Contractors: Your Phone Isn’t Ringing? Try This Before You Buy Leads

CONTRACTORS: YOUR PHONE ISN’T RINGING? TRY THIS BEFORE YOU BUY LEADS

Your phone isn’t ringing….

For a contractor or home-service business, that’s one of the worst sounds in the world: silence.

The natural reaction is usually: “I need more marketing.”

Maybe you need Google Ads. Facebook Ads. SEO. Purchased leads. A new website. Or whatever new marketing service somebody is trying to sell you this week.

Maybe.

But before you spend another dime trying to find strangers, there are several things you should do first—and some of them won’t cost you anything.

In this episode of Tech Talk, Sophia and I look at three different types of contractor businesses and some surprisingly simple ways they can generate more opportunities.

And yes, we eventually get into AI, automation, VoIP and other technology. But technology isn’t where we start.

WATCH THE FULL TECH TALK EPISODE: https://youtu.be/pud9PxuEOa0

WHICH CONTRACTOR ARE YOU?

Most contractors and home-service businesses we work with fall somewhere around one of these three levels.

CONTRACTOR #1: ONE GUY AND A TRUCK

You might be an excellent plumber, electrician, HVAC technician, landscaper, handyman or other tradesperson.

But your business infrastructure may look something like this:

• Your personal cell phone is your business phone.
• You’re using Gmail or Yahoo for email.
• Your website is old—or nonexistent.
• Your Google Business Profile hasn’t been touched in years.
• Social media is hit-or-miss.
• Most of your work comes from word-of-mouth.

There’s nothing unusual about this.

You’re good at your trade. Marketing isn’t your trade.

And here’s something important:

Many of your competitors aren’t doing this stuff particularly well either.

That means even relatively small improvements can make you stand out.

CONTRACTOR #2: THE GROWING SHOP

Now you’ve got several employees, maybe a few trucks, and business is growing.

Unfortunately, the problems grow too.

Calls come in while everyone is working. Leads aren’t always captured. After-hours calls disappear. Customer information gets scattered. Follow-up becomes inconsistent.

And the owner can quickly become the bottleneck.

This is where better systems, professional communications, automation and eventually AI can start making a significant difference.

CONTRACTOR #3: THE ESTABLISHED COMPANY

Now you’ve got employees, trucks, office staff and a marketing budget.

You may also have:

• SEO
• Google Ads
• Social media advertising
• Purchased leads
• Marketing agencies
• Multiple subscriptions

I’ve met businesses spending thousands of dollars on Internet marketing without being able to clearly explain what they’re buying or what’s actually producing customers.

Worse, they’re afraid to turn anything off because they’re afraid the phone might stop ringing.

We’ll come back to that.

YOU MAY ALREADY BE SITTING ON A POT OF GOLD

We have incredible marketing technology available today.

Google. Facebook. YouTube. Email. SEO. AI. Marketing automation. Lead-generation platforms.

And almost everybody is focused on one question: “How do I find NEW customers?”

Meanwhile, businesses can spend thousands trying to acquire strangers while barely communicating with people who have already hired them.

That’s the pot of gold.

Your past customers already know who you are.

If you did a good job, you’ve also overcome one of the hardest parts of marketing:

They trust you.

Yet contractors frequently finish a job, send the invoice, get paid—and never talk to that customer again.

Before we spend another dime finding strangers, let’s start with the people who already know us.

FREE MARKETING IDEA #1: PICK UP THE PHONE

Here’s some advanced marketing technology: Your telephone.

Call your:

• Past customers
• Former prospects
• Friends
• Business associates
• Networking contacts

But there’s an important distinction.

You’re not calling Bob and saying:

“Hey Bob, do you need a plumber?”

Instead, you’re reconnecting and eventually asking:

“Bob, who do you know who might need a plumber?”

You’re not necessarily looking for a job from Bob.

You’re looking for the person Bob knows who needs you.

I served three terms as a chapter president with BNI, Business Network International, and one of the lessons I took away from business networking was to think beyond the person standing directly in front of you.

Every person has their own network of friends, relatives, coworkers, customers and business contacts.

Today, social media has made those networks even larger.

One good relationship can potentially introduce you to many more.

I DECIDED TO PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH

This isn’t something I’m recommending from a textbook.

