thoughts on marketing?

[treeman82]

Hi everyone, I was hoping to get your feedback on something I have been thinking about for a while now.
About 20 - 25 minutes from my house lives; Glen Close, Chevy Chase, Paul Shaffer, Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfigger, David Letterman, and a couple of other celebrities.

My question to you all is... How do I market to these people once I am out of school? Something tells me I wouldn't want to work for Martha Stewart.

My assetts for marketing to these people are the following:
1) I belong to the same small synagogue that Paul Shaffer belongs to and will meet him sometime in the future. I have worked at the synagogue before. The rabbi likes me, as do most of the other members whom I have met.

2) My aunt is good friends with Glenn Close's parents and is in constant contact with them, however her parents live out in Wyoming. My aunt has met Glenn once when they went out for drinks. My aunt isn't very comfortable with telling Glen's parents about what I do and where I do it. Ie; she won't get my name to Glenn.

My thoughts are for marketing to these 2 markets as of right now...

1) find religion.
2) convince my aunt to get me in touch with Glenn.

What do you guys all think? Wasted time? Any more effective ways of doing things? I figure IF I could get Glen AND Paul, that I could get a lot of the other celebrities to use me as they know lots of other famous people in the area.

 

[Greg]

If you live so close just show up at the door, and bring a camera so you can take some publicity photos, stars love that.
--Do not take any stock tips from Martha!!!
Greg

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Once you start getting to that level of celebrete' people are always asking for something.

They have people opening their mail to screen it, so direct mail is not an option.

Word of mouth is always good, but leaning on Grandma would probably put a strain on the relationship. Yours, that is. She has already politely said no. Sh has probably heard stories of people trying to do it and understand that her parents would take a dim veiw of any approach.

The Rabbi may work, this goes with the donated work the ohter post spoke of. I've goten a few jobs out of work at churches. Just ask the him to put a good word in with people. "You know the Lang boy does tree work, you know (insert your parents first names here) son?" when he is visiting. "He is ging to UMass for a degree in arboriculture, works in the area when he is home from school with his own small buisness. He's the one who did such a nice job on the syngogue grounds."

 

[TREETX]

Yer friggin' dillusional if you think these people call arborists themselves. You need to get contacts with their personal assistants, house managers, landscape designer/architect, etc.

If you wanted to do tree work at the Microsoft Headquarters, would you call ole Bill Gates up personally?? No, you would have to find the person in charge of grounds maintenance.

Many of the jet-set have full time gardeners - those are the people you need to press flesh with.

This is sales 101 and one of the hardest parts in cold sales - you do not want to get someone with no authority but at the same time, you do not want to get someone with too much authority - you will waste their time and pi$$ them off. This is where you take notes when making cold call and contacts, why you are always sweet to the secretaries - they hold the most info and can be the most helpful.

This is why I emphasize making contacts with high end LA's.

When I deal with the jet-set, I usually do not discuss price unless they ask. Many a job, we have just discussed work to be done, it is done and they are invoiced - with a little extra so I can get those ice damaged limbs for "free". I have found that many of these people don't get rich by paying bills. Ask Oakwilt about this one.

 

[sonny]

I would stay away from celebs. Did many jobs for them out hear. There are so many people doing it very cheap in price, just to say they did work for them. The average joe appreciates your work so much better. & most of the time will pay when job is complete.As always just my oppinion.

 

[Greg]

Personally I'd rather have nothing to do with celebs, they get too much a$$ kissing and as a result have the egos to go with it. When trying to find the decision maker an easy way is to call and speak with a secretary or a low level person, now they will not want to transfer you over the phone to the decision maker, but if you make it seem like you don't want to "talk" with the person you can often get the info you need. Try this:
Call anyone:
"I need to know the person who I could address a letter to that makes decisons about landscaping/property maint/tree work within your company, and is the mailing adrs : (give adrs from phone book)"
You just want a name, so you can mail a letter, most people will be willing to give up that info. If you do really want to try and talk to the person over the phone then all you have to do is call back and say "please transfer me to: " and they will assume that you and the person you are asking for already have some type of relationship.
Make sure to sell QUALITY not PRICE. When rich people start talking/argueing price it is time to walk, those are the WORST customers.
Greg

 

[treeman82]

The reason why I want to work for these people is because I think that they would be cool to work for. Also the type of customer I want to work for is the one that will have at least a day or two of tree work each month for me and a crew. From what I understand, ****** works at a bunch of those types of places. I KNOW that they are at Martha Stewart's place EVERY day working. I have heard from several past employees of ****** that their crews slack off like there is no tomorow, yet they still charge a very lucrative rate. I believe in making money, but I also believe that the client should be getting what they pay for.

