One of the biggest complaints I here from lawn care or landscaping business owners is that, “All anyone’s concerned with is price!  They only want the cheapest price!”

The first thing I’ll say to this is “BS”.  In fact, I’d argue that in many cases you’re not charging enough for your services.

Now, I know many will get all worked up and say, “How can I charge more when I’m already struggling to charge what I am?”  In those cases I’d say either you’re going after the wrong target market or you’re positioned incorrectly.

At the same time though, there are competitors that are charging what you should be charging and their not getting any grief from their customers.  How is this?

Well, here are 10 ways, straight from Dan Kennedy, you can use to charge more for your services and not get grief for it.

Keep in mind, not all of these methods will work for your business, but I can guarantee you there are at least 3 or 4 that will.  The question is, will you have the courage to implement them?

1. Just raise the price - you never know unless you try it
2. Change the “who” - Who’s your target market?  Do you need to move up the food chain?
3. Charge for free - instead of giving away services or products for free, start charging for them
4. Bundle your service, which creates higher value transactions
5. Always offer a premium version - If you’re not giving your customers a chance to buy your DELUXE version, you’re missing out
6. Upsell with any sale - Are you offering additional products or services with every sell?
7. Upsell AFTER the sale - Are you coming behind a sale with follow-up products or services?
8. Locked in renewal - If you aren’t already, is there any way you could lock your customers into buying from you again in the future?
9. Continuity or forced-continuity - What products or services could you offer that would allow you to charge your customers every single month whether they call you or not?
10. Change the WAY you sell, the WHAT you sell, and the HOW you sell - This one’s all about positioning.  If you’re not positioned to charge premium prices, you’ll never get premium prices.

So, do you think any of these might work for your business?  Which of these methods could you employ RIGHT NOW to raise your prices?

Well, I’m finally glad the election’s over.  I don’t know about you, but it got to the point where I couldn’t even turn on the TV without wanting to run the other way, screaming at the top of my lungs.

I was so fed up with all the political back-and-forth ads by the time it was said and done that I made a rule that no one could watch the TV unless it was a DVD or had been DVR’d and the commercials were skipped. I normally like the commercials because I love analyzing them, but even I needed a break for a while so thank goodness that’s over with!

Now, let me warn you right off.  I don’t normally wax too political because I try to keep things practical and useful.  Plus, my political views won’t do a thing to help you get more new customers or do a better job of selling to the ones you already have.  However, I’d be a total fool if I didn’t take this opportunity to examine the recent election and share some lessons we can learn from it.

First off, there’s no doubt this was a historic election.  Having just elected our country’s first African-American President, it should serve notice to EVERYONE that this is still the land of opportunity.  You should NEVER allow anyone to convince you that you can’t do something, no matter what handicaps or disadvantages you think you MIGHT have.

Whatever you set your mind to, you can achieve it if you work hard enough and take advantage of the opportunities around you.  In spite of the challenges swirling around you on a daily basis, remember that no one is standing in your way but you.

Second, aside from a message that resonated with many Americans, I think one of Obama’s keys to victory was superior marketing.  He was a freakin’ marketing machine!

Now even though he was able to outspend McCain by as much as 5-1 in battleground states, he utilized his resources and the traditional media very well.  In fact, most would argue he used it much better than any candidate ever has.

He and his team understood the power of the new media and how consumers are fed up with the old way of advertising, which is basically to spend as much money as you possibly can in order to scream for as long as you possibly can at as many people as you possibly can.  No, he understood the importance of building relationships with his prospects and he did a VERY good job of that through not just his speeches and TV appearances, but also through the new media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

Also, he wasn’t just relying on one method of finding and communicating his message with his target audience.  He knew he wouldn’t be successful if he simply relied on only TV to grow his campaign.  He employed as many methods as possible and as a result was able to build a large base of active participants in his campaign.

This is the exact same thing we should be doing to build our businesses.  Remember, there isn’t one single way to get 50 new customers, but I can easily show you at least 50 different ways to get one new customer.

How many different methods are you using to communicate with your target market and existing customers?

And finally, whether or not you voted for Barack Obama, the results your business will see in the next 4 years are completely up to you.

