Relationship vs transactional seling

Mel Lester makes some important points in his most recent E-Quip Blog posting:In a weak economy, the pressure to follow a transactional approach increases. The need is to increase sales, quickly. So naturally we turn our attention to looking for near-term proposal opportunities. Isn't that the quickest way to bring in new work?Unfortunately not. Writing proposals without investing in the up-front relationship building rarely produces success. Only the illusion that we're being productive. A better expenditure of that time would be to devote it to developing relationships that position us for winning proposals.The evidence supporting a relational...

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The Construction Marketing Ideas book

About a year ago, I set out to write a comprehensive book to share the insights gathered in writing this blog. Made good progress -- to the point that I had a first draft written by the end of December 2008. But then the project stalled, at the editing stage. Business pressures, challenges, and obligations intervened, and the project went to the back burner.No more. I intend to send the book draft to our designer by the end of the month to prepare it for layout and then printing.But I'm inviting readers here to peek at the draft chapters, comment on them, even edit them, through controlled access via this blog and Twitter, where I will post...

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Servicemagic and spam?

Was this spam email authorized by servicemagic.com? It is the second similar email I've received today.Many in the industry have strong opinions about the leads service provided by Servicemagic. See this relevant forum on contractortalk.com. I won't editorialize on whether Servicemagic offers a good or bad service, but today, noticed a couple of strange emails in my in-box. I've posted a screenshot of one above.When you click on the email from haleyi@thejohnnylang.com you are directed straight to the servicemagic.com site. But who is "thejohnnylang.com"?A direct visit to the site gives the 404 error code:Error response Error code 404. Message:...

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The challenge of change: Breaking free of your marketing conventions

Toby Henderson's question asking how someone who has been successful with online marketing can succeed in the offline world raises some important additional challenges. The question is: If we are successful with one model of marketing, how to we expand or change our approach?The parallel example, and these days a much more common one, would be: "I've built my business on word-of-mouth and referrals: How can I succeed at marketing outside this approach."Change, virtually any kind of change, is difficult, for good reason. You must leave your comfort zone, and you must go away from the place where you've developed expertise, confidence and...

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Responses and communication

One of the Omega Garage Door Service videos I discovered on Youtube.com. Toby Henderson appreciates the effectiveness of video on local search engine marketing.Yesterday, Toby Henderson of Omega Garage Door Service in Anaheim CA gave permission to identify his business, referenced in yesterday's posting. He sent this note:In terms of local online marketing, yes we are on top.... (not to be confused with Florida's Omega Garage Doors), we are Omega Garage Door Service)....Secondly garage doors seem to parallel plumbing in terms of acquiring the sale however plumbing many times can have a higher ticket price as in re-piping homes....In terms of search-ablity try typing in garage door repair orange county... (more localized metro)Henderson appears to have it "right" regarding local search engine...

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Readers' Question:

Late last night, I received the following email from a reader.. . .as you can see by my email address I own a garage door repair business......It has been three years now of success even in a down market... We owe this success primarily to our online marketing methods coupled with some really great closing techniques....... however we seemed to have hit a plateau ... Although we capture a lot of sales online it seems as if our traditional marketing skills are lacking .... We learned the hard way that Yellow Page ads just don't cut it any more to the tune of a $20,000 loss and have since been disabled by fear in the paid advertising arena...Upon...

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Questions for client satisfaction surveys

A reader sent this question yesterday:Hello Mark. I discovered your name while googling the topic of Client Satisfaction Surveys. I am wondering if you happen to know of any simple 3-5 questions that businesses have asked in person to clients while discussing a current or just completed project? Thank you Mark in advance for any assistance you can provide. DaveThe response here is worthy of deeper research than this brief blog posting indicates. The right answer gets into the (controversial) territory of Fred Reichheld's Net Promoter Score -- and the concept that "satisfaction" is not enough: You want your clients so enthusiastic that...

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Local search opportunities and challenges

This is a screen shot from the ReachLocal website. Leslie-Anne McAlllister has been marketing the local search co-ordinator's services by building relationships on Internet forums such as remodelcrazy.com. Yesterday, I had a fascinating conversation with Leslie-Anne McAllister, who represents ReachLocal, a search engine marketing agency.Based in Atlanta, McAllister naturally gets most of her business within her own region, but she isn't restricted in her territories, and so we initially "met" through the remodelcrazy.com forums.McAllister believes paid local search provides the best marketing opportunities for many businesses. Budgets will...

