Mike Andes (founder of Augusta Lawn Care) explains that most home-service marketing mistakes come from targeting the wrong customer type. He divides prospects into two groups — people who've never used a pro (new customers) and people who will switch providers — and describes distinct pain points and ad approaches for each: new customers respond to messaging about saving time, avoiding equipment hassles, and safety/age concerns; switching customers respond to messaging that highlights professionalism and fixes competitors' service failures (answering phones, timely estimates, accepting cards).
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Mike Andes, founder of Augusta Lawn Care.
Over $50 million a year.
Chapters
Hey, everyone, My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, and we make over $50 million a year mowing grass. Today I'm going to be sharing with you the secrets to getting more customers. And if you're wondering why your marketing doesn't seem to be working and it seems like you're just putting money into the paper shredder of Facebook and Google, today is going to help you determine exactly what type of customer you're going after and how to get them to become a customer of your business. First off, we need to understand this is something we talked about in the Mastermind at Augusta Nation with all the owners, and that is there's two different types of of customers that you can attract to your business. First, one is someone who has never used your services before. I'm going to talk about mowing grass, because that's what we do. There are people that have always mowed the grass themselves, or their kid from college comes and mows their grass or more of their spouse. They kind of alternate back and forth mowing the grass. Ultimately, they have never had a professional service mow their grass. Therefore, I'm going to market to them in a different way where when I'm trying to attract them as a customer. Now, the alternative to the new customer is the person that is going to switch providers. All right? And I actually think these people, we neglect them a lot, and they're actually the bulk of the market. In other words, I think that one out of five customers have never used your services before. They've done it themselves for many, many years. But the vast majority of the people we're marketing to actually already have the service. So such as mowing, they've already had someone do it before in the past. All the different home services, most of the customers you actually want to be marketing to are people who are switching vendors. And how you market to them is very, very important. So let's talk first about what are the pains that you are going to solve for a new customer. All right, we're going to do this handy dandy little green magnet just right there. The pains of having for a new customer are very different than that of a customer switching providers. So for a new customer, it's probably time. It's the big one. We as home service providers, we produce labor and we save time for the customer. And so for a lot of people, they're trying to save time. They don't want to be spending their weekend mowing their grass, painting their walls, cleaning their house. They want to be going and playing nine holes of golf. They want to go to the mall. So we're going to save them time. That's the pain point. Where'd our magnet go? All right, new magnet pains for a new customer are going to look very different. They want time back. They do not want to have to deal with equipment. So the mower that didn't start at the beginning of the season drives them bonkers. They don't want to have to go take it in their little car and jam it in there and take it to the repair shop, because they didn't change out the oil, they didn't change out the gas, and they got to change out the carburetor, and they got a $400 bill at the little mower shop. They don't want to deal with equipment. Also, a lot of our customers, they get old. And because they get old, it's actually a risk for them to even get on ladders and be around equipment and be around tools and machinery. And so the pain point for them is just their age and the fact that they're going to risk their life essentially by doing this service. And like, I've been doing it since I was 20 years old. Well, yeah, you're 80 years old now. And it's probably a good idea to fix the pain point, Take a little bit of money, give it to the home service provider and. And take care of that problem. So that's how you're going to be thinking about in terms of pain to that customer. Now, how am I going to advertise to a new customer? Again, I believe it's very different than it is if we're talking about a customer switching providers. All right, magnet ads for a new customer. What are we going to do to attract them? We're going to talk about the pain points they have, like, saving time. They don't have to get their mower out the beginning of the spring rush. They're tired of having to deal with telling their spouse to go mow the grass. Those are the type of ads that are going to actually appeal to these new customers. Now, the hidden gem of the home service industry, in my opinion, is the fact that most customers that you're actually trying to get that are new to you are not new to your service, and they're switching vendors from another provider. Now, what are the pain points that these fine folks have? These fine folks are fed up with the fact that they have to put a cache underneath the mat. They are fed up with the fact they call and they never get an answer from the vendor. They're tired of calling for more work to be done and they don't hear back from them for a week or two weeks. That's what gets them annoyed. Now the real golden question is how do we take some of these pain switching customers and make money from them using ads? Well, we're going to advertise them and we're going to talk all about their pain points. Because if you do answer your phone and you take credit cards on file so you don't have to put the cash underneath the mat and you do have uniforms and your trucks are decaled and painted and you do have logos and you have a professional service and you actually get back to people when they ask for quotes, these are the things you're going to highlight in your advertising. So I'm not going to advertise talking about saving time over here. That's the big thing. They have a pain point and I'm going to advertise them in that way over here. Their big pain point is the fact that their current provider stinks and you're going to solve it. So I'm going to talk to their pain point. The fact that they don't answer their phone. This is why at Augusta we answer our phone 24 7, we get back to estimates immediately is because we want to make sure that we fix the lousy service they're currently having. Now there are some times that the person that they are currently having in your industry is just moving or canceling their, their business or closing down or moving out of town and they have to switch anyways. But you have to think about from the fact of the customer, instead of trying to educate them on why they should choose your service, realize that the vast majority of them have already used your services not from you, but from one of your competitors. And so we need to market to them in a way that speaks to their pain points. And those are usually revolving around the weaknesses of your competitors. And that's why having a great service that's super professional is going to be the way to be able to attract this customer. I'm I Candice and we'll see you next time.
