Author: caflynn

What About Bid?

Messaging, Spaghetti on the Wall Leave a comment
Request-for-Quote11

There couldn’t be a more true statement: “The value lies in the contrast.” Rigid drill costs $100, Bosch at $200; then you compare the features and benefits of each drill, and decide what type of value you get for the extra hundred bucks.

What about Bids? Builders are shopping three, four and five LYards at a time for quotes on a single job… and LYards prep their quotes, list their products, and total that bottom line $$ number… and that’s EXACTLY where the builder starts, that final $$ amount that it’s gonna cost him.

When your bottom line number is higher than the competition, how easy it is for the builder to understand the VALUE he gets for the extra monies? What if you could find a way to include a “value” column in the bid? What if you could highlight a benefit of each product on your quote, compared to the cheaper products your competition is carrying, and that value created could somehow be totaled?

Value-Quote2111

Now how cool would it be to find a way to calculate total labor savings…

WARNING: demonstrating value through contrast can lead to excessive amounts of orders.

Own Your Zip Code!!!

Spaghetti on the Wall, Word-of-Mouth Marketing Leave a comment

“Happy customers are your best advertisers; if they like you and like what you do, they will tell their friends.” (Andy Sernovitz)

We had a customer looking to increase DIY revenue; rather than advertise in the local newspaper, and spend thousands of dollars at that doing so, we proposed that they engage in a WOMM Campaign.

So, we created the following Blog site (draft example) for them:

TheOCpros home page

http://theOCpros.com/

The Concept is Simple:

  • Content geared towards DIY projects, using supplies stocked at Pro Lumberyard
  • Exclusive “Builders’ Guild” or “Ambassador” program; builders earn the privilege of author status of the blog
  • Builders able to market themselves and promote their own work, via their blog posts, a URL-link to their own site, etc. The Blog Authors will immediately become THE EXPERTS in the Community. That means more jobs.
  • Lumberyard branded as the “go-to” destination for expert advice and quality materials
  • The Empty Bin manages the WOMM 5-T process, assist builders in photographing DIY projects & writing posts

People want Local; and they understand community.

Don’t believe me? See Seth’s post here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/time-to-start-a.html

Get After These Guys!

Spaghetti on the Wall, Word-of-Mouth Marketing Leave a comment

Here’s a link to the Top 50 Construction Blogs:

http://constructionmanagementdegree.org/?page_id=57

… and a link to the Top 100 DIY Blogs:

http://constructionmanagementdegree.org/?page_id=113

Most of these sites are getting thousands of visitors a month! So why not get after them!!

Likely you’ll never hard-sell any of the Authors – but how about donating a new product that you’re stocking for the Blog Author to trial? Most certainly they’ll mention your generosity and professional service on the Blog Post, not mention you’re helping them with one of the most difficult things when running a Blog: content!

Even simply participating in the Blog Post discussions can be effective, just remember one important rule: you’re best to provide useful content and insight in the comments section of the post, as plugging your company is a recipe for certain failure.

Your goal should be to “join” the conversation, not to change it.

Blah, Blah, Blah…

Messaging, Sales Methodology, Video Leave a comment

Test yourself.  How many passes does the team in white make?

Too many times the salesperson shows up to a sales call and “tells, tells, tells” about their products and services, focused on making sure that the customer knows how great they are… never focusing on the exact needs of the customer. As salespeople, we’re so intent on communicating the features & benefits of our products that we fail to ever recognize the pain of the moon-walking bear getting in the way of our customer’s operations.

Ask questions to understand your customer’s pain. Seek first to understand; then be understood.

Once we accomplish that, we’ll be better able to help our customer kick that moon-walking bear out of the game. Ultimately, that’s what we’re there to do: provide a product or service that improves your customer’s business.

What’s in a WSO??!!

The WSO Leave a comment

The first step is building a Winning Sales & Marketing Organization (WSO)… is… well… what exactly is in a WSO? 

We’re going to get together as a team via web-conference, and spend a couple of hours talking through exactly what we want our WSO to look like, and what the Roadmap to get there is going to require.  The Roadmap will entail all aspects of word-of-mouth marketing, to sales methodology, to messaging… to sales team org structure and compensation. 

Everything we need to succeed.

We’ll report back to you when the Roadmap is finished.

The Purpose of a Book Cover

The Thought Police, Word-of-Mouth Marketing Leave a comment

Post from Seth Godon’s Blog:

“The purpose of a book cover

(and I think it works for lots of products)

Is the purpose of the cover to sell books, to accurately describe what’s in the book, or to tee up the reader so the book has maximum impact?

The third.

It’s the third because if the book has maximum impact, then word of mouth is created, and word of mouth is what sells your product, not the cover.

Tactically, the cover sells the back cover, the back cover sells the flap and by then you’ve sold the book. If those steps end up selling a book that the purchaser doesn’t like, game over. So you have to be consistent all the way through and end up creating a conversation after the purchase. Books are better at creating conversations than most products (when was the last time you talked about a pool cue), but there’s lots of opportunity here, no matter what you make.

Some ways that a book cover can accomplish its mission:

  • Iconic (because iconic items tend to signal ‘important’)
  • Noticeable across the room (you see that lots of other people own it, thus making it likely that you’ll want to know why)
  • Sophisticated (because this helps reinforce that the ideas inside are worthy of your time)
  • Original (why bother reading a book you already know)
  • Clever
  • Funny
  • Generic (reminding you of a genre or another book you liked, not generic as in boring)

I don’t know about you, but I judge books by their cover every day.”