Megamarketer Coachcast For Contractors

2020 is here and now is your chance to get your year off to a roaring start! Listen to Justin’s top five marketing tips for getting your marketing off on the right foot this season, eliminating marketing stress, and finally getting the results you’ve been hoping for year after year. Key Lessons Learned: Hopes and Dreams Everyone wants basically the same things: more income, more time with our families, less stress. But we often fail to determine how to get there or put systems in place to help us. There is a simple marketing strategy that you can use to make 2020 the best year for your business yet. Doing the same things you’ve done every year before now are not going to get you where you want to go. Follow these five tips to supercharge your 2020. Tip #1: Quit Thinking Your Old Marketing Will Suddenly Have New Results Contractors often run the same ad year after year but the world looks much different now than it did in 2016. If it’s not helping your image or your lead count, dump it and start over. Start

Summary: In this month’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is on the podcast today with Lynn Wise and they are covering a common experience for many contractors. Every contractor knows how frustrating it can be when a customer says that they can do the work themselves, so why do those same contractors do the same thing with their business? Key Lessons Learned: Do-it-Yourselfers Everybody has had the experience of talking to a potential customer who believes that they can probably take care of the work themselves. There is a ton of content on YouTube so they think they are only a couple of videos away from being an expert. This conversation is an opportunity to come to their rescue and remind them they would be dealing with electricity or advanced machinery, and they are better off deferring to the professionals. We all have a tendency to believe we are capable of taking care of ourselves and ignoring the advice of professionals. When that’s combined with our desire to save money, we can se

Summary: In this month’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is talking about one of the biggest holidays of the year and how you can leverage the holiday season to better connect with your customers while also growing your business.  Key Lessons Learned: Marketing During the Holidays You may have noticed that many businesses started preparing for the Christmas holidays well before Halloween was even done with. Even before we’ve carved up the turkey, we are already planning for what is going to go under the tree. During the winter holiday season, more money will change hands than during any other time of the year. The trouble is this money is not typically spent on preventative maintenance. Emergency calls will come just like always but just because your market is distracted, that doesn’t mean you can take time off from your marketing. The most effective tactic for service businesses to get their customer’s attention is to get into the holiday spirit with them. You have to be a little more c

In this month’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is flying solo and talking about how to keep your phone ringing during the upcoming slow season. Key Lessons Learned: Marketing Your Service Business The HVAC world is and always will be driven by weather, and there is nothing we can do about that. When the AC isn’t running full blast all day, the chances of failure goes way down. There will always be peaks and valleys in your lead counts, but good marketing makes everything more consistent. There are two ways to keep your lead flow consistent, a strong maintenance agreement plan and strong customer engagement. Your Service Business on Social Media Social media is not just for teenagers. According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of US adults have a Facebook account, and two thirds of those people visit the site at least once per day. In many ways, the adults have taken over Facebook and driven the kids away. Now they’re on other social networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Faceb

  How Hard Are You To Do Business With?    Summary:  In this month’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacobs and David Tester talk about getting the most out of your sales calls. Learn about the five most important pieces of info you need to get out of every phone call and why great marketing can’t overcome a bad sales process.  Key Lessons Learned:  Why Your Sales Process Matters  Web traffic on cell phones is up 220% over the last 5 years so your website has to be mobile optimized to take advantage of the growth in mobile traffic.  70% of homeowners will forget about you in the first three months if you don’t reach out to them after your first invoice.  The breakfast of champions is feedback. The number one thing you can do today is to call your own business and see how hard it is to get a hold of you.  Is your team answering within three rings? If not, you’re losing business. Your team should be on red alert when the phone rings.  Are you listening with the intent to

Summary: In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and Jimmy Hiller talk about a problem that is plaguing the industry. Hiring is something that every business struggles with but Jimmy has some unique advice that will make it easier for you to find the right people for business. Key Lessons Learned: The Origins of Hiller Jimmy had his first job as a senior in highschool pumping gas but he didn’t have a lot of direction in his life. His father guided him to become a plumber and after working for several years and getting his Master’s licence went into business for himself. There are three things that Jimmy attributes his success to. Jimmy knew he always wanted to be a business owner and it’s important to know what you want in the first place. Jimmy was also willing to do whatever it takes to make his business successful. That meant going out and learning the things you don’t know right now. The third element of success is tenacity. The world will knock you down and you have to m

