Marketing Tips From Jim Armstrong

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How To Convert More Door Swings Into Sales – Part 1 of 2

"We’ve been advertising with Angie’s List and Home Advisor, and running Google Adwords."   That's what a dealer from Colorado told me during a consultation. We were meeting because he wanted to discuss additional ways to market his business. “What’s your monthly ad spend for all of those?” I asked. “About $6,000.” “If ten people walk into [...]

By |2019-02-12T15:53:15-07:00December 20th, 2018|

Are You Boring Your Facebook Followers?

The cardinal sin of Facebook marketing — or of any marketing — is to be boring. I’ve evaluated Facebook pages for a lot of flooring dealers, and the majority of the posts I see feature photos of products, or displays, or showrooms. Sorry to break it to you folks, but if you’re making heavy use [...]

By |2019-02-12T15:54:53-07:00November 8th, 2018|

Recession Busters For Retailers – Part I

The majority of flooring dealers have a plan of action regarding the economy. Unfortunately, that plan tends to be 'waiting and hoping' for the economy to 'get back to normal.' If I had a dollar for every time I heard a flooring retailer say, “Well hopefully the economy will turn around soon,” I could single-handedly fund the [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:13:17-07:00April 6th, 2017|

How To Eliminate The “Feast Or Famine” Cycle – Part 3 of 3

“My revenue increased by 50% last year, and this year it increased by another 50%.” Craig Bendele from Florida was speaking to a group of dealers during one of my training webinars, and we were discussing the strategies he used to grow his revenue. (I covered some of those strategies in Part 2 of this series.) [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:13:26-07:00March 23rd, 2017|

How To Eliminate The “Feast Or Famine” Cycle, Part 2 of 3

Most dealers don’t have an ongoing, dependable marketing system in place to create a predictable stream of customers, to even out the seasonal ups and downs, and to bullet-proof their business against market fluctuations. The radio ad rep calls and says, “We’re having a special this month on ad space.” The dealer figures it’s too [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:13:36-07:00March 9th, 2017|

How To Eliminate The “Feast Or Famine” Cycle, Part 1 of 3

Does this sound familiar? Business is slow, so you launch advertising campaigns and promotions, and work your tail off, hustling to get more business in your door. The next thing you know you’re so swamped you can’t keep up with the orders. So, you stop doing the things that brought in the business because you’re [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:13:49-07:00February 23rd, 2017|

Five steps to empower your sales team

“I’ve told my sales team they need to increase their closed sales, but nothing improves.” This was the sentiment expressed to me by a frustrated flooring dealer. Actually, I’ve heard this complaint in various forms from many dealers. The problem occurs because retailers inform their salespeople of the end result they want but fail to [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:14:22-07:00January 12th, 2017|

The cheap-price, dead-end mission

I’ve preached numerous times that for most dealers, competing on price is a suicide mission. Positioning yourself in the market as the dealer with the cheapest prices is, at best, a fragile and temporary advantage. All it takes is someone to come along with a cheaper price and you’ve instantly lost your advantage. Companies that [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:14:31-07:00December 29th, 2016|

How To Magnetically Attract Big, Profitable Sales-Part 2 of 2

As I covered in Part 1, the vast majority of sales in the $20,000 range and above don’t come from advertising. They come from repeat customers and their referrals. In this installment, we continue with strategies and principles for magnetically attracting high-end, high-margin sales. Marketing to your past customers. Over the years you’ve most likely [...]

By |2019-02-12T16:20:28-07:00December 8th, 2016|