There's Goodness In The Badness

Housing starts are up. (What? Someone in this country is being paid to build an actual house? Someone tell CNN!) Pending home sales up 2.1% from February to March. Unemployment slide slower than expected. Retail sales better than both 3rd and 4th quarter projection. Consumer confidence – perhaps the most important of the indices – plateaued in March from a 6 month freefall.

Sure, you’re used to me doing April Fool’s jokes, but this time I’m leaving that predictable hilarity to others. (“Contrarian” being my continued advice to you.) This is good news for real, though the perceptions remain “bad”.

People are paralyzed, polarized, or both by “bad” news (it also sells media, opinions, and short-term dependency.) Yet people are magnetically attracted to good news, and right now, “good news” is the attractive contrarian approach more than ever.

You can change one perception into the other, because as an entrepreneur, you’re in charge of both. <<Click to read....>>

If you requested a Spring newsletter sample earlier this year, you may have missed out on something that’s, well, pretty big for our industry. Depending on when you requested your sample, it may not have contained the new article that educates your customers on the federal tax credits available to them when they call you.

They can get 30% of installation fees (some with a cap of $1,500) on a wide variety of services and equipment. With energy savings for them, and bottom-line profits for you, everyone’s a winner.

So just go here to request a copy of the special tax credit article that is available for our Spring customer newsletters. We’re happy to help.

Don’t miss your coaching call next Wednesday at 1:00 pm Central. Adams will be covering ways to Close More Sales Now Than Ever Before. And there’s nothing you’d like better than adding a profit cushion to your bottom line, right?

Send your questions to Lisa at lisa@hudsonink.com, and don’t forget to add the call to your Outlook calendar!

Gold Members:  If you haven’t received your “Stimulus Package”, contact your coach.  The package contains a Direct Response letter and newspaper ad for the new tax credits, as well as a press release.

CRC Members:  Ask your coach about putting the new tax credits article and/or ad in your spring newsletter (was not available at the time your proof was sent).

With IAQ sales, the question is all about where to start. Well.… everybody breathes, so let’s start there. It’s important to educate your customers about the air they are breathing. The dangers and possible health risks of IAQ are downright frightening. Your customers should know these dangers (to their health and wallet) and know that you can prevent them.

Here are some things to stress to your customers:

• An EPA economic analysis performed at an elementary school showed that if $370 per year for 22 years ($8,140) had been spent on preventative maintenance, 1.5 million dollars in repairs would have been avoided.
  
  1,500,000 – 8,140 = $1,491,860 worth of savings
  (See how we can save you in the long run?)
  
  
• Indoor levels of air pollutants can be 2-5 times higher, and occasionally 100 times higher than outdoor levels. (Wouldn’t you at least like to know what you are breathing?)
  
  
• Indoor air pollution consistently ranks among the top 5 environmental risks to health. (And this is an unnecessary risk to take, when we can easily increase the quality of your indoor air.)

You as the technician already know the dangers, but you have to make sure that you inform your customers of them. Tell them about the wide range of lung damaging dust that is not visible by the human eye, “Just because you don’t see these contaminants doesn’t mean that you aren’t already breathing them.” State the side effects associated with poor IAQ, such as headaches, eye or skin irritation, allergies, irritability, anxiety and depression. Explain how certain contaminants could even cause damage to the liver and kidneys. With this knowledge, customers will want to act!

Once the dangers of poor IAQ are understood by your customer, outline the specifics of your IAQ test, including what contaminants will be detected. Then, present your services as the solution to their fears.

What is customer service? It’s how we answer the phone, the confirmation call before an appointment, timeliness with appointments, follow-up calls, how a service is provided and how an issue is resolved with unhappy customers.

But somehow, customer service has come to be known as a “complaint department.” Even worse than that, it has become commonplace for us to expect nothing from these departments when we do have a complaint. We expect to talk to a person unwilling to help or an automated voice sending us in loops until we give up.

While this all seems very bad, it is actually an opportunity for businesses that are willing to provide good customer service. The reason being, that it gives you a rare chance to exceed a customer’s expectations maybe even snatch up the customers that are leaving your competition due to poor customer service. A good place to start improving your customer service is how you handle customers over the phone.

Here are some ways to improve customer service through your telephone skills:

• Answer on the second ring – Don’t catch the customer off guard by answering instantaneously, and don’t let the phone ring off the hook before you answer.
• Identify yourself by name and your department.
• Give the caller your full attention – don’t multitask. Write down important information and use the customer’s name throughout the call.
• Ask questions to get all the information you need in the first conversation.
• Use the hold button sparingly – If it will be time consuming to gather information, offer to call the caller back at a time of their choosing.
• Restate and verify all information – name, numbers, addresses.
• Thank them for calling – Close with a good impression. This way you have been pleasant from start to finish.

Remember: Customer service is about serving the customer. Don’t act upset that they call about a problem or I can assure they won’t ever call with good news again…. Like wanting to buy from you.

You can go visit our website for the answer to this month’s trivia question from our 2008-2009 Marketing Planning Calendar, “Who is the youngest male gymnast Olympic Gold Medalist to date?”

What? You don’t have yours? Limited quantities are still available for contractors at no charge. Go here to claim yours.

Myth: It’s ok to advertise low prices, then sell high.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, never do this. Not only is this poor marketing that will certainly kill any shred of credibility you may have, but it’s also illegal.

As far as advertising a low price, and actually selling at that price.… well, that’s legal, but it’s still a slippery slope. Overdoing this runs the risk of being perceived as “the cheap contractor” which makes you appear low quality.

Now.… this being said, a change in price point can generate massive leads, but here’s how to avoid the slippery slope:

1. State the value of the discount (Customers will respond to value, not just overall “cheapness”)
   
   
2. Time the offer to your market’s receptiveness (What times are your customers likely to buy if they only had a little bit of extra incentive?)
   
   
3. Limit the time or quantity of the sale.

Now, there are multiple reasons for item 3. The first being, a “forever sale” is illegal. Even with legality aside, the call to action in an advertisement is weakened without some sense of urgency in the message. Clearly state the fleeting nature of the sale, or how quickly your number of available “whatever’s” will be sold.

So, avoiding illegal marketing tactics and overuse, low price sales can be very successful. Just state the value, act with timeliness, and create a sense of urgency. Keeping these things in mind, you can expect great success from temporarily dropping your prices.