Hi Brightguy,
I believe personalised advertising and differentiating yourself is the key.
Place your ad along with the hundreds of others. If you were a
potential customer, what would be the one thing that would make you
choose one contractor over another? I sure as hell don't know. Maybe
location. You have already placed one advertisement with no response.
Some ideas for you, as I have done similar in grounds work for 15
years part time on commercial properties. I contracted the experts
like you to do what I could not do. As in "one 'phone call does it
all". Whether you take a cut or not is irrelevant to the value of
repeat business. You become the problem solver. As you have a range of
expertise, all the better. Rather than compete down in price, how
about up in service? Would you prefer to deal with 100 clients at $50
a month average, or 50 clients at $100 a month?
I get the impression that you rely on discounting, a broad spread of
expertise and want to maximise your customer base. Most people do the
same and end up working hard for average results. Why try to compete
with others doing precisely the same? You end up prostituting your
services just to get the job. I tended to go the other way. Charge
properly for your personalised service, but lay on the service. Be
available at all times, be on time, clean up after yourself, put
yourself in the customer's shoes, no hurry to get to the next job,
look for the add on sales, advise your client of attention needed to
those things you don't even do etc. etc.
Letterbox drops to and from a job is one small way. Building a
database of your clients is another. Contacting existing clients every
90 days personalises your service further.
Lets say you have 10 properties and increase your fee by 10%. That's
better than winning another job, because you are still only servicing
10 properties, not 11.
Start a job, but turn it into an ownership of ongoing maintenance. A
monthly fee spread over 12 months is a package you might sell to
spread the costs for the client. You mentioned rentals. If dealing
with agents, projected costs will go down well. Of course you charge
for parts and extra stuff for one-off jobs, but what about selling
them on preventative maintenance also?
Your dollars can be thrown into the pit of general advertising. What
if you spent a few bucks on your client? You can still be genuine with
gifts where appropriate. Imagine going through your database which
also includes the birthdays of your residential clients. As you get to
know people, you can send them an appropriate yet not over the top
birthday gift.
If you are the problem solver, lock them in to your personalised
service, who else are they going to use?
The shotgun approach to reach a large audience through advertising
simply spreads your services thinly. A crossbow narrowed to the right
target will yield lots more.
If you want to talk more on the commercial stuff, please respond.
That's where the money is.
Think boutique, not Walmart.
Phil |
