Thank You to everyone who joined me at the closing talk for 2013 GIE+EXPO & PLANET Green Industry Conference. We had a great audience and went deep into specific marketing steps and core concepts you should apply to your lawn care business. We even discussed the WHY in BUY… Why should someone buy from YOU versus everyone else in the market?
Hi, everyone. Andrew here. I am live at GIE+EXPO and I am about to give a talk about, guess what? Marketing. That’s right. I’m going to be talking about how to market your lawn care and landscaping business. I’m going to be talking about an hour, hour and a half to about 150 or so attendees. It should be a great talk. I’m really looking forward to it.
One of the things that I’m going to be talking about in the talk is, why do people buy? Why do consumers buy? Why should they buy from you versus anyone else in your market? The answer to that question dictates how much you can charge in your market. Can you charge a premium price or are you competing on price? It also dictates how easily you can close sales. The answer to the question, why should somebody buy from you versus anyone else in your market, is answered in the form of everything, a prospective customer can see about you and your market.
That’s how you look, what you say, and what you do, your actions. Your actions before the sale. What’s visible about your business in your market? That dictates how easily you can sell and what prices you can charge. Let’s talk about this really briefly. How you look would be everything visual about your company, from your branding to your advertisements. Do they stand out? Do they set you apart? Do your direct mail pieces, your door hangers look like everybody else in your market? If so, they’re probably going to trash. They’re not going to get out of that trash file.
Then, your message. What you say, what you say about your business, how do you say it. If you say you’re the best, well that’s pretty meaningless, because every other company in your market is saying just the same thing. When everybody in your market is saying that they are the best, it becomes meaningless. We need to say things that our clients care about and are unique to our business. Perfect example would be not saying that “We have the best service,” but saying that, “We offer a satisfaction guaranteed, let’s double your money back. If you’re not satisfied with our service for any reason, we’re going to give you double your money back.”
Even stronger, we’ll pay a competitor to do it right. That’s a strong guarantee. What does that do? That takes out all the risk of doing business with your business. The most important concept here is what you do, the actions that are visible to a prospect leading up to a sale. What are all the actions that you take leading up to a sale that convinces a prospect of your value? How do you prove your value? What evidence can you provide a prospect that’s visible to them.
A couple examples I give is, why not video testimonials from your satisfied customers? What if your website is full of video testimonials? What if you have lots of reviews on your Google local page? What if you provide new prospects with a list of 20 references that they can call their name? First name, last name, phone number, the city that they live in. That would help. What about before and after case studies? Photos of your work before you started on the project? After you started on the project?
We’ve done 25 patios, our clients love us, here’s the proof. Demonstrate it. It’s this area, especially this area that lets you charge higher prices, because this answers all the questions of why somebody should do business with you, because you’ve proved it. You’ve demonstrated a proof that you’ve done it 25 times before and you’ve had all these satisfied customers. Prove your worth. Prove your value in your marketing, on your website, anywhere that’s visible to your client.
If you have a sales team, you need to be giving proof to your customers, better so. Even if you do commercial landscape, you’re a commercial landscaper, you need to enable your sales team to provide proof of what you say about yourself to your potential clients. This will help you sell. This will help you close sales and help you close at a higher rate than your competitors. Get really good at this stuff. The better your answer is to that question, why should somebody buy from me, and demonstrating that, will change your business.
Andrew, over and out from GIE+EXPO in the Planet Green Industry Conference. Take care.
This is a great video, I had actually thought about all these ideas, I use a freelancer to do must of my marketing while I’m out cutting yards. I have a goal of 12 yards a day for 12 days, at the average rate of 50, working mostly for property managers… profiting 7680 a month, putting away 4500 a month for a year and still having 32 a month income.. then use that 54 at the end of the year to do a ton of TV and radio commercials for my coverage area and invest 10 to my seo campaign to bring in 30 a day.. I estimate I need 2 new customers a day for 6 weeks to put this plan to action… I already have a ton of giveaways in my online marketing efforts. But this video really relates to what I’ve been trying to do.. and it helps that I am also a web designer.. and a designer… so I can really make a beautiful ad, but I’m going to use that double your money back and tell you how well it works for me… my current advertising averages me 5 estimates a day, I’m looking to close 70% of the time..
Glad to hear it Carl!