A Business Boot Camp clip (YouTube) where host Mike Andes coaches Jim on marketing for a local service business. Andes urges Jim to focus on a few core services rather than advertising every service, to target existing customers first and their immediate neighbors second, and to use specific, service-focused messaging (the “raspberry cheesecake” analogy) via texts, emails, door hangers and yard signs. He recommends prioritizing warm audiences (past customers), then neighbors who have seen the work, and finally cold audiences.
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60% of businesses will fail in their first three years. I'm Mike Andes and I'm on a mission to fix this. I know the fear and I felt their pain. These owners will be sweating it out while trying to avoid becoming another statistic on this season of business boot camp. One thing Jim needs to focus on is which services he's going to focus on when it comes to his marketing. Instead of trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none, he needs to focus on a few key services, core competencies that he can focus on his marketing, his advertising, and then getting really good at, making sure he's efficient at those specific services.
Jerry and I have been working towards print media, like being specific about fall and winter services on yard signs. Me and another guy, like this tree service guy that I reached out to on the phone, like, man, we've got yard signs everywhere and people aren't really responding right now. Even double them up. Like you go from having the space for one message to doubling that by putting two signs down on top of the other.
Yeah, the classic example is like when a waiter comes to your table at the end of a meal and is like, hey, would you like dessert? 99% of people are just primed to say, no, thank you. Right. If they came to your table though, and said, would you like a piece of our raspberry cheesecake? Immediately, now you're starting to think about the cheesecake. You're not thinking about whether or not I want to have dessert. And so the whole principle when you have things like yard signs or door hangers is don't just make it a bland. This is all of our services, this is everything we can offer. You're basically saying, do you want dessert? The goal is, do you want a piece of raspberry cheesecake? And that what that means is you have to be, you have to be smart enough as a marketer to realize what is the most likely piece of pie that they're going to want. In this case, what type of service is the thing they're going to need the most. So if we're going into fall, is that gutters that is going to spring, is that concrete and soft wash like on the house? So really trying to figure out which one of the four. Although I believe that when you do a door hanger, you might as well put all four on there because you're literally already at the house. But when it comes to more broad based marketing, like if going to do door hangers across the whole city, or if you're going to do yard signs, I would highly recommend or even like the text messages and the emails. These are very direct. You're targeting your most warmest customers. We might as well ask them do they want. Do they want a specific service? The response rate on that will be five times higher. Guarantee it. For this week. We still need to do the next door in the Facebook group so bad, bad, bad. But we needed that again. Next two things, though, is let's send out the text message, but try to be more direct with a specific service, mostly the one that you feel is gonna be the one with the most need and demand right now. And let's just be like, hey, this is the time of year for this service. We're booking out for. Booking out this fall for this. Respond with a yes. If you'd like a quote, buy tomorrow for this one service. Second thing is let's try to get those door hangers at least designed and ordered. And I'd rather you go in the direction of instant quote with all the services for now than trying to get four different door hangers because the budget is the way it is. Let's just go with one. My main thing is not like, let's canvass the neighborhood mine. The five to 10 neighborhood neighbors around your existing customers are literally positioned to see your before and after picture for the next week or so. And that's all they're going to think about. They're your, like, second warmest customer. You got your warmest customers, which are going to be the ones you've done service for in the past. The section below that is people that have literally seen you. That is far. We should exhaust both of those tiers before getting into the third tier, which is completely cold. Never heard of. You have no idea who Jim is? No. Never seen his name. Never seen his truck. Those are the people we should go for last. I feel like we haven't tapped the number one fully in terms of going after it with more specific service. And then tier 2 is using the door hangers to really go after the neighbors of your existing client.
Sounds good to me.
All right, brother. I'm hoping Jim is able to take into consideration the fact that you should stop thinking about the next shiny customer and getting new customers, but rather focus on the existing customers that he has, upsell those. And then second tier customers are the ones that are next door, the neighbors that have already seen his work. And he can sell them much easier than going after the new shiny customer. And for many of us will spend a lot of money and time and energy and spending door hangers and all the rest of it making websites for new shiny customers. All the while past customers and the neighbors of our customers sit neglected when they're the easiest sales to be had. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed that clip from Business Boot Camp. I wanted to ask you a question in the comments below. Comment what is your equivalent of raspberry cheesecake? What's the one core competency you're trying to upsell and get customers to accept that you are perfecting in your business? Also, if you'd like to watch the entire episode, click here. You'll be able to see the entire episode from Jim and what Happened in Business Boot Camp. It's great.
