How To Beat The Competition 2

[PressurePros 249]

Day to day operations of a business involve more than just getting out there and performing the work. You have to be constantly evaluating your numbers. How efficient are you? How realistic are your estimates for time? Are all your fixed expenses as trimmed as they can be without sacrificing work quality? Is your marketing giving you the right rate of return? Have you shown consistent growth year after year? I agree with the axiom, “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying”

How does one continuously grow income as well as well as grow customer count?

I am a believer in maximizing each and every customer. While a customer is telling you about his deck, have one eye on him and one eye scanning the property. We can clean/strip the average deck in a few hours. It makes more sense for me to sell a customer on a house wash and flagstone cleaning and sealing and spend the whole day there. It’s more efficient and I can blend high margin and lower margin services together and only have to travel to one job. The customer comes out ahead. He is getting one competent contractor to perform several services he needs and I can offer him a package deal because we are already there. This is one reason I use the word “exterior cleaning contractors” in my advertising. I don’t want to come across as a handyman service, but if you need something beautified outdoors, PressurePros, Inc is the company to call.

Evaluate the services you are offering. If you are a niche business, let’s say 100% wood care.. are you able to sustain the high rates necessary to compensate for the lack of repeat service? I am not saying one cannot perform maintenance work but it is usually at a lower margin and still takes up time. It is, at best, a once a year service call. For most it probably a biennial service (every two years) Other wood restoration contractors and I have spoken about the money in wood care. It is probably the lowest paying of all PW’ing services. If you truly love wood care, you are going to spend extra time getting each and every project just right. Make sure you compensate by making up on maintenance done efficiently. Next season I am setting up a 4 gpm machine in the back of a small pickup that will be an exclusive wood maintenance rig run by one employee. I have spent way too much time this year running from maintenance clean to maintenance clean. That’s working hard not smart. I am a firm believer in doing the opposite.

Another way to keep your name in front of a customer is to use a newsletter. “Hey, look what service PressurePros just added! Get your name on the schedule for that fall gutter cleanout before you miss out” In the past I have only sent my newsletter to existing customers but next month I am sending out the summer issue to a larger audience. It’s going to cost a bit more to print pictures and make it more colorful but I think when a new potential customer gets it, they will wonder why they haven’t already jumped on the wagon and become a PressurePros customer. After all, all of their neighbors have, right?

The key to making all of this work is target marketing. Choose higher income areas, those that care about their property. Communities where there are many contractors in the area performing some type of maintenance service.

And by all means, when a new customer calls you, go meet him!

You are going to be this guy’s go-to man for exterior cleaning. You are going to be the guy he calls when he needs a plumber and trusts your expertise to recommend one. He is trusting you with most prized possession, his home. Don’t start things off by spewing out numbers over a phone. Take the time to build your relationship and the money you spend in gas will pay for itself many times over.

I started falling into the trap of qualifying people over the phone. That is an area in which you want to tread lightly. Explain that you offer a top notch service and that your customer base is above and beyond satisfied but that you are not the lowest priced guy. Here is what I have started doing. This is a total trial and error and may bite me in the behind so if you do it, it is at your own risk.

PP: "Hi, Mrs. Meranti, Ken Fenner calling from PressurePros. You called about a deck that needs service?

MM: "Yes, Hi Ken"

PP: "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions about it?"

--- Followed by questions pertaining to deck itself.. be sure to find out if they are happy with the way the deck (house/fence/sidewalk) looks --

PP: "That sounds like a project we would be able to perfom for you Mrs Meranti, but I'd also like to be straight with you. We are a professional business. We carry a million dollars in liability insurance and our employees are covered by Workman's Compensation Insurance. We do a job, one way, and that is the right way. We offer a two year written guarantee on our work and we do not take short cuts. While our rates are fair and competetive, often times this quality of work makes us one of the higher priced companies out there. As you know with everything in this world, you get what you pay for. Does this sound like the type of service you are seeking, Mrs Meranti?"

MM: (pauses or is unsure) "I would like to have it last more than a year."

PP: "Let me come out and show you some pictures of my work and explain more about why I can offer a two year guarantee and have had hundreds of happy customers"

What have I done here?

1) I have showed interest in the customer and her project.

2) I showed her I understand wood care and am professional.

3) I let her know in polite terms I am a straight shooter.

4) I have changed the ceiling price she was willing to pay for mediocre service to a higher one for a quality service.

Now when I get there in logo'd gear, professionally designed cards, take pictures and measurements of the deck, show a picture portfolio and go into an educating but soft toned sales pitch, she is already halfway to saying yes.