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What you really need to know to survive (and succeed) in business

Family weddings are great events. You see your closest relatives, and a large number of (until now) complete strangers -- friends and family members from the other side.Because of scheduling confusion, we had an hour sitting at our table with not much to do but converse with our table mates. On my left, I chatted with my younger brother, who for years has run a music studio/support business in Vancouver. On my right, I met one of my brother's neighbours.Overhearing two of the three Buckshon brothers discussing business, the neighbour to the right said: "You must have a lot of courage to be in business for yourselves."I responded, "Well, not...

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Can a party overcome the negative consequences of canvassing?

Leonard Megliola at Bestline Plumbing in Los Angeles keeps thinking up new marketing ideas -- and maintaining successful older ones. He is one of the leaders in implementing practical marketing approaches, and should be an inspiration to other contractors wondering how to really build their businesses in good and hard times.This weekend on Contractortalk.com he suggests another idea, which he thinks will help mitigate some of the negative results of his (successful) canvassing initiative. Actually, this is something I have been thinking about for many years.Next week, I am going to look for a location in a neighborhood where I can give...

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Working and measuring

This morning, in Vancouver, I'm reworking a story on Metrics for the SMPS Marketer. When I wrote the original story on deadline a few months ago, the people I interviewed said no one had recently completed surveys on how many marketers are actually measuring their results. Marketing consultant Sally Handley in fact said she believes fewer than 10 per cent are measuring their success.Handley decided to do a survey and discovered that the number is closer to 38 per cent (admittedly through a self-selection process) though it is another story to know how consistently and effectively they are applying their measuring methodologies. These results...

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To Vancouver . . .

One of my nieces is getting married, so I'm off to Vancouver an intensely brief weekend visit.There is an art in travelling inexpensively and in style. Next flight will be the beginning leg of the Toronto - Sidney, Australia flight -- and business class on this flight is in the international configuration, with sleeper seats and private pods.Ticket cost: about $100.00 in taxes plus 40,000 Aeroplan points amassed on the credit card.Lots of work to do tomorrow, as today is the deadline for our Canadian publications, and masses of material need to be processed. This will be handled with a laptop and a few cups of coffee at a Starbucks in Vancouver.Meanwhile,...

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Should you start your own business?

I've been following (and enjoying) John Poole's Constructionomics blog as he struggles with the challenges of unemployment and is now at the early stages of starting his own business. Recessions are often the best time to open a business because you simply can't afford bad habits and if you are determined and skillful, you can find opportunity.But you need to find the opportunity, of course, and that is the challenge for anyone who is uncomfortable with the selling occupation. Starting up, unless you have some incredible good fortune, you will need to sell -- and it rarely is easy, especially when you don't have a track record.John has wisely...

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Intrusions and irritations: The morality of spam, canvassing and telemarketing

I'm starting to stir the pot on other forums with postings questioning the morality of canvassing. Meanwhile, just after slamming the door on a canvasser at our home (I admit my manners here are terrible), I received another "blog comment" with an embedded link from someone trying to gain link juice and "SEO status" for their service. The effort to seek publicity wouldn't be bad, but clearly the organizing seeking the publicity had contracted an offshore vendor to send out "personal" comments to bloggers to escape the spam filters.And one reason I'm not rushing to move to Wordpress from Blogger is that Wordpress's anti-spam filters are not strong...

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Publicity, recognition and awards (2)

Further to the earlier announcement regarding the Ontario Construction Report's Readers' Choice Awards, consider this earlier posting about which awards competitions you should enter, and why.If you are participating in the Design and Construction Network (recommended), consider the "Best Website Competition" (if you think your website is best -- if not, can you learn some useful things from the competition's result...

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Nominations are now open for the 2009/2010 Ontario Construction Report Readers' Choice Awards.As well, you can become an award sponsor.You can nominate your own business, or your suppliers or clients can nominate you. We'll tally votes later in the year from readers. There is absolutely no cost to enter the competition and the reward -- free positive publicity -- is truly valuable for your brand and business.If you wish to sponsor an award, you will receive these benefits for a modest sponsorship fee:1) Company/Association Logo and Name to appear on all print ads and posters;2) Company/Association Logo and Name to appear on the awards for the...

