Marketing a service based company

[FreeBy23]

Hi all,

I told myself I would get out and DO STUFF last night but instead I ended up bucketing 200 gallons of water out of the basement, hooray. My company is focused on providing services to business and individuals on a fee basis. I'm fortunate enough to live with my family still in a fairly affluent neighborhood with a lot of business owners and wealthy families. To market my business, I know I can do AdWords or Facebook ads but I feel either door knocking or hanging tags or just direct sales in general would be the best way to start. Does anyone have advice for getting those first few clients besides just getting out there? Any tips or tricks or better ways to market?

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

Does anyone have advice for getting those first few clients besides just getting out there?

What worked best for me when I started out was:

"Spend your money on diesel and coffee"

(EDIT: Use the network you already have. Serve somebody you know. Make them smile. Get them to tell 1 friend. Repeat.)

Now, after I exhausted my network a bit, it is time to grow it through referrals.

@Andy Black taught me a very important formula in business: R + R = P.

Make sure you do an outstanding job for your first clients, so they give you Repeat business, Refer you to their peers, so you can make Profit.

 

[cutthroughstatic]

Hi all,

I told myself I would get out and DO STUFF last night but instead I ended up bucketing 200 gallons of water out of the basement, hooray. My company is focused on providing services to business and individuals on a fee basis. I'm fortunate enough to live with my family still in a fairly affluent neighborhood with a lot of business owners and wealthy families. To market my business, I know I can do AdWords or Facebook ads but I feel either door knocking or hanging tags or just direct sales in general would be the best way to start. Does anyone have advice for getting those first few clients besides just getting out there? Any tips or tricks or better ways to market?

Identify your unique value proposition. Work on sales text that conveys that clearly and concisely. Identify your target market, and think about where they are most likely to be most open to saying yes to your or clicking on your ad - get into the nitty gritty of your demographic. It all depends on who your market is and what their budget is.

Door to door is great experience in learning to sell. This is a free and valuable exercise, period. Whether or not it's the most efficient, maybe start with this and it will help to hone your offering/proposition.

You could move to doing direct mail. There's a few threads on this, I think @IceCreamKid did a pretty good thread awhile back on how he grew his company via direct mail. It may be on the inside, I can't remember. But you can target zip codes, demographics, etc. This is good and underutilized.

FB ads are cheap when you target them. Also a good strategy.

With all your advertising, once you get the copy down, just really try to hone in on your potential market. You need to be everywhere, but only everywhere to the people that you have the highest likelihood of actually converting to customer.

 

[jon.a]

Business owners and wealthy families? You need a warm contact referral. Do you think that the maid or the spouse is going to tell the boss or the other spouse that a nice young man stopped by selling pickled widgets today?

Make your pickled widgets the best ever seen and ask you parents to help you to get in front of their friends.

 

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[FreeBy23]

Holy wow fast replies, I'll definitely take them into consideration. I think your suggestion @jon.a might not work so well because unfortunately we don't actually talk with the neighbors short of maybe one or two but I'll try to get those in. We're here courtesy of the slow lane and saving up so they don't fit in all too well. I did see the thread by icecream though and I'll try to create a more actionable plan in the next few hours so I can knock some things out this evening. I really appreciate all the assistance!

 

[jon.a]

Hum.
Mrs jon is well off. NO ONE gets to Mrs jon but through me!

 

[ZCP]

Ready Fire Aim by Masterson.
Do what he says.

 

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[FreeBy23]

@jon.a May I speak to the LADY of the house? /s but I do appreciate the input and I'll do what I can to give it a go. @ZCP I'll see if it's in a library and it not, maybe I'll prime it. Thanks!

 

[ZCP]

Do, or do not. There is no maybe.

 

[Coalission]

Without any details on what your service is, a safe first step is to scope out the competition.