[Mountain View 14]

Ken,

Excellent training as always! Being a newbie with a very limited portfolio, what are some of the questions I am likely to get and what would you (or anyone else) suggest as strategies to deal with this issue. I'm speaking primarily about questions concerning my experience level. Professional appearance, speaking, etc shouldn't be a problem for me.

[Jeff 232]

Ken good stuff as usual!!!!

I'm not great with the numbers but I am trying. I'm way ahead of last years #'s and of course it because of more work that I've gotten, but I do and am trying to cut cost without cutting quality. Some simple things, better time management getting my guys out working quicker, shopping for price & quality on chems, replacing parts before they wear out and cause problems, grouping jobs(residential) one neighborhood one day and another a different day

As for time estimates Ive also gotten much better with that and I've had to increase some of the prices on some jobs. Ive lost a few jobs because of it but Im making more per job for less work.

If you aint growing your dying, very true!! The past years Ive double or almost doubled my gross, this year it wont be double but my #"s are great and hope to have my 1st half million year in 2007 or 08

Target marketing works, I like and make good money with PM companies so thats 80% of my marketing. I've decided not to drop residential and may even start targeting it some in upcoming months for a couple reason, it fills in some slow times and theres a need for it in this area so I figure why not help fill that need. I usually dont make as much doing residential and its more time consuming doing the estimates and everything else involved, but I can still make a good days profit

Ive definitly found theres more to biz than just the actual work and you know I enjoy most of it and I hope someday that I wont be doing the actual work. I wish I had a better business mind and was better with the #'s but you have to work with what you got.

Good stuff Ken we all learn from each other

Thanks

JL

[Jeff 232]

Ken,

Excellent training as always! Being a newbie with a very limited portfolio, what are some of the questions I am likely to get and what would you (or anyone else) suggest as strategies to deal with this issue. I'm speaking primarily about questions concerning my experience level. Professional appearance, speaking, etc shouldn't be a problem for me.

Experience level, sometimes you just have to bulls--t a little. You read and learn a lot right here on these boards use it when talking to customers.If its residential , take pictures of everything you do and put together a photo album, do family house take pics, do friends house & deck take pics, do your house & drive take pics. you can fill up a small photo album quick and it can look impresive to customers.

JL

[Don M. 14]

I agree, the photo book does wonders.

Just this week alone I have went out and done 4 estimates and closed one. The other three were wives saying their husbands were not home and they need him to make the decision. How do you guys combat that.

I beleive in the next couple of weeks I will be at half of what I did the entire year last year working part time. I have a shot at getting 10-12 entryways and shopping cart areas for Aldis. If this happens I am on my way to the bank to get set up with a trailer and the whole outfit with hot water. We went up to a high end area shopping center and all the concrete is filthy. I thought to myself if I could just land some of those on a monthly cleaning as well as Aldi, I would pretty much go fulltime with this business. Its hard working 50 hours a weekfor the other man, going out in the evening and doing jobs, and finding time for estimating.

[CCPC 26]

Just this week alone I have went out and done 4 estimates and closed one. The other three were wives saying their husbands were not home and they need him to make the decision. How do you guys combat that.

I think that in most cases this is horse crap. It's either an excuse to allow time to think about it, or a way to send you packing without having to tell you "no sale".

[James 625]

I closed 100% of wood jobs this year ( ALL REFERALS) . Today I met with a builder that used me two years ago for two cedar decks. He brought me to 5 other homes he built in the past. Introduced to the owners as the person to care for their decks ( all strip joBs and cedar). Plus his deck. Great day for the ego!!

[DustinC 64]

Thanks for the great info Ken, I always pay close attention to your posts. I have a lot riding on the launch and success of my pw biz. I've been told I'm crazy, but my wife and I are putting together a pretty solid marketing strategy. If you stay hungry you'll never starve.

Dustin

[Barry M 73]

I think that in most cases this is horse crap. It's either an excuse to allow time to think about it, or a way to send you packing without having to tell you "no sale".

Bingo! It's an objection called "the stall" and what they are asking for is more time, but that's really NOT the objection. Prospects use the stall objection for one of two reasons: either they really do not feel comfortable with what they've seen so far, or there's some hidden condition that they haven't told you about. Like maybe your price is too high or they lack the authority to act. I find that my prospects biggest objection, especially on deck estimates, is the price, whether or not they actually say it's the price or they say "I need to think about it". The best way to deal with this common objection is to bring it up yourself, I know it sounds crazy but it works. If you bring up the objection it's yours, you own it and it's always easier to answer your own objection than someone else's. If the prospect raises the objection, then they own it, and they'll feel a psychological responsibility to defend it.

This is what Ken is doing in his mock phone conversation, he is bringing up the price objection right away and like he said if the prospect is still interested then he has climbed a huge hurdle and helped push them over the hump.