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Paying For a Promise

Pay per Click advertising also known as cost per click, is a model used to direct traffic to your website. Advertisers pay the publisher (typically a website owner) when the ad is clicked.

  Some Pay Per Click companies refer to each click as a lead.  But if you think about the definition of a lead, it is someone who has expressed interest in your product or service.

  You are paying a fee to the…

Look Before You Pay

Investigate a Good “Deal”

Very often I have clients send me info they have received from different marketing companies promising them great “deals”. We have all gotten calls from salespeople promising that if you advertise, your company listing will be at the top, you will get lots of leads and more business than you ever dreamed of. All you need to do is sign up now. Unfortunately, many of these…

Good Reviews Key to Growing Your Business

The home remodeling website Houzz just released their yearly Houzz and Home Report, a survey overview of U.S. Renovation, Custom Building and Decorating in 2014.

Some of the findings included:

Over half of homeowners on Houzz plan to continue or start renovations in 2015 (55%). Nearly half of homeowners plan to decorate (46%). Four in five plan to hire professional help for their projects.

Consis…

How to retain existing clients

Don’t Be Invisible to Your Clients

Happy clients are your best cheerleaders, they like you, trust you, refer you and as a result more likely to use your services in the future. Your existing client base is a very important marketing asset that needs to be cultivated on a regular basis.

Reaching your previous clients is less costly than reaching non clients, and they are easier to close on the…

Remember to Ask for Reviews

Your company’s website is your most powerful marketing tool.  Being well ranked in search engines is vital to increase customer traffic to your website and give you qualified leads that can be converted to sales.One way to make sure that you are ranked well locally, is to get lots of reviews. Have a procedure in place to collect reviews from your customers and ask them to post them on free online…

Getting it Right – Online

There are many social media opportunities to take advantage of to help increase your business. Twitter and blogs are great to promote conversation and engage users. Facebook and Houzz are geared more toward building your brand and driving traffic to your website.

Once a visitor gets to your website it is there where they can be converted from a prospect to a customer. Having a professional…

Improve Productivity – Get Back to Basics

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, sometimes you have to get back to basics to improve productivity. One way is to create an organization manual. If you already have one, make sure you are keeping it up to date, if you don’t, it would be a good idea to create one.

An organizational manual should document all positions within your company. Enlist all of your employees to write-up…

Your Website as a Marketing Tool

There are so many marketing tools available to use; emails, Facebook, Houzz, direct mail and print advertising. You can further your brand significantly by taking advantage of all of those tools. The main goal of all of those efforts should be to drive your prospects to your website.

Your website is meant to educate prospects about your business and communicate information  so they want to “buy”…

Look Before You Pay

I often have clients ask me about “deals too good to be passed up”.  We have all gotten calls from salespeople promising that if you advertise, your company listing will be at the top, you will get lots of leads and more business than you ever dreamed of. All you need to do is sign up now. Unfortunately, many of these companies are not as trustworthy as they claim to be.

Before signing up it is…

Unfortunately, it is often the case that a small remodeler or other business owner simply closes the doors, leaving with whatever savings they were able to accumulate. Although this decision works for many, it is possible, no matter where you are in the cycle of your business, to plan for its long-term continuation.

Although an out-right sale of a business isn’t always possible, with the proper…

As we celebrated the holiday season, I am sure we all looked back over this past year and hopefully most of us had blessings to count.  Now with a new year upon us, it is time to look forward to the future and new beginnings for ourselves, our families and our businesses.

With the New Year and our resolutions just behind us, it is time to focus on the plans to make those dreams a reality. …

Planning for the New Year

As this year draws to a close, now is a good time to plan your marketing strategy for 2015.  Take a good look at what marketing activities you did this past year, which actions were successful and what you would like to do in the upcoming year.  If your business has been slow it is important to repeat those actions which worked. If your business is steady it’s a good idea to plan your…

Remodeling to Achieve Your Goals

What comes to mind when we say remodel?  A new kitchen or bathroom perhaps or maybe an extension on someone’s house? Why remodel?  People remodel for a number of reasons: greater functionality or efficiency, more space, aesthetics, and so on.  Often it’s to make room for a growing family, but sometimes it’s to support a changing lifestyle. How does this apply to remodeling your business?  Whether…

We  know that satisfied customers translate into more business.  Building customer loyalty is a continual process and studies have shown that happy employees create happy customers. Taking the time to focus on boosting employee satisfaction can help drive sales by providing a friendly, professional and engaging customer experience. If your employees are not engaged with their jobs, they probably…

Probably the biggest topic in sales is closing the sale. Unfortunately, much of the sales advice out there amounts to tricks to close the sale. We often look for ways to sell better, close better, outsell the competition or handle the unfair competition. We are often afraid to be viewed as a salesman or as so many clients have said to me: “I don’t want to seem desperate.” So instead of…