Alright, here’s the honest truth when it comes to any job – doing the actual job is the EASIEST part. You’ve honed your craft for years, you’ve laid countless amounts of bricks, cable and pipe (keep it G-rated please!) and you can pretty much do your job blindfolded. However, it’s how you attack the job from start to finish that will make or break any business.
I recently sat down with Mark at Trade Trak to lay down the ground rules for any trades, building or mechanical workshop business to win and manage a job from start to finish.
We’re going to break it down into three areas:
1. Getting the business
2. Doing the job
3. Finishing up
So let’s get started…
1. Getting the business
There’s plenty of ways to market your business and get your phone or the inbox overflowing with enquiries but I have some bad news for you – the days of sponsoring the local footy club or being a ‘Letterbox Lucy’ with fridge magnets are long gone. Word of mouth referrals are always good for business, but they are not usually regular enough to ensure you have enough work on all the time.
So, how can you market?
Firstly, focus on your PULL marketing (website, search-engine optimisation, Google Adwords) to pull the customers that are already searching for your service. Long gone are the days of your customers having an emergency problem with their house and calling the number on the fridge. These days, they will instantly whip out their smartphone, Google a term such as “plumber Sydney” or “home renovations Sydney” and call the first few results that come up. Ensuring that your business has its online foundational work (website) and its positioning (search engine/Google visibility) sorted are two of our three key pillars that we work on in this phase.
Your website needs to look good, have awesome written content that helps Google and your customer work out what your business is all about and it needs to have the right points of contact (contact form and phone number) so that the website visitor can make that next step and talk to you.
Now, social media is great – but we don’t suggest you put much effort into it unless your PULL marketing is running like clockwork AND generating you regular business. Social media is what is referred to as PUSH marketing, where you are constantly pushing your brand to people who may or may not need your help. Whilst social media is a fantastic tool and can work if done properly, it requires a lot more work and investment to get results.
Our Tradie Xcelerate System™ focuses on the PULL before the PUSH marketing to ensure you get the best bang for your buck and the fastest return on investment from your marketing spend.
Once you get that lead for your next job, don’t squander it!
Pick up the phone or send them an email back as soon as humanly possible! Keep in mind, that this person has probably contacted a few of your competitors and generally the fastest will win. There’s no point in marketing for work if you don’t get back to potential customers in a reasonable amount of time.
Now that you have had a bit of a chat with your potential next customer, you need to ensure all the great and wonderful things your website says you do are actually done.
- Turn up to all your appointments, quotes and jobs on time.
- Be presentable (but leave your penguin suit at home).
- Be polite, helpful and understanding to the customers needs.
- Ensure you have all the tools and devices to quote the job and provide a price then and there on the spot.
That last point is an important one and something that Mark from Trade Trak in this video explains in detail. Long story short, Trade Trak can help you simplify the process of quoting and managing your jobs so that you and more importantly your customers can understand every detail of the job and get you paid.
2. Doing the job
Congrats, you got the job!
Now, this is where a lot of businesses go into auto-pilot and struggle on delivering what they said they would do. We’re not going to tell you how to paint the house, but we will tell you this:
- Remember that you are always marketing yourself. Present your business in its best light at all times and communicate with your customer along the way (if needed). You want a happy customer that is going to give you more of that sweet word of mouth work, so don’t drop the ball once the tools are picked up.
- Manage the work and expenses every step of the way to ensure no unforeseen surprises for the customer or you. Nobody likes taking a bath on their own word and underquoting a job.
- Understand your customers intent and expectations from the start and carry through with these expectations to the end of the job.
3. Finishing up
You’ve done an amazing job that the customer loves and you have now won another customer for life – or have you?
This is where the third pillar of our Tradie Xcelerate System™ comes into play. Automation is key to ensuring that all those customers and potential customers that you have spoken to, emailed and texted are still being contacted on a regular basis. So, how can you stay in your customers’ life without being a pest?
- Email marketing. Send your customer regular emails to tell them about a new service or product you are offering.
- Get your customer to leave a Google review for your business after the work is done. This is an excellent way to build more rapport after the job is done, enhance your positioning on Google so that you can win more business and leave a lasting impression on your customer. Google loves reviews and your customers are using these reviews as an indicator of whether or not they want to work with you. Customers like dealing with businesses that other people recommend, whether it’s a restaurant or a plumber. Google reviews are GOLD!
If you don’t capture your customers details and touch base with them every now and again, you will not only miss opportunities for future work with people who know you, but your word of mouth referrals will also be hampered.
Make sure you connect with Mark over at www.tradetrak.com.au. He can give you a test drive of the TradeTrak system and show you how easy managing business can be.
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