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talk about preparing for the slow season instead of reacting to it once it’s already here. Find out why being proactive can pay off for your business. Right now is the time to get a game plan for the fall. Key Lessons Learned: Make Sure You’re Offering Maintenance Agreements Servicing maintenance agreements during the off season is the only way a lot of business owners keep their techs busy. With any new customers you serve you should be doing your best to make sure you sell them a maintenance agreement. You can access of pair of scripts to help you with the maintenance agreement conversation with your customers within your Hudsons Ink coaching resources. So many contractors lack a compelling maintenance agreement to offer their customer and that’s a big problem. Maintenance agreements are a great way to keep your techs busy and avoid laying people off during slow seasons. You Need To Focus On Customer Retention L

Summary: In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talk about techniques and strategies for getting more upsells and improving your closing ratio. Main Questions Asked: What does it mean to upsell? How would you go about looking at a market to see if offer a new service would be a good investment to make? Key Lessons Learned: Getting The Upsell It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, there are only three ways to grow. You add to your customer base, you increase the number of transactions, or you increase the transaction size. If you can increase the average size of your transactions by $50, that can translate to a large amount of revenue at the end of the year. The first thing you need to do to earn your customer’s trust is to make sure that your technician is on time. First impressions are very important, your tech has to be on time, prepared, and friendly. Covering your feet in a customer’s house can go a long way. It shows that you actually care abo

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talks about the most important word in the English language, yes! Justin and China talk about different ways that you can get to that final yes. Main Questions Asked: What are the different stages of saying yes? Key Lessons Learned: Getting To Yes The final yes is actually a series of yes’s that build up to the customer choosing you to be their contractor. The process starts with everyone and everything in your business. Every team member and marketing piece should be a part of your sales team that is helping you get to yes. When you realize that everyone that interacts with your customers has a part to play in making sure that customer stays a customer, then you will always be closing throughout the process. The marketing process is the first step in getting your customer to say yes to your business in the form of a click or a call. This is essentially your customer raising their hand and saying they are interest

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, host Justin Jacob interviews Mike Montano. Mike had been a contractor for over 20 years and when he started his business marketing was one of the areas he struggled with. He put in the work and learned that trust and credibility were crucial, which is when the idea for ReviewBuzz came from. Main Questions Asked: How does ReviewBuzz work? Why are reviews important? What are some best practices to dealing with bad reviews? Key Lessons Learned: ReviewBuzz The customer experience is pretty much entirely dependent on your employees. For contractors, it’s not about looking good, it’s about being good. Nothing will move the needle more than the quality of your work. ReviewBuzz is both a review management system as well as a review engagement program. It incentivizes employees and technicians through gamification to deliver better customer experiences. Most employees will not ask for a review, but customer experience management is one of the most important thin

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talks about putting programs in place that will drastically change your business. Find out why the last thing your competitors want is for you to implement a customer retention system. Main Questions Asked: What is customer retention? Should contractors focus on digital or offline? Key Lessons Learned: Customer Retention Customer retention is basically the process of keeping the customers you have spent the time and energy to acquire. You should put in as much effort to keep your customers as you did to gain them in first place. We often fall into the trap of assuming that once someone does business with us they will continue to do business with us, which just isn’t true. Customer retention isn’t optional. The first thing you have to decide is who your customer is. According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers. You have to train yourself to look at your customer databa

In this episode of the Mega Marketer Coach Cast Justin Jacobs and Melissa Broadus discuss the benefits of being an ACCA member. Find out why the ACCA is the place to be for contractors and what resources are available to help you grow your contracting business. Main Questions Asked: What is the ACCA? What are some of the tools are resources you offer? How do you reach out to contractors? What are the largest benefits of going to a conference? Key Lessons Learned: ACCA The ACCA is the Air Conditioner Contractors of America, they are a national trade association and they represent all the HVAC contractors in the industry. They create the standards in the industry that help contractors install equipment the right way and pick the right material to work with. ACCA also acts as an advocate on Capitol Hill to help explain the contractor side of the equation. The ACCA story is the story of contractors. They also offer training in all aspects of the business. Taking the good information that is available in the AC

