is our number one advertisement.. We have used YP but not enough money came from it. We do advertise in a Home Pages phone book that goes out to certain towns in my area but that is very minimal fee for the year, so we do it to keep the name in sight for those phone book surfers.

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Mike Finley

Have you noticed any difference between the customers that come out of the yellow pages and the customers that are a referral?

Always Greener

Well that ones that call from the phone book are price checking and want free everything. The referrals that we receive 99% of the times they go with us no questions asked, it’s funny because sometimes I will be doing the sales pitch and giving them quotes and I’m not sure how to read them and all of a sudden they say looks good when can you start. I do get dumb founded sometimes. Most of my cliental is commercial and they all talk. So word of mouth is the best. For us..

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