 

[Reed]

Summing it up -

Two Emmy winners, a Nobel Prize in Medicine, two former President's homes, Secretary of Agriculture, and Texas Agency heads current and former - the best customers I know are migrant Mexicans that've been here 20 or more years and pay cash.

I tire of the "powerful" and elite. Takes the wind out of the 'ol saying that man is all created equal.

 

[Tree Machine]

Marketing

I'm with Greg and Oakwilt. I try to avoid millionaires altogether. I think they have club meetings and talk about ways of how to keep their contractors from screwing them. The best clients are the ones who personally care about their trees and have you there because so do you.

Getting your name out by word-of-mouth, is a powerful, lasting force, but that takes time.

I cultivate my client list, any time there is a major storm, or when I'm heading off on a vacation of a month or more, by handwritten post card. It's pretty low-tech, pretty simple, pretty cheap and means a lot to the recipient. It is a personal note, from you to them and it keeps you in their conscousness, reminds them of your phone number and that you're still doing tree care.

I used to mail twice a year (one vacation and one storm). Now I'm so perpetually booked up that I pray for no storms. Also, now my postcards are to those folks awaiting their tree work (so I don't lose them), and my 'maybe' list, re-stirring those old coals to sell the jobs I've estimated. I no longer mail to my entire clientele like I used to, but I did up until a few years ago. My business today consists 100% of either word-of-mouth referrals, or neighbors to where I work. I don't drive distances, but if Jeff Gordon or John Mellencamp were to call me up, I would probably go the distance. The attached file, purely as example, is a note I wrote before going to Hawaii two years ago. As soon as I got home, the phone started ringing.

 

[Reed]

Re: Jim's handwritten note

Bravo.

Simple, honest, and humble.

Obviously you did great work on their trees 'cause I can't imagine such a personal and amiably note coming from WalMart, Smith Barney and Kline, or Southwestern Bell Telephone - the practitioners of psychobabble from Madison Avenue pricks exercising such brilliant ad campaigns that convince Americans that we are what we drive (Lexus) and think what we buy (Gap, Old Navy, and Coldwater Creek).

The note alone would compel me to call you up (if I were a homeowner with trees and no arborist experience).

Brilliant and great work. So much for the ad salesmen convincing us to buy the multi-colored corporate professional startch-collared affiliated cookie-cutter sameness uninspired typical American spit and polished inhuman but corporate cold steeled sameness.

More power to you - using good old fashioned ingenuity and keeping a human connection in spite of all the mega-mall lighted blockbuster insanity.

Great work. (Good honeymoon too - Maui, Hana, 1997)

 

[Tree Machine]

The complexity of simplicity

Concert hall applause for that fine compliment! And a standing ovation for your take on an overcomplicated, efficiency-quelling, big-buck marketing megalovision bureaucratic mindset brainwash we've all been sucked into thinking that marketing is like rocket science with a business twist.

I've made it an art to boil things down to the least common denominator. Marketing is keeping hold of your people, and have them tell other people. You have them market you.

A thing the earlier guys can not yet see, is that when you do someone a quality piece of work at a fair price, treat em right and with respect, they pay you and may quite possibly adopt you for life.

This being said, make sure you harness their energy. If you do someone right, there is usually a feeling of reciprocation. That comes back to you in the form of pay. But to get them to want to tell their friends, that takes maneuvering another spontaneous force of nature. I call this, "The Power of Free".

Free gets peoples' attention. You see it in advertising, you hear it on the radio..... "FREE to the first 50 callers, FREE backstage passes to the second coming of Christ!" For the rest of your life now, every time you see the wordFREE, you're going to think about this thread.

Here's how I harnessed the power of FREE to get my growing pool of clients to WANT to tell their friends and neighbors about me. When I did their job, I would do something for free; get rid of some downed brush, blow out the gutters, leave the place cleaner than when I left, but something that wasn't on the estimate sheet. (the experienced guys know that you pretty much always do that anyways!) The critical point here, is that you go ahead and write the 'nicety' on you copy, or a short list of courtesy extras. I used to write these freebies in red, and right after that, you write FREE, or -NC- (no charge).

The reason you've written it, and put a fat -NC- behind it is so you create a feeling of reciprocity. You took care of that person. While they're in that moment of appreciation for how well-taken care they feel, take the liberty to look them square in the eye and make a small request:

"If you really appreciate the work I've done, maybe some day in the future you tell just one friend?"

