It Can Take Six to Stick

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While manning a booth at the Houston Home and Garden Show, for my company, Clean as a Whistle, we asked people walking through, “Have you ever had your carpets cleaned? ” As we expected about 30 – 35% said they had. Then we asked, “Who did it?” The majority of them could not tell us…… “I don’t remember the name."                  

You should assume that many of your custers won't remember the name of your company, at least not right away. (What!...how could they forget our name!) It takes some work to get inside their heads, so you will be first on their minds.
Studies have shown that if you want a customer to call you, every time they need something done, they MAY need to be contacted, six times a year, or more.

IT CAN TAKE SIX TO STICK. This means finding ways to be in front of your customers, at least, 6 times a year.

One of the first things you can do is leave the customer an 8oz. bottle of spotter with our company logo and phone number on it. We demonstrated, to the customer, how to safely remove a spot with our product. We re filled it for them when we returned to do more work for them.

Newsletters can be a good item. Write something yourself, maybe just a page, and send it out. Nice looking newsletters can be purchased that are made to look like you did it. Another option is programs available on-line to make up a newsletter.

It’s recommended a yearly plan be laid out for advertising and promotion.
Getting the customers e-mail address and asking if you can send them something, is a great idea. Something like Constant Contact works great for a good looking bulk mailing. E-mails are nice because they can be done spur of the moment, outside of your plan, if business has taken a dip for a few days. They cost almost nothing.

Post card mailing in between Newsletters can be another good little push.

Another inexpensive way to get business is to ask your customers for referrals. Ask them, “Will you tell your friends about us?” They will, if you ask them!

Another idea is to work on your most important customers, maybe, a little more often. 80% of your business can come from the top 20% of your customers. The ones who will call you back often and spend money. Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to weed out the ones who haven’t called in years, so you don’t waste money on mail outs to them. The time frame on this is up to you.

There is no magic bullet that works “all the time”. Be consistent and keep going. Starting and stopping is not good. A little here, a little there, before you know it you’re doing some business! It can, sometimes, take as much effort to get the work as it does to do it.