How 2009 was the best year we ever had

My primary reason for writing this post is to wish everyone a more-prosperous new year, to help contractors who need help getting more leads, to help contractors close more sales, and to make this wish come to fruition.

My secondary reason for writing this post is; even though, most businesses say 2009 was the worst year ever, we broke our sales record by 10%, and 7% of the increase in sales occurred during the past 60 days, and I would like to you the methods and systems we use to break a new record every year.

To increase sales, you need to find a method and system you believe in. Finding the best method and system is fairly simple. You only need to find a proven system that is already working for someone else and copy it. The difficult part is implementing the method and system because this requires a great effort for planning and mental energy. You need to give yourself time to perfect your system because you won't always know how to make it work for you, immediately.

Every one of these methods can make a new business profitable and successful in less than 60 days and this can be accomplished in any city with a population greater than 10,000.

1. Build an overwhelming presence without the yellow page books and without the internet by hand-delivering and/or mailing brochures (flyers) to every home in the city no less than two to three times every year. Constantly add new items (gifts) to deliver to homes and businesses and these include ink pens, magnet calendars, coffee cups, and postcards. You can get items directly from China by going to alibaba.com. We get ink pens with rubber grips for 6 cents, 5 x 7 magnet calendars for 6 cents, and coffee cups for 21 cents and with shipping and customs the coffee cups cost only 30 cents.

2. Advertise in the major newspapers and in the community newspapers. The return on investment for these ads is not as great as brochures, but they generate a little business and give you a little more presence.

3. Our latest and greatest advertising weapon is door-to-door canvassing. Contrary to opinions, regarding whether or not door-to-door is intrusive, it has become the greatest method of advertising we've ever done. It is exhilirating to come into the office every evening and find contracts sitting on my desk. It is a great feeling to end 2009 with a 10% increase in sales, to break our all-time record, and to know we will break our all-time sales record in 2010. The door-to-door canvassing is your least expensive media because you pay only a commission. You guarantee a salary for 4 weeks, but after 4 weeks the canvasser earns a decent living from a commission or you terminate him. There were times I was going to abandon canvassing because the start was bumpy, but I am sure glad I stuck with it. You have to believe that canvassing works, it is not intrusive, and to keep employees happy you must have written policies that work.

4. You need proven systems and methods to close the highest percent of your leads. You need to write your systems and methods so you can hire, train, and perfect new employees in a short period of time. We trained our latest and greatest canvasser in only 8 days and he closes more sales than my best salesmen. You will find the information regarding how we advertise, close sales, and most of our commission and pay policies in the business manual you can download in the link below.

Negative thoughts are not acceptable. I give a man a job and I don't want to hear what can't be done. I always like to think about the statement in the movie UB 249,

"The captain always knows what to do."

Lets have more fun, enjoy what we do, and worry less about money. Then, the money comes naturally, and because I always say this is not about the money because......

"They don't take Traveler's Checks where I'm going, anyway"

Happy New Year!