More and more I’m realizing the value of having a clear cut plan of attack in place because if I didn’t, I’d wake up and find out I’m still trying to figure out what needs to get done 2 days ago.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. I want to touch briefly on the differences between Price and Value. Knowing what each of these are and how they’re different can make a HUGE difference in your business.

PRICE is what someone pays for something. Plain and simple. No fancy explanations needed to help you understand this one.

Value, on the other hand, may take a bit more explaining. You see, VALUE is a combination of both the price someone pays AND the total benefits derived from that ‘something’.

If the PRICE is way to high for the VALUE received, that business won’t be in business very long. I’m sure you get the picture.

So, how can you turn this knowledge to your advantage?

In many cases, especially the green industry, businesses try to compete on price alone. They think the only thing the customer’s worried about is the amount of the invoice you’re going to send. As a result, they’re willing to undercut their prices simply to try and land new customers.

Well, I’m here to tell you that that’s a HORRIBLE way to run your business and it’s not always necessary. If you do happen to have customers that are only worried about price, then I suggest you start looking for more customers that aren’t.

You see, instead of competing just on PRICE, you should position yourself to compete on VALUE. That way, you can provide basically the same services, but not have to worry yourself to sleep at night thinking your customer will vanish the next time some low ball scrub comes knocking on their door.

Aside from looking for customers that are more interested in VALUE than PRICE, you should constantly be educating your customers on why you do provide the best VALUE.

Go the ‘extra mile’ for them and demonstrate a willingness to do things other LCO’s aren’t willing to do and you’ll soon find you have a business filled with loyal, VALUE conscious customers instead of wishy-washy, price checkers.

I know I’ve mentioned this numerous times lately, but the more I watch trends in the world of marketing, the more they point to one simple fact:

In today’s competitive marketplace, if you DON’T have a website, you’re a sitting duck.

The truth is, over 60% of all consumers are going online to find and research service providers before they ever pick up a phone.  So, if you don’t have a website, they’ll never find you and give you an opportunity.

Another fact.  Google and Yahoo! are replacing the good ol’ yellow pages.  Now, whenever someone wants to find a service provider, instead of picking up the yellow pages, they go online to one of the many search engines.

How are you going to compete if you’re not there when they’re looking for you?

And, just because you have a listing in either Google or Yahoo with your phone number attached, if you don’t have a website they can check out, they’ll check out your competitor that DOES have a website and chances are, they’ll get the business.

In a nutshell, YOU NEED TO HAVE A WEBSITE.

Sorry to ‘shout’, but it’s true.  

If you already have a website, fantastic.  The rest of this probably won’t apply to you, so you can stop reading here.  Otherwise, keep reading.

To help push you off the fence about getting a website for your business, and not just some site that looks like it was put together as a high school home room project, but one that looks professionally done and most importantly, ranks well in the search engines, I’ve come up with a killer deal.

Beginning right now, I’m offering up to $1K worth of bonuses when you purchase one of my website packages. 

In addition to a powerful, customer catching website, you’ll also get one of my turn-key marketing packages that can help you put your marketing on auto-pilot in no time. 

To get all the details, go to www.lawncarewebsitemagic.com. 

To recap, you get 1) a search engine friendly website that works as your 24/7 salesforce, 2) up to $1K in bonus marketing tools and resources to help you turn your marketing on auto-pilot.

Now, I told you it was a limited time offer and it is.  It all ends on Friday night at 11:59pm, so DON’T DELAY.

Grab your spot on the information superhighway today!  Go to:

www.LawnCareWebsiteMagic.com

A few quick marketing thoughts to jump start the week. 

I got an email today from one of my colleagues in the marketing world and he brought up 3 excellent things to keep in mind when it comes to successful marketing.

1. Have something good to say – design your business so it exceeds your customer’s expectations every time, and tell everyone about it
2. Say it well – learn how to communicate the benefits of your business in such a way that they’d have to be brain dead to NOT choose you
3. Say it often – on average, it takes AT LEAST 5-7 times for a prospect to make the buying decision, so giving up after communicating your message 1 time is complete lunacy

Keep these 3 points in mind this week as you think about ways to grow your business.  Figure out how you can redesign your business to follow these principles and your results will follow.  Guaranteed.

Here’s part 6 of my response to Keith’s questions on the Gopher Forum.

6) Repeat contacts to current acceptors: Should you make additional contact with people who have already accepted previous offers. Offering them more offers. I have a monthly calling strategy in mind for instance on the first of every month, you call current customer with this month’s offer.

For example: ring ring “It’s September, do you know leaves can clog gutters and lead to decay of roof decking around your gutters? This month we are offering 10% off gutter cleaning to all current clients of ‘Keith’s Lawn Care.’”

This is applies more to the LCO, but could apply to a franchisor if they have back-end products or services they can sell the franchisees.

