Business Articles - Marketing

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Business is business. There are good times, and slow times. I don't know how your business is doing, but there are some basic things you can do to find more work:

1. Go back to your past clients. I hope you have kept a list of all the people you have done work for. Reselling your services the 2nd time is much easier. If things are slow, send a note out to all your past customers, and let them know you have some openings. A very successful service provider actually sends out a schedule calendar. On the calendar, he highlights the days that he is open, and let's them know he's available on that day.

Anyone can set up something like this, and if you insert the calendar into an e-mail, the past customer just has to hit reply to let you know that they want something done. Simple.

2. Go back to customers that chose another service provider. There is a very successful plumber in Sacramento, CA that revists the jobs that he didn't get. He does plumbing repair, so there is a short selling cycle. When he is told by the potential customer that they chose someone else, he waits 5 days, and then give them a call. Here is the content of his call:

"I know you selected someone else to do your job. I'm just giving you a call to make sure the work was completed, was done correctly, and to make sure you don't have any questions about the work that was done. Do you have any questions?"

He told me that 35% of these follow-up calls lead to additional work. And this is for projects where the consumer selected another service provider.

The economy may be slow, but people still own their houses, and those houses still need work. Remarket to your past customers, and the folks who inquired about your services, but didn't hire you. There's gold in them there hills!