EverythingGoodWasAlreadyTaken

Looking for trade show booths

2009-12-30T21:38:00.001-05:00

I need two matching 10' x 10' trade show booth structures for about $6-7k. Preferably with a counter space/pedestal stand and a flat panel mount. Any suggestions? I've looked at Skyline, Nimlok and a few others, but they want an arm, leg or first born...

Five Tips for Successful Advertising

2009-10-22T18:14:00.000-04:00

Successful business growth relies on one thing: expand your client base faster than the rate of inflation.

Enter “Advertising.”

Back in the day, owning and operating a successful business consisted of establishing a brick and mortar business, hanging a sign on the door and telling all your buddies where you were and what you were selling. Today’s competitive markets have introduced a slew of ways to attract new business as well as cultivate existing clients into more profitable ones. In fact, it’s estimated that the average American is exposed to more than 3,000 commercial messages a day, and as a whole $620 billion is spent each year by businesses with the aim of making their product more desirable to the public (Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/).

So how do we maximize our advertising spending to make sure we’re capturing and keeping as much business as possible? Read on to learn the secrets to successful advertising:

Define your goals – For each ad you place, whether it be in print, television, radio, pay per click (PPC), outdoor advertising, etc., have a clear goal of what you want the piece to do for your business. Are you trying to generate interest? Make the phone ring? Schedule a specific number of presentations? How do you want your audience to respond? Write down your goal for the advertising piece and make sure that all decisions leading towards the execution of the ad support that goal.
Develop a plan – a no-brainer, right? You’d be surprised how many advertising dollars are hastily spent without thought to overall marketing goals. Set a budget; prepare a calendar; profile your clients and/or prospects. Without a plan, you’re advertising could potentially do more to harm your business than propel it if you send the wrong message to the wrong audience.
Qualify your audience – Knowing how to deliver your message is as important as the message itself. Who are you targeting? As a group, what are their interests and how can you appeal to them? What delivery method (platform) do they accept best? To maximize your impact with this group, list specific features and benefits the client will see by choosing to work with you.
Keep your message simple – Don’t get overly wordy or too clever with your advertising. You may spend days working on an advertising project to get it “just right,” but your audience is going to spend about .6 seconds looking over it before making the decision to respond or ignore it.
Establish a clear call to action – Tip #5 goes hand in hand with Tip #4. Having a single call to action will help funnel your audience to the goal you have set. Use distinct words and phrases to outline what it is you want your audience to do. For example: Click Here; Call Today; Register for your free gift, etc.

Remember, advertising is much more a form of art than it is a science, but by knowing how to systematically deliver your message, set measureable goals and track campaign successes and losses will certainly help you make better educated decisions on how to spend and maximize your overall advertising, capture more market share and ultimately grow your business to new levels of success.

Customer Service is the New Gold Standard

2009-07-03T13:11:00.002-04:00

Wrapped up my report on Joseph Michelli's book "The New Gold Standard," this week. Now I'm talking to him on Twitter. How cool is that?!! GM's report on the book can be read here: http://www.shubeebusinesstips.com/2009/06/the-new-gold-standard/

Anyone who works in a customer service focused business needs to read this book!

Join the Hive!

2009-06-21T15:09:00.005-04:00

Are you up to speed on all the buzz? ShuBee wants you to join in and contribute to the hive’s online presence.

Did you know we’re on Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? FriendFeed? and more?

Did you know we’ve launched our own affiliate sites to help contractors succeed?

ShuBee Business Tips is a magazine-style website containing a full archive of all business tips we’ve included in our email newsletters and theBuzz. Visitors can browse all our knowledge from 30+ years of running successful plumbing/HVAC companies.

Service Industry Tips is an industry-related news and tips hub designed to keep contractors in the know about the latest in products, tools, techniques and more.

We’ve got even more tools in production to help ensure the success of our clients. Spread the word, join the groups, engage the visitors and become an integral part of the hive today!

2009-06-02T12:20:00.007-04:00

Tons of industry news today! Check our channels @ShuBeePlumber @ShuBeeContractr @ShuBeeElectric @ShuBeeHVAC @ShuBeeRealtor @ShuBeePestCtrl!

