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Hi everybody, this is Dan again from Clean Guru. The question today is how can you keep
your cleaning business within arm's reach of your prospects? Well, to answer that I
have to talk about something else. So, I want to get into another topic and then we'll come
back to that. You know sometimes people can be like sheep, we all can. We rush after a
new idea, it's the latest and the greatest idea, and we race after it. And that's ok,
it's as if that's the only idea or the best idea or the most effective, and it might not
be. Let me tell you what I'm talking about, let's look at an example. Remember a couple
episodes ago we were talking about green cleaning, and I was talking about how people were climbing
all over themselves to get green and to stay green, as if it's the holy grail of secrets
to success in cleaning. But it's not. Important? Yes, it's important. Here to stay? Yes, it's
here to stay. And is it worth pursuing green cleaning? Absolutely. But is it the ultimate
key to you having a fast growing and profitable and fun company to fun? No, I'm sorry, but
no it's not. So, it's a good idea, but it's not necessarily the best idea. And so just
to chase after that, and not think about other ideas is a problem.
Let me give you another example to make this point. Online marketing, websites, internet
marketing, SEO, local search, you know be page 1 ranking of Google, pay per click. Everything
online, it's wonderful. And again everyone is climbing all over themselves to get online
and to get noticed on noticed online, as if that's the one key to success in cleaning.
And again, just like green cleaning, it's a great thing, but it's not everything. And
if you just focused on those, and just chase after them you can really be missing out on
some of the important things. Now that we've talked about that, let me give
you an example. Two words, direct mail. Now, that's something that you don't think about
an awful lot. In fact, if you listen to your computer screen you'd be tempted to think
that anyone that talked about direct mail was a dinosaur or they missed the memo or
they are somehow stuck in the past. There is postage and there is the letters, it's
expensive. Well you know, you better think again. Expensive? Let's talk about expensive.
Is it expensive, maybe, maybe not. It depends on the results, doesn't it? How cost effective
is it if you use free online advertising, but it doesn't get you anything? Well that's
not really that great of a deal. But if you pay for direct mail that you are sending out
and you customers or prospects actually call you, then really it may be very cost effect
because you are getting results. So really, the value of something is in relation to the
results. So we were talking about direct mail, don't
rule out direct mail and think that the only thing in the world is online, website, search
optimization, and local search. Those are good things, but not everything. Why do I
tell you this long story? Let's get back to our original question. It was how can you
get your cleaning business within arm's length of your prospects and keep yourself there?
Well, if you send direct mail letters and they receive those and those letters talk
about your best marketing messages and how your company is very, very different, it can
make a big difference. They take those letters and they don't always pitch those, I mean
there is not as much mail in the mail box anymore, I don't know if you noticed. There
used to be piles in there and now it's less of it, because mail can be expensive in terms
of postage. So they do look at that mail very often. And they turn around and sometimes
stick that in a file called "Cleaning Companies." And when it comes time to change cleaning
companies they sometimes pull that out and look at all those cleaning companies, and
they may call you. Why, because of online advertising? No! Because of direct mail. Powerful
messages sent by direct mail .How many of your competitors are using direct mail? Maybe
not an awful lot. There are all racing to green cleaning. They are all racing to online
advertising. Those are fine things, but maybe leaving a very powerful opportunity in direct
mail. Let me leave you with this thought, when Tony and I were really growing and getting
lots of calls and adding accounts, even in very recent years, one of the most common
things I heard was "Hey are you the guy that keeps sending me those letters?" And I would
gladly say, "Yes, Yes I am" And they would say, "Ok, ok I'll tell you what. Come on out
here, I'm thinking about changing cleaning companies and I want you to bid on my cleaning."
Now that was terrific, and that was direct mail. It's something that can really be effective
to you. In future episodes we will talk more about how you can use that. That's it for
today, and next time I'm going to reveal one of our biggest strategies. We call it "Aim
to be next." And we use that idea, that idea, affects everything we did in selling and marketing
and in running our company. Aim to be next. It's a very important strategy, and I'll talk
about it next time. Until then remember, you can do this, you really can.