Overwork is epidemic in our industry. I’ve been coaching floor dealers since 2007, and when my clients first come to me it’s heartbreakingly common for them to be working nights and weekends, and putting in 50-70 hours per week. I’ve even encountered a few tortured souls whose average weekly hours on the job were north [...]
I’ve been fly fishing for over 25 years. In that time I’ve gotten good at it. However, for years, I stank at nymphing. Nymphing means fishing flies underwater instead of floating them on the surface. If you want to catch a lot of trout consistently, it’s essential to be good at nymphing because trout spend [...]
“I’m looking for Tupperware containers,” my wife told the retail employee. “Where can I find those?” “Uh…try aisle nine,” replied the employee, who then went back to what she was doing. She couldn’t be bothered to help a customer find what she was asking for. I visited an office supply store recently. The store was [...]
In my last two columns, I discussed the pitfalls of buying leads from popular online referral services. I also discussed several proven alternatives for generating high-quality leads. In this installment, I’m going to discuss how to get other businesses to send you an ongoing stream of leads for free. The Power of Referral Leads Every [...]
In my previous two columns, I detailed the many problems dealers face when buying leads from HomeAdivsor, Angie’s List and other lead generation companies, and why you are better off generating your own leads. I also discussed how any time you generate leads you should begin with the leads you already have: your past customers. They [...]
In my previous column, I detailed the many problems dealers face when buying leads from HomeAdivsor, Angie’s List and other lead generation companies. Here’s a quick summary of the problems I discussed. You have no control over the types or quality of leads. You have no control over how the leads get generated. Buying leads [...]
HomeAdvisor was getting sued by a group of eight home-improvement companies. Here are just two of the several allegations: The leads sold to the companies are “overwhelmingly bogus” and “illusory.” They are often “over distributed” or contain, among other things, disconnected phone numbers, people who are not homeowners or contacts for nonexistent residences. When companies [...]
To understand why customer recognition is so powerful, let’s take a minute and put ourselves into our customer’s shoes. Cathy Consumer is a 35-year-old mother of three kids, all under the age of ten. She and her husband work full time. Cathy loves her kids and is a devoted mother, but they’re a little weak [...]
Many dealers are running on a hamster wheel faster and faster, trying to build their businesses. One month you have plenty of customers coming in and enough money to cover costs—some months you have more work than you can handle. But then a month or two later your work slows down. You're stressed about where [...]
Every interaction you, your staff, and your business has with a prospect or customer is a marketing opportunity. Like it or not - whether you pay attention to it or not - during every interaction with your company, your consumers are getting an impression of you. The only question is: What kind of impression are [...]
