Working The Hood
You can “network” around customers geographically, too. Smalley’s salesmen make “T” calls around each of their jobs, he says ? knocking at three houses on either side of a current job plus seven across the street (to form the “T”). The salesman introduces himself to the homeowner or leaves a letter and his business card.
“You’re not asking them to buy,” Smalley says, “but are simply telling them, ‘We’re doing a job for your neighbor, and if you have any questions or any debris blows into your yard, call us.'”
Baltimore sales trainer Tommy Steele recommends distributing door hangers in any neighborhood where a job is being installed or where you see a need for your product. “Work the areas where you’ve had success,” he advises. “Drive around the neighborhood and drop flyers. Go where the demographics stack up in your favor because you can’t sell everybody.”
Home improvement marketing and sales consultant Rick Grosso advises companies to maintain ongoing contact with previous customers to build a groundwork for future referral networking. Some 21% of homeowners buy 75% of the home improvements, he says, quoting a report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “People who buy from you have pride in their homes, they spend the money on their homes, and they are the ones that keep buying and buying,” he adds. Use their pride to your advantage. “People love selling their own jobs to friends and neighbors once they own it and are thrilled with it,” Grosso says.
Adds Anton, “The salesman can go back out to that client three months or six months after the job has been installed and get permission to put a sign in the yard again.” A Pittsburgh company, for instance, recently persuaded all its customers in a group of neighborhoods to post the company’s job signs, even though some of the jobs were years old, by offering to enter them in a drawing. Making it worth their while can be as simple as offering to buy dinner when a referral becomes a sale, he says.
At the beginning of 2007, Tom Capizzi, owner of Capizzi Home Improvement, in Cotuit, Mass., multiplied the opportunities for his salespeople to network with past customers by creating a program of annual warranty inspections. He mails an official-looking certificate to customers, offering a free inspection to assure that their completed jobs are “in compliance” with company and manufacturer warranties, he says.
If a customer doesn’t respond to the mailing, the company sends a second and third mailer, if necessary, then office personnel follow up still further with phone calls. If they fail to make an appointment, the salesman is required to call, yet again. The program has been a “major home run,” Capizzi says.
“The customers love it, because it makes our company look incredible in their eyes at a time when you can’t even get a callback on a warranty item from most companies,” he says. In 2007, the program resulted in some $375,000 of additional sales for Capizzi Home Improvement.
Constant Communication
A highly refined networking program boosts sales for Alure, in East Meadow, N.Y., contributing 15% last year ($8 million) to Alure’s sales, according to Seth Selesnow, the company’s director of marketing.
Customers and employees earn one point toward a Caribbean vacation for each dollar a referred customer spends on his first project in the company’s Partner Points program. Earn 200,000 and customers are on their way to the Caribbean. The points never expire.
Alure promotes the program with quarterly “Caribbean Night” cocktail parties, open to all customers, along with a dedicated brochure and regular mailings.
Employees, on the other hand can earn their trip in two ways, Selesnow says. “Bring in $100,000 of networking business in a calendar year or $150,000 in any five-year period.” Additionally, employees earn “lead money” ? $150 to $300 ? when they bring in new business from existing clients. The employee with the best total each month gets a $100 gas card, too. The Partner Points program is a topic at every company meeting, where employees learn about the cost of leads and how networking leads lower costs and improve margins, creating a “win-win” situation for everyone, Selesnow says. Employees receive monthly e-mail messages reporting their status. Snapshots of employees on the trip are posted on bulletin boards. “We try to build it into the culture here,” he says.
“Constant communication and education,” are vital for success, Selesnow points out. “Follow-through is a key ingredient. We have had periods when we didn’t give it as much attention for six months, then we started to talk about it at every meeting and in e-mail and you immediately see the difference when it is top of mind.”
Referrals through networking are an important source of sales for these and other contractors. They may be getting even more important now. “As the economy continues to tighten, more referral-based business is critical, and networking is a great way to generate it,” Misner says. “When business is good, a lot of contractors aren’t out there marketing. When business is bad, they are desperate, and desperation isn’t referable.”
?Jay Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Jamestown, R.I.