Nine Thousand New Competitors

All of a sudden, everybody and their brother is now a contractor in my market. Last year, I had five legitimate competitors on the roofing side of my contracting biz. This year, I have 13. Thirteen companies are now marketing themselves as the best roofing company in Bloomington/Normal, and what's funny is they all claim to have over 15 years in the business. A company that's three months old has twenty years in the business? What a bunch of crap. I get it, though...one guy on the crew has been shingling for 15 years...

The bottom line is regardless of what any of these folks are claiming in their marketing messages, I have to step up my game, big time. There are more options than there's ever been in choosing a roofing contractor, and I have to do whatever it takes to be the one they not only choose to call about bidding the job, I have to be the one they trust to do the job. That's what my life is now about...well...my business life.

So, how do I do that? I don't know exactly, to be forthcoming...but, I think I've got some pretty good ideas. I'll run them by you all, let me know if you think any of them will work.

The nature of my business is such that the main challenge is getting the opportunity to bid it. There's a ton of competitors and the phone book has sixty different companies a homeowner can call. Traditional forms of advertising are ineffective today, considering the fact we all get hit with hundreds of thousands of marketing images and messages per day,and we've gotten real damn efficient at ignoring most of them. Getting a chance to bid the job is the deal for us, and there's no one answer as to how to go about doing that.

The approach that's worked for us in the recent past is to focus on the neighborhoods that need the work we perform. Sounds simple, I know, but for years the industry has always gone out and pitched a one-way sales message at the general populous, hoping a tiny fraction of those folks will jot down the phone number and call them when they need a roof. My trust in that system is gone, because I just don't see people buying roofs that way.

I'd say the majority of people make major purchases like home improvements through word of mouth...asking the folks within their family, social circles, etc who they'd recommend for whatever they're looking for. The other primary method is to observe the work going on in the neighborhood, because in these subdivisions, all of the houses are the exact same age and are getting the work done. So, they'll watch the neighbor's job and just sort of keep tabs on who does good work...or seems to, who shows up early and stays on the job, who keeps the place clean, etc. I don't know exactly what they look for when they're paying attention...all I know is that they do pay attention.

With this in mind, I'm pouring all of my resources into these neighborhoods and into taking care of my "List". My list is everyone I've done work for, everyone I've quoted, and really, everyone I've ever talked to about anything having to do with home improvements. We know who the people are in town who are going to need roofs, and I plan to spend every minute of just about every day making sure someone from my organization is out finding out every piece of information we can about these people, so that we can add them to our list and make sure they think of us when they do start the process of buying a roof.

Maybe your business is also having these kinds of challenges, in finding enough qualified people to do business with? Perhaps this list approach could benefit you and your organization? I'll go a little further...to see if it's something you can use.

The philosophy behind this "list" is quite simple...we want to develop long-term relationships with a ton of great people and become what I like to call "business friend" with them. Most of the list work will be done through email and will be executed by an auto responder outfit. We gather their emails and add them to the list, put them into the system, and carry on a conversation with them...as if they were business friends. The last thing I want to do is choke these people's inboxes with a bunch of cheesy, one way salesy bullshit that will drive them crazy. No, my goal is to get them some cool ideas that will help them with their house, and really keep the focus on them. I want to be viewed as the guy who's more focused on getting them squared away than getting a sale...or whatever. This way, I can feel good about what I do and I won't be the dude everyone's bailing out on when they see me at Starbucks or Sunday Mass or wherever. I couldn't stand myself if I were the salesy type everyone was avoiding. That's not my goal. I want each person to see me as truly interested in keeping them up to date on what's going on in the world of exterior home maintenance, energy efficiency, roofing tips, etc.

The key is to keep the dialogue in dude speak. The minute we get caught trying to sell something, we're dead in the water. My focus will be to give them something of real value...some real content in every message, that helps them. If I give them enough cool content, maybe they'll trust me enough to buy something from me when I have something to sell them...maybe. We'll see. In the meantime, it's balls to the wall in building this list. I'm looking for the best people in my market to help out. That's it.

Think about that, though. Think of the power of building a nice list of folks who trust you because you've always been cool, you've always had their back, and you've always been honest with them. And most importantly, you've always worried more about their well-being than yours. That's capital. Serious long-term capital.

What kind of list should you be building? What do you know or have inside you that could help people, that would be fun as hell to talk about? Or better yet, what would you like to learn about, that you could then turn around and help people with, that would be awesome to do? This is a great place to begin building a business, if you haven't started one yet. The way to do it is to find a thing to talk about, and start building a list.

I'm fairly new to this marketing style, but I've invested a lot of time and a ton of dough in it. The more I learn, the more I'll share. Stay tuned. I fully believe it's the way of the future, as the internet becomes a bigger and bigger part of our lives.

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