Obviously I have my own view on what the next 4 years will look like, and to go off on a quick sidebar, I do think Joe the Plumber barely scratched the surface on Obama’s ‘redistribution of wealth’ philosophy, but regardless, life will go on and business will still be done.

The real question comes down to, will we be the ones doing business over the next 4 years or not?

No matter what happens over the next 4 years, we’ll still have the opportunity to work hard to grow our businesses.  It won’t be easy and there will most likely be less money left over for ourselves at the end of the day, but don’t use that as an excuse!  Your competition is in the exact same position.

It’s up to you to make the decision that you’re going to go ‘pedal to the metal’ and position yourself as the dominant player in your marketplace.  It’s totally possible no matter who’s sitting in the White House.

The real question comes down to, are you willing to put in the hard work and effort to take advantage of the available opportunities? 

If you are, stick around because I’ve got some killer business building resources coming out in the next few weeks.  Keep your eyes on your inbox and my blog because I’ll be announcing them very soon.

And as always, it’s a pleasure and a joy for me to share my insights and ideas with you.  I do love hearing your feedback and comments so if there are questions you have, or specific ideas you’d like me to touch on, please let me know and I’ll do everything possible to make it happen.

I look forward to working with you over the next 4 years to help grow your business no matter what our new President decides to do!

The Future of Your Business After Today

Today’s Election Day here in the US and I thing’s for sure, things are going to change.  No matter which Presidential candidate you voted for (you did vote, right?), life as we know it is going to change.

People have been unhappy with the direction our country has gone the past few years.  Terrorism is always a constant threat.  The economy is on a roller-coaster ride.  And people have little trust in our elected officials.

In a nutshell, there’s a pretty good chance things will look significantly different 4 years down the road.  The question is, will they look better or worse?

Now, while many on both sides of the political isle want to say life will be much better with ‘their’ candidate in office, the way things look will ultimately come down to ourselves.  You see, no matter which candidate is elected President and no matter how divided the Senate or Congress is, the success we achieve is nobody’s responsibility but our own.

So, how can we make sure things are better for us 4 years from now?

Here’s a list of 5 steps you can take to ensure this happens:

1.    Focus on building a lean, efficient business

For the foreseeable future, the economy’s going to continue to be on a rollercoaster ride.  If you want to do more than just survive, it’s important to build an organization that’s lean and efficient.  To do this you’ve got to cut the dead weight, systematize EVERY aspect of your business, and ensure you’ve eliminated as much waste as you possibly can.

2.    Know who your ideal client is and focus your efforts on them

To ensure you’re as lean and mean as possible, you’ve got to focus your marketing efforts on those candidates most likely to purchase your services.  If someone’s not a good candidate, don’t send them your marketing materials.  If you don’t know if someone’s a good candidate for your services, find out.  If you can’t control who receives your sales message, consider using a different medium.

You absolutely MUST market using a rifle with a laser sighted scope, not a shotgun.

3.    Use ONLY direct response marketing to ensure maximum effectiveness

Only direct response marketing allows you to track your efforts, measure the results you get, and scale up or down as necessary.  While most businesses are busy trying to build their brand or establish name recognition through branding style marketing, you’ll efficiently build your business, attracting clients RIGHT NOW while at the same time building the name recognition without wasting money to do it.

4.    Build an impenetrable fence around your existing clients

As the face of marketing continues to evolve, the effectiveness of traditional marketing methods will continue to decline.  As a result, it will become increasingly expensive to market your business.

However, if you focus your efforts on the clients you ALREADY HAVE, you’ll find that you have a ready-made market that already knows, likes, and trusts you, and as a result, you’ll be able to grow your business WITHOUT having to worry about ineffective methods your competitors are desperately trying to make work.

5.    Become a student of effective marketing

As the owner of a business, customers are your lifeline.  Without new customers and the ability to hang on to them, your business will dry up.  As a result, it’s important to constantly be learning new and innovative ways to generate new customers and maximize the existing relationships you already have.  The only way you can do this is to constantly learn about new ways to market your business.

So, whether your candidate gets elected tonight or not doesn’t really matter.  Again, what matters most is what you do with the challenges and opportunities that we’ll be presented with over the next 4 years.

