I was on the phone to a new Lifestyle Tradie member the other day conducting our ‘Getting Started meeting’ where we provide focus for the next 90 days with a tailored Plan. We were talking about one of his key challenges as a trade business owner… surprise surprise, the conversation turned to marketing.
It’s a common sentence we hear “I need more customers”.
Which triggers us to ask “What marketing do you do?”.
Funnily enough his reply was, “Not much. I simply hope the phone will ring!”.
This guy has been operating his business for over 3 years. He’d been doing a few marketing activities, a bit hit and miss, enough to get him by. He totally KNEW he should be marketing properly, he just didn’t know where to start.
Are you the same?
Are you feeling a bit lost about what to do with your marketing? You try a few things but in the end all it did was cost you a bomb for little return? The end result is simply you left feeling really frustrated!
Here’s the thing… waiting for the phone to ring, WILLING it to ring, won’t bring in new customers. As much as we wish it were true. You actually have to DO something…
I’m not just talking when you FIRST started your business, I mean ALL THE TIME!
This brings me to a very controversial question…
Are you a ‘tradesman first’ or a ‘marketer first’ owning your own trade business?
Some of you might answer like this ‘If I couldn’t do my trade – plumb, electrical, build etc – then I wouldn’t have a business’.
This is true…
You are in the business to fix things. Build things.
But who do you serve?
How do you earn your money?
You need to have CUSTOMERS to work FOR, otherwise your trade is totally insignificant.
As a business owner, you need to learn to be an exceptional marketer FIRST, and then the fact that you are exceptional in your trade will simply follow.
So now that we know we MUST Market, and market well, we need to look at the question; ‘where do I start?’. Stick with me… I’m getting to this part.
Let me tell you something I really think you need to hear; ‘It’s not your fault’.
T.A.F.E. didn’t teach you how to market. They simply taught you how to ‘do your trade’.
But if you’d asked the apprentices back in T.A.F.E. ‘who wanted to own their own business?’, the entire room would have responded with a unanimous ‘YES’.
So, why did a solid business education get totally missed at T.A.F.E?
Good question, and one we still baffled by today.
It is for this VERY REASON why Lifestyle Tradie came about.
Lifestyle Tradie has become the gap filler for many trade business owners to learn more about how to operate a successful business; not just marketing, but finance, profit, customer service, setting up your business platform right, how to streamline, adopt technology and of course, manage people. How to hire, motivate, retain and how to lead. If you want more on this you can join us on a free webinar ‘The Tradie Revolution’.
No more living in the dark not knowing….
The thing is ‘we don’t know what we don’t know!’.
So that said, let me share with you how you can be an exceptional marketer.
Your marketing needs to cover four key areas.
- New customers. We call these LEADS
- Convert the lead to a customer (a call is just a call, not a customer yet)
- Increase Average Dollar Sale on the job
- Repeat customers
Let me explain how this works;
You do, of course, need to start with Leads if you don’t have any work, or not enough.
You need to understand your target market, your AVATAR really well to know WHERE to find them.
For example; Is your key customer a stay home mum with little kids and more likely to hang out in face book? Then market on that platform.
Is your key customer a pensioner who isn’t in to technology at all, in fact hangs out at the local R.S.L. and reads the local paper from front to back. Then do your marketing all in print format through the local paper and the R.S.L.
Plenty of online and offline strategies can be applied here depending on your Avatar.
One thing I will say is ‘mobile friendly website’. You’ve simply GOT to have one. No if’s or but’s.
And now that you’ve been spending money marketing… answer the phone. With a smile!
Seems like the most obvious thing, but your customer wants to talk to a friendly tradie, for you to listen and to solve their problems.
Lets just start with answering the phone with a smile and listen. This is the first step to converting them from a call/prospect to a customer where you’ve booked a job.
So now that you’re in the house, remember to see if your customer has any other issues in and around their home. You can use a ‘Safety Inspection Report’ to ensure you capture everything and not just walk around randomly. Your customer respects your honest opinion and insight.
Try and stay on site (we do this using the Flat Rate pricing system). In the end we know this makes your customer happy and increases your average dollar sale (more profit to you!).
It doesn’t stop there. You now have a database to stay in contact with to encourage them to come back as repeat customers. There are a number of different strategies you can apply here. The coolest part is we know that a repeat customer will triple their average dollar sale with you. Fact.
The bottom line is this:
Are you a ‘tradesman first’ or a ‘marketer first’ owning your own trade business?
You are 100% a marketer FIRST. Own it!
If you’re not sure what to do then reach out to us. Happy to have a chat about your personal situation and see if we can help in any way. That’s what we’re here for!
What’s next?
- Join our Kick-Ass Tradies Facebook Group, for access to trade business specific conversations, tips and resources, plus a like-minded community of tradies.
- Book a 15-minute Game Plan Call with Andy, owner of Dr. DRiP plumbing and co-founder of Lifestyle Tradie, to clarify your priorities and get clear action steps.
It’s time to kick some butt with your marketing!
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