5 tips for increased customer retention

2009-05-06T19:02:00.001-04:00

In times of economic molasses, it’s important for businesses to shift sales gears from customer acquisition to customer retention. Most companies know approximately how much it costs in advertising and marketing to attract each new customer. Currently, the average cost per new plumbing/HVAC customer is around $230. By refocusing your selling strategy on repeat business rather than new business you can quickly cut acquisition costs and increase revenue. Use these tips to get the most from the customers you’ve already paid for, and hopefully lower the costs associated with bringing new customers on board.

You’re too reactive – It’s easy to become swamped with work, frustrations and anxieties while out in the field or in the office. Don’t let this turn your decision-making process into a reactionary one. Instead, focus on ways you can be proactive in your customer communications to avoid any knee-jerk reactions that may cost you a sale from a long-time customer. It may even be beneficial to script out responses to frequently asked questions in order to remind employees how they’re expected to handle and react in common situations.

No reason to call back – The key to driving repeat business is knowing your customer’s buying cycles – which will help you dictate when to run different types of promotions. In the retail world, a customer will visit a department store or website five times or more before actually making a purchase. Many times these visits are so they can simply see what’s changed. Keep this in mind with your customers. If you ads are stale or your promotions are non-existent, your customers are more likely to shop around before they call. However, if you can keep their interest through newsletters, emails, changes on your website, etc. they will be more inclined to call you first when they are in the market to buy your products or services.

You don’t know your customer – Despite your best marketing efforts, your message will never convert to another sale if you don’t have your customer’s correct information. With people constantly changing their contact information it’s likely that 15% or more of your current client information is incorrect. Enforce a customer update policy company-wide. When any employee communicates with a customer, have them verify their contact information.

Your customer service stinks – According to a recent retailer survey, “Companies that place emphasis on quality, customer intimacy and revenue generation stand to reap the greatest competitive advantage and return on investment… Improved quality of service correlates directly with customer satisfaction.” To see what you’re actually delivering to your clients, put yourself in the communication process with your company. Plan an unexpected call to your main customer service line and rate your own experience. How would you rate your customer satisfaction? What can you do to improve it? By mapping out a clear and concise strategy aimed at the customer experience, you’ll keep your customers happy and coming back.

Your first impression may be their last – It’s been said countless time, “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” That solid first impression is your key to capturing more repeat business. You never know when an existing small customer may turn into your next million dollar account. Give all your customers a reason to call you again with a solid communication, purchasing and fulfillment plan.

Rare to find a company like this:

2009-04-23T18:45:00.004-04:00

This gem was sent to me at work today by Tim Sjobeck of Rosenthal Plumbing in Santa Cruz, California. Not only is this piece fun and entertaining - it works so well on so many different levels. This video does a perfect job of boosting company morale, improving team-building, making workers aware of the company's stance on employee empowerment, establish a clearly defined company culture - all the while sprinkled with a bit of consumer education and viral marketing. Kudos!

Excellent job Rosenthal Plumbing!

People are looking for you, are you being found?

2009-04-19T16:06:00.002-04:00

It’s obvious that as technology grows, we need to either embrace it or get out of the way. In several recent conversations I’ve had with industry leaders and business owners I’ve been surprised at the amount of buzz and focus there's been on website visibility and online social marketing. More and more people in our industry - even down to the one and two truck businesses - are becoming aware of the need for an online presence and realizing the effectiveness of online networking through social media. I wanted to take this opportunity to go through an online visibility primer and hopefully shed some light on search engine optimization (SEO), social marketing, this Twitter thing (and a few others) and how the whole ball of wax can affect your bottom line.

First things first, get a website

It’s been said more times than I care to count, "The Internet is the new phone book." People are looking for you, are you being found? If you don’t have a website for your Michigan-based HVAC business, people searching online for “Detroit heater repair” will never know you exist. In today’s instant information age, it’s more important than ever to have an online storefront. Let’s take this scenario: It’s February and Suzy Homemaker just put the kids down for a nap. The house is starting to get a little more chilly than normal so she goes to adjust the thermostat. Twenty minutes later she’s shivering. She picks up the phone to call hubby at work to tell him how cold it is in the house. He clicks over to Google and searches for “Detroit heater repair.” Does he find you? If the answer is “No,” how can you ever expect to get that job? If he did find your site but passed over you because of a outdated looking site or lackluster information, he still may as well not have found you. Either way, you need a site and need it optimized for both search engines and humans alike.

