Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi Everyone,

I have a small home design and remodeling company. My business has been steady for a while, but I`m really looking for more growth. I`ve tried advertising in newspapers, sending out mailings, "warm" calling possible clients, Google, but nothing is really working. Does anyone have any brilliant ideas?

How about Craigslist?

When you do online advertising, be sure that your landing page is a lead capture page - meaning, get their email and contact info so that you can get in touch with them and discuss their needs.

One of the things I`m hearing lately, like a trend, apparently, is a shift in the weekend real estate info-shows. They`re privately sponsored shows on the talk stations, and get into how you can make a million in real estate.

With the collapse of the housing markets, real estate is a tough sell. So a number of these companies now are switching to creative ways to refinance, pay down debt, and so on.

Among the main points of all these shows is that if you can`t sell your house, you`ll have to stay. Therefore, why not remodel and fix up the house? If the markets improve, it`ll also help with sales at a later time.

So....can you somehow piggyback into this kind of new thinking? Maybe a direct-mail campaign to anyone listing their home for sale? Kinda brainstorming here...so I`m not sure if that`d help.

You`ve obviously tried a lot of things, so you`ve probably tried this, but...

Have you asked your existing and past client base for referrals? So many people skip this step when looking for new business, and it`s a free and easy way to drum up new clients predisposed to love you.

I see you have listed Google as one of the ways that did not work for you.  I had some pretty bad results with Google Ad words at first, but I attended some classes and it is getting better.  There is a lot to learn about PPC advertising!

PPC Advertising makes me nervous... Any good articles written about it?

I have to admit that I stayed away for a long time before I dived in.  If you do a search you will find a lot of information on it.  The way that I finally go over it was that I came to realize that all of the advertising I was doing was out of my control.  I paid and if it did anything that was great. If not, I had no control.  Now, if someone clicks on my advertisement, they at least wanted to check me out.  If nobody clicks, I don`t pay a penny.  PPC is the only place I know of that I can do that.  You can also set a budget and control your spending.  I started out at $5 per day and now I have it set to $25 per day.  It lets me control my cost, and if nobody clicks, I did not waste a penny on advertising nobody cared about.

A couple suggestions for you:

One of the most effective methods for finding home improvement prospects is door-to-door canvassing. Few people like to do it, but if it`s done properly, it can yield far better results than direct mail or cold calling. Pick your neighborhoods strategically. For instance, if you can drive through neighborhoods and find homes having work done, go to the neighbors of that home and the homes across the street. "Herd mentality" sometimes causes consumers to want to keep up with their neighbors, so if Bob down the street is doing this or that to their home, there`s probably someone else on that street that will have an interest in doing some kind of project, too. When all your neighbors are having work done, you want work done, too.

Do you have your truck / vehicles wrapped with your company name? (not just a sign on your back window or on your truck doors, but your whole vehicle wrapped. If possible, park your vehicle at times in parking lots at busy intersections or other highly visible locations.





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Skip Anderson
Sales Trainer
Founder and President,
Selling to Consumers | Sales Training to Sell More

Here are the six important way to increase your sales...
1. Set up a sales incentive program.
2. Encourage your sales staff to upsell.
3. Give your customers the inside scoop.
4. Tier your customers.
5. Set up a customer rewards program.
6. Distribute free samples to customers