A few weeks ago, I decided I needed to take some of my own advice.

I started going back through my own PrimeConcepts customer base.

I called old customers. Sent personal emails. Reconnected with people I hadn’t talked with in a while.

Within roughly two weeks, new projects and referrals started coming in.

Several weeks later, I was still catching up with the resulting work—and I hadn’t even finished going through my entire list.

Here’s the important part:

I didn’t spend a dime on Google Ads.

I didn’t spend a dime on Facebook Ads.

It was primarily phone calls, emails and relationships I’d already built.

WATCH THE SHORT: https://youtube.com/shorts/uqhirRUakfA?feature=share

DON’T STOP WHEN YOU HANG UP

After you reconnect with someone, send them a simple personal email.

It doesn’t need to be a professionally designed newsletter.

Something like this is enough:

“Bob, it was great talking with you today. Here’s my current contact information. If you run across anybody who needs our services, I’d really appreciate the referral. And if there’s ever anything I can help you with, just give me a call.”

Now something important has happened.

Bob has your current information sitting in his inbox.

If somebody asks him next week, “Do you know a good plumber?” Bob doesn’t need to remember your phone number.

He can forward your email.

Make yourself easy to refer.

WATCH THE SHORT: https://youtube.com/shorts/pLGtUTCDe2c?feature=share

EMAIL MARKETING DOESN’T MEAN SPAMMING PEOPLE

We’re not talking about buying 10,000 random email addresses and blasting advertisements to strangers.

We’re talking about relationship and permission-based marketing with customers, former customers, prospects and contacts who know you and have agreed to hear from you.

When you’re reconnecting with customers, confirm their email addresses. Where appropriate, get permission to communicate by text as well.

Then stay in touch.

You might occasionally send:

• A useful tip
• A before-and-after photo
• A recent project
• A seasonal reminder
• A referral request
• A review request

You don’t have to constantly sell something.

Sometimes the purpose of an email is simply to remind somebody that you exist.

You don’t need your customer to need you today. You need them to remember you on the day they do.

We’re going to dedicate an upcoming Tech Talk episode specifically to email and SMS marketing: what to send, how often to send it and how to stay visible without becoming a spammer.

PrimeConcepts can also provide a 60-day Constant Contact free trial if you’re ready to start organizing your customer communications.

CONSTANT CONTACT 60-DAY FREE TRIAL:
http://www.constantcontact.com/signup.jsp?pn=primeconcepts

FREE MARKETING IDEA #2: FIX YOUR GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE

Here’s another marketing tool that doesn’t require a big advertising budget:

Your Google Business Profile.

Think of it as free digital real estate.

Take a look at yours.

Is it claimed and properly configured?

Is your phone number correct?

Are your hours accurate?

Is your service area correct?

Do you have recent photos?

Are customers leaving reviews?

Does the business look active?

You don’t necessarily need to start with a fancy new website or a huge advertising campaign.

Sometimes simply doing a better job with the free tools already available can put you ahead of competitors who aren’t doing anything.

THE PHO BELLWOOD STORY

One of my favorite real-world examples involves our friends at Pho Bellwood, a local Vietnamese restaurant.

COVID was brutal for them.

At one point when they were able to reopen, business was incredibly slow.

They weren’t a technology-driven business. They didn’t have an elaborate website or sophisticated online marketing system.

But they did have a Google Business Profile.

We helped straighten it out and gave them one simple assignment:

Post a picture every day.

Take a picture of a bowl of soup.

A rice dish.

A smoothie.

Something happening inside the restaurant.

Just keep the profile active.

One picture became several. Several became dozens. Eventually they had hundreds of photos, and I watched their Google presence become substantially stronger.

When business returned, they became extremely busy.

There’s a bigger lesson here:

Use the free digital real estate you already have before assuming you need to buy something else.

Consistency can matter far more than setting something up once and forgetting about it.

SMALL DETAILS AFFECT CREDIBILITY

Consider these two email addresses:

joesplumbing@gmail.com

versus:

service@joesplumbing.com

Same Joe.

Same plumber.

Different first impression.

A professional domain email isn’t about being technologically sophisticated.

It’s about credibility.

A potential customer who doesn’t know you is looking for little signals that say:

“This is a legitimate business.”