Will you use them to grow your business?  Or will use them as blame for the reasons why your business is not where it needs to be.  The choice is up to you.

One of the keys to building a successful business is understanding the principle of taking your customers off the market FOREVER.  Basically, as soon as you land a new customer, you don’t ever want them to have to look around for another service provider for the various services you provide, ever again.

For example, if you simply provide mowing and edging services, you want to make sure your customers NEVER look for anyone else to provide the mowing and edging.

However, the smart business owner will ask their new customer what other services their interested in, fertilization and installing an irrigation system perhaps, and then find a way to offer those services as well.  Either offer them yourself or partner with another service provider that offers those services.

And even beyond that, there are MANY services your customers could potentially be interested in that you might want to consider offering.  Things such as:

• Landscape design
• Landscape installation
• Pest control - lawn and house
• Pet cleanup service
• Gutter cleaning
• Hanging holiday lights or decorations
• Power washing
• Interior cleaning service
• House sitting
• Pet sitting
• Dog walking
• Plumbing
• Electrician

As you can see, there are MANY MANY possibilities.  Some make sense as an add on for your business, while others simply don’t.

The key however, is finding out what additional services your customers are interested in and figuring out a way to offer it to them.  In today’s tough economic times, the more opportunities you have to provide service for your customers, the better off your business will be!

In spite of what all the news media would have us believe, right now is a GREAT time to grow your business beyond where it is currently.  However, it’s not going to happen by accident and will require sacrifice and work.  It’s going to take ruthless attention to the bottom line and focus on the things that work.

To help lay a framework for ensuring you’re focused on what works, I’ve decided to host a FREE tele-seminar next Thursday at 4pm ET where I’ll be sharing the 7 simple steps required to implement a magical marketing system that gets you new customers, saves you money you’re most likely wasting on worthless marketing campaigns, and grows the value of the customers you already have, in ANY economic climate.

Now, I’ll let you know right now that what I’m going to share is not some silver bullet.  There is no such thing.  However, the steps I’ll be sharing with you WILL provide a step-by-step plan for identifying your greatest opportunities for growth in this current market.

Because the number of telephone lines available is limited, I’ve set up a special registration page where you can sign up and get more details about the call.  You can find the page here:

www.FREELawnCareBusinessTeleseminar.com

I know times are tough financially, but don’t be one of the companies that cowers in fear.  Instead, be one of the ones people will be talking about as being a HUGE success when this mess is over.

I’ve mentioned several times the importance of creating a detailed process map of the various marketing, sales, or operational processes you go through.  In fact, for everything you do you should have some type of process map.  At the very least a checklist of steps to complete.

Now, in order to create effective process maps, the very first step is making sure you’re covering all your bases.  In other words, you need to make sure you’ve got every potential steps, question, decision point, or follow-up step listed out.  Once you have this, it’s MUCH easier to create process effective maps.

One tool that I’ve found to be very helpful when brainstorming my process maps, and other areas of my business as well, is a mind map.  If you’re not familiar with what mind maps are, they’re visual depictions of ideas, projects, businesses, processes, etc.  Another way to look at it is like an outline that’s thrown up all over a piece of paper.

The idea is to start with your high level ideas, or what might be your top level items of an outline.  You then branch out from each main idea with the next level of ideas.  Then create another layer.  And another.  Until you’ve created all the layers or branches necessary.

As I said, I’ve found this to be an extremely effective tool for brainstorming projects, ideas, and/or processes.

Now, you can either create these mind maps on a blank sheet of paper, a big white board, or there’s even software programs that allow you to create mind maps.  My personal favorite is the blank sheet of paper, using colored pens to create the various branches.  The only problem, my mind maps tend to be quite large and as a result I end up running out of room on the paper.

So, I went in search of a low cost, but highly effective mind mapping software program.  To my surprise, I found EXACTLY what I was looking for.  It’s called MindMeister and it’s an internet based program that is priced just right. Yep, it’s FREE!!

Here’s a link to it:  www.MindMeister.com

As you work to either create or refine your business processes, give this nifty tool a shot and see if it doesn’t help you be more effecitve in creating your processes!