Greetings Floor Dealers!
Many moons ago I was toiling away, building a carpet cleaning company I owned at the time. One day I was looking over my sales figures for the previous six months, and what I saw caused me to spew a mouthful of iced tea in happy amazement.
“Holy smokes!” I whispered to myself.
It turned out that a local Carpet One store (owned by a friend of mine) had sent my company two to three referrals per month, every month! These referrals had a higher-than-average job ticket, were less price resistant, they trusted me, and all the other good things we know and love about working with referrals. I quickly calculated what would happen if I had ten businesses all sending me referrals. The numbers got me more excited than an owl in a lemming run.
Now, I need to digress for just a moment and talk about part 1 of this series. In last month’s installment, I listed a number of powerful, yet inexpensive, strategies to transform your store into a “Venus Flytrap,” where prospects walk in, but they don’t walk out without buying. I had implemented the same kinds of “Flytrap” strategies with my carpet cleaning company. The reason I mention this is because the results of all your marketing efforts, including your referral marketing, will be multiplied exponentially if you’ve created a “Flytrap” ahead of time. The reason is obvious. If you implement “Flytrap” strategies that bump your closed sale batting average from 50% to 80%, you’ve just increased the revenue generated by your marketing without spending another dime. Or to put it another way, your marketing ROI has gone up.
On with the story…
Okay, so after running the numbers for ten businesses sending me referrals, I immediately made a list of every flooring store, furniture store, and interior décor retailer in my area. There were about fifteen to twenty total in my little cow town of Yuba City, CA where I was living at the time. I then put them through a three-step marketing process, which is the foundation of my Joint Ventures module (Platinum members have access to this on the website). In a nutshell, the three steps are as follows:
- Send the business owner a dollar bill letter (which is fun, interesting and grabs their attention) in the mail to break the ice and introduce yourself and your company to them.
- Make a follow-up call. (In the letter you let them know the time and date you’ll be calling, and why, so they’re expecting to hear from you. This transforms cold calls into warm calls.)
- Meet in person.
There are more details (provided in the Joint Ventures module of my Core 3 program) required to make this strategy work, including the done-for-you marketing letters, but you get the idea.
Hang in with me until next week when I tell you how this strategy worked for me in my carpet cleaning business – and how YOU can make this work in your Flooring Business!
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!