Work with a developer who has knowledge of your industry. There are quite a few industry specific offerings available. Be sure to do a portfolio review before signing any agreements to make sure the developer has a design style that suits your needs.

Next, get listed.

The first priority with most new service-related businesses is getting an ad in the local phone book; think of the first step to your online success as getting your business listed with an online phone book. Just like with their printed counterpart, the basic business listings are free, but if you’d like to add a few bells and whistles to your listing in hopes of pumping up your reach and ROI there are a few pay services that promise more traffic and better conversions. Start with Google Business Listing (www.google.com/local/add). To do this you’ll first need to set up an account with Google, but that’s easy and free (and you’ll find you’ll be using it a great deal down the road in your online marketing campaign). With your Google Business Listing, you can also incentive customers for their business by using coupons in your business listing.

Once you’ve built your website and set up your business in Google, check the other major search engines for similar business directories, currently the top five search engines are Google, Yahoo!, Ask, MSN and (gasp) AOL. All have similar offerings for businesses but for this article, I’m going to focus on Google because, in my opinion, they have the most comprehensive options and are the most user-friendly. From there, expand your listing to smaller, more locally focused options like your local Superpages listing (www.superpages.com)

Metatags: The keys to your online success

When you’re working with this industry-knowledgeable web developer professional make sure he’s including metatags on each and every page for your site. If he’s unsure what you’re talking about, run. Metatags are the descriptions, keywords and key phrases that work behind the scenes of your website to let search engines know what your pages are about. For instance, if you wanted Google to know that your business offers plumbing and HVAC services to the Nashville, TN area, you may have a metatag description something like “Plumbing and HVAC contractors for new construction, installation and residential repair serving the Nashville Tennessee and surrounding areas. Flat rate pricing for all jobs and technician guaranteed to be on site within one hour.” The idea with your metatag description is to give a brief elevator speech about your company, but also use some of the key words you want to be targeted for (plumbing, Nashville, installation, etc.). So if your site came up in as a result you’d see a link to your site at the top of your listing followed by your description. Generally, you want to keep this description around 80-100 words. Many search engines use this description in their search results.

Keywords or Key phrases should be your next metatag project. Keywords help to further drill down the relevancy of your site to a user’s searches. Include unique keywords for each page and make sure they are relevant to the content on the page. If you want a certain page in your site to be listed when a user searches for “new construction plumbing contractors,” make sure those keywords are in your tags and on your page! Keywords are separated by a comma, key phrases are a group of keywords separated by a comma. Keywords are a good starting point identifying what the content of your page is about, but a well laid out key phrase may help bring more qualified traffic to your site. For instance, the keyword “contractor” is extremely broad and probably in use by hundreds of thousands of competing sites. However, if you drill it down a little more by including the key phrase “Atlanta Georgia flat rate plumbing contractor,” you’re likely to see much more targeted results. It’s generally a good rule of thumb to include seven to 15 keywords and key phrases per page.

Content

The Internet is content-driven, meaning that people are actively searching for specific content and they are returned the most relevant results search engines can find for their inquiries. It’s up to you to provide the most relevant content about your business as it would relate to your prospects and customers. Posting an article to your website on what you ate for lunch won’t help at all when it comes to finding prospects looking for someone who can install a water main. It may make for an interesting post and help people choose where to go for a good hoagie, but other than that – there’s no real benefit. Use a section of your site to frequently post relevant industry-related news, press releases about your company, tips for consumers, etc. This helps establish you as an industry expert, increases your keyword density (the number of times a desired search term appears on your page), and gives your current customer base a reason to come back to your site.