Go to Google, type in your city + service you provide. For example, if you go to Google and type in "boston plumbers" without the quotes, you get a company called "Beacon Plumbing" advertising in the top spot. We don't know if that spot is profitable yet, so let's go to Spyfu and see how they're doing.

SpyFu Keyword Spy Tool for Keyword Research | SEO Software & AdWords Tools

We can see here that for Adwords their estimated spend per month is $33,000! You think Adwords might be a little profitable for them? Of course.

Ok, so we know one of the big boys in the area, so how can you compete? Go to Google and type in "beacon plumbing boston" without quotes. You can see their Yelp page as one of the first results, so let's check that out: Beacon Hill Plumbing & Heating - Beacon Hill - Boston, MA

2.5 out of 5 stars, not so good. Reading through some of the complaints, my first impression is they are overpriced and not dependable. There's your opportunity to differentiate yourself.

Do this type of research for your city and your service, and get a feel for what companies are doing and having success with, how they're acquiring customers, and now you can go in and attack. Otherwise, you're just guessing.

 

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[FreeBy23]

@ZCP I meant more if I would go out and buy it or get an audiobook or prime it. No local places had it so it's on prime order. @Coalission I'll give it a look for sure, much appreciated.

 

[ZCP]

I know. Have you bought it yet? Is it on the way?
Make progress!!

 

[FreeBy23]

Step 1: Buy a book
Step 2: Go door knocking
Step 3-73:????
Step 4: Profit

 

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[FreeBy23]

Follow-up with the advice given: I went out and knocked on doors, I got 3 definitive not interested, 2 "it sounds interesting, mind if I get your information?" and 1 "I'm really interested but I know some people that work for me that could definitely use it too. Email me and we'll talk" and about 12 no-answers. My neighborhood gets a lot of SolarCity, some church, and a lot of pest control and lawn control; boy did I feel the hostility. Once I broke the barrier, it wasn't too hard. 2 of the definitive not interested were both elderly families who I assume were either retired or close to it. Definitely learned a lot about pitching it and ended up redoing my entire pitch I pre-planned. @cutthroughstatic , I'll work on the mail thing soon but I'm not sure how much more effective it will be since we get a lot of that type of mail already. @Nicoknowsbest I'm not sure what contacts I have but I guess now is as good a time as ever to learn to flex it and figure it out. @jon.a I think it goes along the lines of what nico said but I do need to shore up my pitch more for sure. @Coalission Going to do that tonight after I figure out who I'm reaching out to tonight.@ZCP I got the book, happy? lol I really appreciate the input from everyone, any advice is well taken and any criticism has it's benefits if you look into it. Cheers all!

 

[FreeBy23]

Since I got much needed effort, I'm going to move this to a progress thread today, expect more updates!

 

[Brian C.]

If it were up to me, I'd be running a local direct mail campaign at the onset. That way, once you roll up on a prospect's doorstep, they're already familiar with you (either consciously or subconsciously).

 

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[cutthroughstatic]

If it were up to me, I'd be running a local direct mail campaign at the onset. That way, once you roll up on a prospect's doorstep, they're already familiar with you (either consciously or subconsciously).

Ooooh this is a good point.

Hey @FreeBy23 I think the name of the Direct Mailer company that I have heard used before was Every Door Direct Mail. I actually think they are based out of Maryland or DC area... Give them a lookup. I know I talked to one of their reps once when I was researching DM as a marketing tool.

CONGRATS on getting out and knocking on doors. It wont be the most efficient but it will provide you with the confidence and skills to sell your product. Consider it sales bootcamp. You're right about the hostility portion, no other type of sales encounters more hostility than when you're going into people's homes.

Random comment - have you ever seen Napoleon Dynamite? One of my favorite storylines in that movie is when Uncle Rico and Kip go door to door selling tupperware.... so funny.

 

[jamez1515]

You can print a leaflet and contact with the newspaper seller to deliver the leaflet along with the news paper. It is like door to door marketing. Once, I did it for local marketing and it result was impressive.