This is another overlooked principle that can do AMAZING things for any business, especially the small ones. You should constantly be contacting your existing customers with for new products, services, or a combination of both.

If we think about it for a moment, the largest expense of any business is trying to get new customers. It’s such a burden because you have to 1. find qualified, interested prospects, then 2. convince them you have the answer to their problem/need/want, and 3. gain enough trust with them that they’re willing to part with their hard earned money to give you a shot.

So, if this is such a challenge, wouldn’t it make sense to do everything possible to hold onto that relationship for dear life once they’ve made the leap of faith and become your customer?

Plus, once you have them as a customer, your goal should be to sell them as many additional services as possible as often as possible. That way, your business grows with a fraction of the marketing it would require if you tried to sell the same amount of services to new customers.

Your suggestion of a monthly call is an EXCELLENT idea. Another variation of this is a service I provide, which is a monthly printed newsletter sent to existing customers. It’s not the typical high gloss, filled with boring stuff newsletter, but a black and white, hard copy newsletter filled with interesting and engaging copy. It also includes a monthly special, which you suggested, to present your customers with another opportunity to purchase your services.

Now, one final thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to completely inundate your customers with offers. You want to create a healthy mix of relationship building (which EVERY business should do) and selling. If you’re doing enough relationship building, the selling part will come easy.

One last word. I hope I’ve managed to answer Keith’s questions, at least a little. I’m certain this whole series has spawned another set of questions, which is great. Please feel free to ask!

Of course, if anything hasn’t been explained clear enough, please feel free to post follow-up questions for those as well.

Here’s part 5 of my response to Keith’s questions on the Gopher Forum.

5) Repeat contacts to declines: Should you call people back who have given negative responses? How long should you wait between contacts?

This one applies to both LCO and franchisor.

This one is one of the most overlooked keys to marketing success by most businesses. And not just the small ones either. As most people have probably heard, for the average consumer it takes 5-7 contacts from a business/product/service before they actually buy.

So if that’s true, why do people send out one measly postcard/letter/flyer and then get disappointed when they don’t see results. Sure, it’s a reasonable expectation to get some response the first time, but you’re selling yourself incredibly short if you stop there.

I recommend to every client I work with that they contact their list NO LESS than 3 times. That’s the minimum. And even beyond that, I strongly suggest they continue contacting them and present them with offers another 10-12 times over the next year. That way, you develop some name recognition with these prospects and they come to know you as the one to call if they’re every in need or your service.

Another reason to contact them multiple times is the simple fact that they may not have been in a position of need/want for your service at the time they contacted you. People’s lives go through cycles and it’s a bit silly to expect everyone’s needs/wants to line up with your service at the very moment you decide to do your marketing. So by hitting them multiple times you increase your chances of connecting with them at a time they’re ready to purchase your service.

Head on to the Direct Marketing Lists for Lawn Care finale.

Here’s part 4 of my response to Keith’s questions on the Gopher Forum.

4) Refining your pitch: You can make minor modifications to your pitch easily if you are voice cold calling. However, if you are direct mailing or using a demon dialer, how often should you refine your pitch?

This one applies to both LCO and franchisor.

This principle should ALWAYS come into play with any type of marketing you do and that is TEST, TEST, TEST. It doesn’t matter if you’re dialing for dollars, doing direct mail, knocking on doors, running ads in the newspaper or phone directories, or any other type of marketing, you should ALWAYS be testing and tweaking.

The only difference between the various methods of marketing is the delay in the feedback loop. For example, when you’re dialing for dollars you’ll very quickly know whether or not your script is working. With something like direct mail however, it takes longer to know how well something’s working simply because it takes longer to get a response back. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t track your responses and makes changes accordingly.

How often should you ‘tweak’ things? Every time you mail, call, knock, or what ever else you might do to engage a prospect. So the first time you mail a postcard, track its response. Then the next time you send one, make one change and one change only, mail it again, and again, track the response. Same thing the next time. And the next time. And the next time.

So, this then begs the question, what should I test? The easy answer is everything, but unfortunately I don’t think that would help anyone. Basically, just as there are 7 elements to any good sales message (call, letter, door knock, etc.), there are 7 things you should test. They are:

1. Headline - the opening line, should seize the prospect’s attention
2. Body - tell them a story and hold their attention
3. Offer - present them with something to buy or try
4. Risk reversal - a guarantee, testimonials, pictures, etc.
5. Urgency - a deadline, limited # available, etc.
6. Call to action - tell them EXACTLY how to respond
7. P.S. - the 2nd most read part of any sales letter (after the headline), reiterate the offer

Each one of these elements should be tested, tracked, and tweaked as necessary until you finally hit upon a winning formula, which as I’m sure you can expect isn’t going to happen overnight. It will take some time and discipline to make it happen, but having a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal really is worth its weight in gold.

Continue on to Direct Marketing Lists for Lawn Care Part 5.