In the future (anytime), just one friend (they will tell more). And they WILL tell someone, sometime. It's just one person. How much easier can it be? That's all you're asking. Think of it as a pre-paid favor.

Since they've now adopted you for life, they will refer you on for life and the same with all their friends down the road. I keep track of who refers whom, because you're creating a web, a network. These are your clientele. Serve them well. Don't do ANYBODY wrong because in this system, someone always knows someone. You need to always be at your professional best. Keep track of their names, addresses, phone numbers orderly, because you're in it for the long run. Start organized and you're more likely to stay organized. Keep in touch once or twice a year.

I employed this 'advanced and highly complicated marketing strategy', along with another hi-tech innovation called a 'smile' the very first week I went into business for myself, all purely by intuition. The network grew almost magically. Next thing you know I was 'working above and beyond the customers' expectations'.

I still do freebies, as we all do, but generally I don't write them up anymore. I just verbalize to her what courtesies I've done, knowing it'll get me referred on without even asking. Girls talk (another spontaneous force of nature). --TM--

 

[Tree Machine]

By the way, I'm heading off on vacation for a month. Attached is the draft of the postcard I'll be sending out in a day or two. Any proofreaders out there want to offer suggestion? I'll be sending it to 53 people on the list. 22 who unfortunately have to wait til I get back to do their work, 30 who are in my 'Maybe' file (estimate done, still waiting) and one woman who slipped through the cracks completely and deserves an apology from me.

 

[Treeman14]

Do you have any trusted associates to whom you could refer emergencies, i.e. storm damage, while you are gone?

 

[Tree Machine]

Marketing yourself personally, 1 on 1

Great point about having a trusted associate! I'll leave his # and name on the message machine, and include him in the note, which I've updated and attached.

The really beautiful thing here, is this sending forces me to do a final update on my client list (which I update every month anyway). It keeps everyone with whom I've had contact, in touch, all at once, and when I come home the phone will start ringing.

Whoever doesn't call, I have the opportunity to call them when I get home and inquire as to their needs. I call it 'Sweeping up my Maybe's'. This serves two purposes. 1) gets me more business, shows them that I care enough to follow up, that they're important, and
2) Flushes out the 'No's'

Flushing out the no's is important because it makes your 'Maybe' file skinnier. I take the 'no's and file them at home in a folder entitled "Tree estimates / Suspended Animation and 'No's". The information is kept, archived, but it no longer travels around with me day to day.

I will go on vacation for a month, and my Summer season will starts January 15, all over again, just as it has the last 7 of 8 years, and I'll be booked solid until this time next year. It's remarkably simple, inexpensive and effective. I don't have brochures, I don't have a yellow pages ad and I don't even have my name and number on the side of my truck. Postcards once or twice a year is all I have as far as advertising, either before a vacation, or immediately after a big 'ol storm. My accountant LAUGHS when he sees my yearly gross income and matches it against my marketing and advertising costs. Word-of-mouth works better in our industry than many others because of the personal connections and personal service.

Just keep in mind this spontaneous law of nature: Most people have a personal attachment to their trees, and thus, to you. Respect them above your most highly valued tool, and just keep in touch. Good luck to you.
--TM--

 

[Tree Machine]

The nuts and bolts of Postcards

OK guys, just for fun, since I am actually sending out some pre-vacation postcards, I thought I would 'photodocument' my approach. I covered this in 5 images over the next 5 replies. Also, I didn't go to Kinko's since it was only a dozen sheets to print. All of this I did in my basement.

Here's the first one. After writing the postcard, take a picture of it and slam it into your computer

 

[Tree Machine]

postcards

Next, you turn it into four

 

[Tree Machine]

postcards

Then you print it out on cardstock.

 

[Tree Machine]

postcards

Cut em up....

 

[Tree Machine]

postcards

... and then get all jiggy with the self adhesive stamps. I hand-write the addresses for a mailing this small.

It's truly easier to do this work at a copy shop where they can be doing the cutting and copying. While you wait, you can be filling out self-adhesive address labels. I've enjoyed, for the first time, doing this without having to leave the comfort of my basement, more as an experiment as anything, and I was able to share the process with you. I'm not suggesting my ways upon you, simply sharing with you something that works exceedingly well for me. Take from it what you will, and I enjoyed sharing it with you. --TM--

 

[Tree Machine]

ps

OH, p.s.

I really AM going on vacation, so this is officially my last posting until mid January. Have a nice Winter, and climb safe in the challenging weather, especially you guys in December's Ice Zones. --TM--