WATCH THE SHORT:
https://youtube.com/shorts/WJWMBAABz2E?feature=share

WHAT HAPPENS AS THE BUSINESS GROWS?

This brings us back to Contractor #2.

Once you have several employees and trucks, communication becomes more complicated.

You may not want to buy every employee another cell phone.

Modern VoIP business phone systems can provide a professional business number, extensions, call routing and smartphone apps that allow employees to use their existing phones while keeping business communications separate.

And once we build that communications infrastructure, another technology becomes very interesting.

AI.

WHAT IF YOUR BUSINESS COULD ANSWER CUSTOMERS 24/7?

Imagine you’re a plumber.

It’s 11:30 at night.

A potential customer calls because their water heater just burst.

Nobody at your company is sitting in an office waiting for that call.

A properly configured conversational AI receptionist may be able to answer naturally, determine what the customer needs, collect contact information and location, perform basic qualification and make sure the contractor receives a solid lead.

Depending on the particular system and integrations, some platforms can go considerably further.

This is very different from the old:

“Press 1 for sales. Press 2 for service. Press 3 to become increasingly irritated.”

Modern conversational AI can allow someone to explain what they need in their own words.

The AI isn’t replacing the plumber.

It’s handling some of the things keeping the plumber from plumbing.

And here’s the big idea:

You don’t personally have to work 24 hours a day for your business to answer customers 24 hours a day.

WATCH THE SHORT: https://youtube.com/shorts/LHZG3vg7qiY?feature=share

We’ll explore AI receptionists and the broader Digital Front Office in considerably more detail in future Tech Talk episodes.

CONTRACTOR #3: STOP BUYING MARKETING BLIND

Now let’s return to our established contractor.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with spending thousands on marketing.

If spending $5,000 generates $50,000 in profitable business, we have a very different conversation.

The problem is spending thousands without knowing what’s working.

Here’s a simple exercise:

Where did your last 20 customers actually come from?

Were they:

• Repeat customers?
• Referrals?
• Google?
• Your Google Business Profile?
• Email?
• Facebook?
• Paid advertising?
• Purchased leads?
• Your website?
• Something else?

If the honest answer is “I don’t know,” that’s a leak we need to fix.

Because: Marketing you don’t understand isn’t a strategy. It’s a subscription you’re afraid to cancel.

And before spending another $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 trying to acquire strangers, make sure you’re not ignoring the customer database you’ve already spent years building.

THE TECHNOLOGY COMES AFTER THE STRATEGY

Whether you’re one guy with a truck, a growing five-person operation or a multimillion-dollar contractor, the fundamentals aren’t radically different:

GET FOUND
→ LOOK CREDIBLE
→ BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
→ STAY IN TOUCH
→ GENERATE REFERRALS
→ CAPTURE LEADS
→ FOLLOW UP
→ GET REVIEWS
→ KNOW WHAT’S WORKING
→ THEN SCALE

Technology supports the process.

Technology doesn’t replace the process.

WATCH THE SHORT: https://youtube.com/shorts/jKH_m62Ssf8?feature=share

YOUR PHONE ISN’T RINGING. NOW WHAT?

Don’t automatically assume the answer is:

Spend more money.

Start with the people who already know you.

Call your old customers.

Ask for referrals.

Follow up with an email.

Stay in touch.

Ask happy customers for reviews.

Fix your Google Business Profile.

Make your business look professional.

Then start layering in the right technology.

And when you do spend money, know why you’re spending it and what it’s producing.

Find the leak. Fix the simple stuff first. Then spend money where it actually produces results.

NEED HELP FIGURING OUT WHERE TO START?

If you’re reading this thinking:

“Dan, I don’t even know where the leak is.”

Don’t buy anything yet.

Give us a call.

PrimeConcepts can help take an outside look at your business and identify some of the obvious holes.

We offer a free consultation, Business Snapshot Report and access to our Business App.

Maybe you need Google help.

Maybe you need better email marketing.

Maybe it’s VoIP.

Maybe it’s AI.

Maybe it’s your website.

Maybe it’s automation.

Or maybe tomorrow morning you simply need to pick up your phone and call ten old customers.

PrimeConcepts for Internet Solutions 760-247-4814

WATCH THE COMPLETE TECH TALK EPISODE: https://youtu.be/pud9PxuEOa0

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