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Bringing dead files to life

Many years ago, as a junior real estate agent, I set out into the world of business and sales without connections or client relationships. So I took every bit of sales training I could find, and discovered two sources of leads (until I started building referral and repeat clients).The first group, "FSBOS", were people advertising privately their homes for sale. Using the "script" from a sales trainer, I would call them, start a conversation, and ultimately obtain a few listings. I determined the boundaries to call would be within the free calling area of my home (in a far suburb of the city). Interestingly, I had the greatest success in another...

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Small communities and big opportunities

The Design and Construction Network -- Ottawa is still at the early stages, but is part of a growing interconnection of international Internet specialized networks with local counterparts.Following yesterday's posting, I engaged in email communications with Rory Swan at Servicez Unlimited in Washington DC and Leslie-Anne McAllister in Atlanta, GA. Both are contributing useful and effective resources on the remodelcrazy.com forum and both helped answer some questions I had about construction marketing issues. (Rory clarified his CRM system is part of a much larger -- and much more expensive -- software package, and Leslie-Anne and I explored...

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Some thoughts about CRM systems

I've always been wary of formalized CRM (Client Relations Management) systems, especially for smaller businesses or larger companies who serve a modest number of important clients (like most non-residential architects, engineers or contractors). Sure, you need good client relationships, but formalizing it within software packages which require data entry and maintenance seems to be putting your energy in the mechanism rather than the actual client relationships, not a great idea in my opinion.But this weekend, facing a new sales lead management and co-ordination challenge (my sales team dumped the problem right back on me), I decided to reinvestigate...

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Overwhelming choices (and opportuniites)

A little less than three years ago, when I began publishing this blog, I set out to find other AEC industry bloggers with the intent of providing free link-backs to their sites (and to credit them with being first.) I found a few localized initiatives, but (to my surprise) seemed to have the space mostly to myself.Meanwhile, social networking groups like linkedin.com were starting to gain traction,but again few knew about them -- and I recall writing my first SMPS Marketer article on the topic and "connecting" with some SMPS leaders who hadn't heard (or knew little) about these resources. (SMPS: Society for Marketing Professional Services,...

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Business and proposal development: Quantity, quality or both

One of the surest signs you are heading down the path of failure in construction industry marketing is when you are chasing and pursuing leads and project ideas you have a faint chance of winning. This often happens when you start getting desperate: You can see your order and project backlog is drying up and you want to get work started, fast, to prevent the crunch of idle workers, expensive capital equipment and (if you are the marketing manager, rather than the boss), the threat of losing your job when you know few other employers will rush to hire you.Trouble is, of course, you run into the all-to-common situation where the harder you try...

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The construction marketing table

This blog posting has been moved to the new Construction Marketing Ideas blog site.If you wish to go directly to the relevant page/posting, you can go he...

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Early rising

Yesterday, I had coffee with a successful sales representative, who has made the transition from the corporate world to a relatively small building supplies dealer.He's always been actively connected in the community, and he knows the way to find business is to focus on the key elements in the decision-making and supply chain, while respecting and maintaining relationships.He says he is amazed how representatives of building products manufacturers waste his time by "dropping in" on him at his office."I don't need to see these guys," he told me. "They could be much more helpful if they joined me or helped co-ordinate Lunch and Learns at local...

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The Art and Science of Publicity

This special report, The Art and Science of Publicity, explores how you can co-ordinate editorial publicity for your architectural, engineering and construction business without spending money on advertising.You can request a copy by completing the form besides this posting. In return, you'll receive the PDF booklet, which you can also review with page turning software.You can also request the booklet by email to publicity@cnrgp.com. An autoresponder will send the book to y...

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Testing 1234 -- Strengths, limitations and opportunities in market testing

When you read through this posting, you'll see a "Test 1234" where you can help out, individually, because the only way I can figure out why our emails aren't working so well is to find if there is a real problem here. Testing can be invasive, irritating, subtle, or (perhaps i will find out) useful in involving your community in your marketing and business challenges. Thanks for helping out. You can click on the image to send the test email or email buckshon@cnrgp.com, but remember to phone or comment to validate the results.Is your bright marketing idea really so bright? Often, I have to admit, my "best ideas" bomb in the real world, have...

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