All the world’s a-twitter

I’ve been involved in many conversations recently that have revolved around the question “what can online social media do for my business?” Tons. As your business’ leader, the more you can use online tools like Facebook (www.facebook.com), Squidoo (www.squidoo.com), Digg (www.digg.com), Twitter (www.twitter.com), etc. the more people will know your business exists. Think of these outlets as an online version of your local “business after hours.” This is your opportunity to meet other business owners, form alliances, seek out prospects, promote your company and hopefully earn more business –all in a casual, low pressure setting. The key to using these networking tools effectively (as Randall Hilton – www.plumb-biz.com pointed out in a recent conversation on Service Roundtable’s discussion board www.serviceroundtable.com) is to make sure you’re a “contributor” and not just a “promoter.” As Randall states:

“Social sites are driven by the users. If they find you, it's because they're hunting for you. If you hunt them down and pitch your services to them, don't come crying to me because you got the door slammed in your face, accusing you of spamming. Think about it: When at the Labor Day cookout do you find yourself gravitating towards the guy who is always trying to sell you a pre-paid legal plan?”

Probably not. Instead, you’re more likely to hang out with people who share similar interests or who have helped you out somehow along the way. The same can generally be said for everyone else in your online social networks. Make sure you’re providing something valuable to the community and individuals will remember you when the time comes that they need your services.

Paid ads

So now we’ve got our business listed in the online phone books, our pages are search engine optimized, our site is packed full of current and valuable content and you have 3,492 fans on your Facebook page. We should see a new flood of incoming customers, right? Well, maybe not yet, but we’re on the right track. The next step you’ll need to take is to search out local “online phonebooks” to see what other offerings are out there for you. You can start with a simple Google search like “Dallas, TX plumber business listing” and see what pops up for you. You’ll find there are many, many online services available for businesses like www.findaplumber.com which you can register you business and for a fee, they’ll send you hot leads, usually broken down by ZIP codes that you offer your services to.

Once you’ve figured out what lead generation services you’d like to work with and you’re starting to see some real income coming in from your online presence it’s time to start considering a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. Again, all major search engines offer some type of PPC service and it’s up to you to decide which ones you want to try. Let’s look at Google’s AdWords (www.google.com/adwords). With AdWords, you set a daily spending budget, build your ads, assign the keywords for which you want your ad to display and then bid on each keyword. The idea is that as long as you haven’t exceeded your daily spending budget for a campaign, your ads will be displayed for the keywords you’ve assigned when a user searches for that word.

Where your ads display is another story entirely. As you set your bidding for each keyword, you may notice Google giving you a notice that your bid is too low to ensure front page placement. This means that with your current bid, your ad could be buried on page 2, 3 or 500 of all the ads competing for that keyword, never to see the light of day or be clicked. While this means that your ad isn’t necessarily costing you any money, it’s also not bringing any traffic in to your site. The solution to this is to either raise your bid for that keyword, or find a better keyword or key phrase to target. This is a similar discussion to metatags. “Plumber” may be a keyword that is entirely too broad, too many competitors are using the keyword and the bid prices are out of your budget, however, “Seattle plumbing contractor” may have fewer competing ads and a lower front page bid. Using a better key phrase like this will also help ensure your ad is displayed to more targeted crowd which will in turn help improve your click-through and conversion rates.

Know your visitors

Now that you’ve improved traffic to your site, both in quantity and quality, you need to make sure you’re using some method of tracking your visitors. Google provides a great analytics tools for doing just that. Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) can easily be installed on your site and in a matter of a few minutes tell you worlds of information about who is using your site, what other sites out there are linking to your site, what the most popular pages of your site are, where you lose the most visitors and tons of other site metrics.

In keeping with the “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” mindset, knowing how changes to your site affect its performance is vital to effectively gauging your online marketing. Is the newsletter or press release section of your site having the biggest draw? What can you do to further beef up that section or encourage visitors there to visit other parts of your site? Do most of your visitors leave your site after they’ve reached the About Us section? How can you improve that page to keep their interest and turn that into an email or call? What other sites link back to you? In general, a site with tons of backlinks is considered more important and relevant to search engines and will be listed in search results before those without (which is why it’s important to place links back to your site in all of your online business listings and social media bios)!

Know who’s talking about you

Google has recently unveiled a new tool called Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts - told you that free Google account would be getting plenty of use). You can sign up for email alerts for specific keywords and any time Google comes across new content that contains those keywords, they’ll send you an email and a link back to the page for your review. This is a great way to keep on top of what’s going on in your industry, what your competitors are up to or just to keep dibs on what people are saying about your business.

This rounds my primer on SEO, online social media and how it can be put to use for your business – but in no way does this do more than scrape the tip of the iceberg when it comes to increasing online visibility or how to harness the potential of the Internet for your business!

Don't just survive – Thrive!

2009-04-18T14:30:00.003-04:00

We may be in the midst of a recession, but not all is doom and gloom. In fact, it's important to remember that many of the largest companies around today were started during depression eras. In fact, the Great Depression created more millionaires than any economic times to date.

The Federal Government defines a recession when we experience two consecutive quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. What this translates to the business owner is a general slowdown in business activity and consumer spending - but it doesn't have to be that way for you.

Hope is still there for the small business owner – companies who spend wisely during economic slowdowns can actually thrive and come out of recession periods stronger than ever (think Microsoft, GM - not the current GM, but the one 10 years ago, General Mills). The key to working a slow economy to your favor is simple: take advantage of your competitor’s cutbacks by marketing aggressively. Companies that continue to spend on direct marketing will continue to grow, even during a recession. Because many business owners reduce or eliminate advertising budgets during slow economic times there are fewer companies competing for business. Which translates into a higher impact on your marketing. If there are fewer businesses competing for a fixed market, odds are in your favor that any advertising efforts will have a higher impact, allowing you to capture a greater portion of the market.

The important thing to remember during economic slowdowns is that consumers don’t stop spending. They may look for better a better deal or be more selective which whom they spend there money, but they are still buying the goods and services they both want and need. This is why it’s also important to focus your marketing efforts on customer retention, not just acquisition. Use your advertising budgets to find ways to show your customers how well your business is doing – or the savings you’re providing them. Keeping in front of your clients in this fashion will add additional value to the products and services you provide. Cutting back budgets and reducing your exposure can cause clients to feel abandoned, create a sense of financial mistrust or a lack of staying power.

Turn off the news and put on your marketing cap. Brand your way to a bigger, better business.

Not really diggin' this

2009-04-16T06:53:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I like the overall look of this them by Blog and Web, but it's buggy. The more I dig and use, the more problems I uncover. It doesn't help that parts of it are in Spanish either (not that I have anything against Spanish, it was a fun subject in high school and my college roommate majored in it - we had post-it notes all over our dorm room labeling everything in Spanish... but I digress. It's just, that was like 14 years ago. I barely know how to order a burrito at Taco Bell now... Anyhow.).

So I'm gonna start playing around with other templates. Maybe even create my own if I find enough of that "free time" stuff floating around.

In the meantime, make sure to check out all my latest creations at ShuBee: www.shubee.com and check out our Buzz newsletter. Also, don't forget to tweet @shubee and @chris_hood

New day, new template

2009-04-15T23:46:00.006-04:00

Ok, so I'm fooling around with this blogging thing again at Larry's suggestion/request. Larry's got a good thing going with his BlogRoundTown service (www.najeradesign.com, www.goroundtown.com and now www.blogsroundtown.com). I used to have a pretty legnthy blog back in the day when I had my own design studio but let it fade into the ether when I forgot to renew my web hosting after coming on board at ShuBee.

I do miss writing, it's strong in my background. So what the heck. It's midnight and I don't have much else going on.

I'm used to Wordpress - it's what I've always used for my own blogs and client installations, but again at Larry's suggestion, I'm trying out Blogger. Seems cool. Templates are easy enough to install and update. Lucky I know a think or three about CSS though. The guy who wrote this template has some overlapping issues that still needed to be worked out as well as some odd text coloring. Getting there though...

So this is my introduction to the world I guess. Knowing my AADD I'll burn through a dozen or so templates before I find something I'm happy with for a week or so. Here goes.

2009-04-15T23:02:00.001-04:00

Trying out a new cross-posting tool. Anyone played with Ping.fm? Good? Bad? Ugly?