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacobs brings on Allen Kent to discuss what’s working and not working in North Indiana and Kent Heating and Air. Main Questions Asked: What is your story? What are some things you did to establish yourself in the area? What changes have you seen over time? What does 2019 look like for you company? Key Lessons Learned: Kent Heating and Air Kent has been in business for 65 years and regard themselves as a marketing company. They specialize in the design and service of HVAC. They have a targeted customer acquisition program thanks to Hudsons Ink. Allen’s father started the company in 1954 and Allen purchased it in 1991. After four years of effort, the company moved into a brand new 7700 sq ft facility and set a sales record last year with a 14% in sales. Despite the big move Allen still found the time to make sure that everyone that worked there still had fun and got things done. Just because you’ve been around a long time, that doesn’t necess

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacob and China Morissette talks about how to balance your marketing holistically. They also go over how you should approach the end of the year season in preparation for 2019 and why retention may be the most important strategy you implement in your business. Main Questions Asked: Did you feel like you were being sold most of the time? What should contractors do right now? Key Lessons Learned: Marketing Hudsons Ink coaches against spending a ton of marketing dollars near the end of the year. People are spending money, but it’s mainly allocated for Christmas. The smarter contractors are using this time of year to figure out what they should be focusing on and getting organized for next year. A lot of contractors look back at what didn’t work over the past year and tend to want to cut those activities out completely. You should try to balance out your marketing so that when one thing doesn’t work, another effort picks up the slack. Don’t scr

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith talks about everything to do with your website. Find out whether you need a new site, why your current site is not converting and what you can do about it. Main Questions Asked: Should I have website or not? How do I measure my results? How do I use email marketing? Key Lessons Learned: Web Marketing Everyone needs a website, even if you’re a one truck operation. Your customers will research you online before they call you, they want to verify you first. Your website is your digital storefront, without one you are hobbling your business. Keep the content on your website up to date. Put a plan together to keep your site fresh and target seasonal keywords. You are trying to impress Google and get high rankings for the keywords you care about. Make sure what you are doing is in line with Google’s best practices, you don’t want to be blacklisted. Make sure you have a lead capture form on your homepage, if you have it buried somewhere you a

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith and Sara Kathryn King discuss the topic of social listening to help you identify your next likely buyer. They also discuss a number of tactics you can use to drive repeat business and encourage positive reviews. Main Questions Asked: What is social listening? What are the platforms we should be thinking about? What is conversation growth? Key Lessons Learned: Social Listening A social marketer should always be on the lookout for new ways to approach and identify new buyers. Social listening is essentially putting your feelers out and hearing what people are talking about. It’s way of solving someone’s problem before they even realize it’s a problem. For example, someone complaining about their high energy bill is a perfect target for a contractor to connect with because they can probably offer them a solution. Spend time on the social networks that have the highest volume of conversation about things that are relevant to your brand. Wh

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith and Justin Jacobs discuss the basics of marketing by covering the 5 M’s of marketing. The 5 M’s cover nearly everything you need to know about marketing and building your business. Main Questions Asked: What are the five M’s? Key Lessons Learned: Message Identifying what you want to say is important. Marketers have a tendency to say everything they want to say in one spot but it’s a big mistake. People are distracted, you have a matter of seconds to communicate your message quickly. People will not read through a piece to learn every service that you offer. If you’re offering a service, get to the reason why they should call you for that service. Make sure your headlines are capturing their attention quickly. When you blend all your offers together, none of them stand out and they all lose effectiveness. Media The media can be almost anything including direct mail, YouTube videos, Facebook, or TV. The consensus for the last few years

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith talks to Sara Kathryn King about the in’s and out’s of Instagram marketing. Main Questions Asked: What are some of the basics we should know? Can you tell us something about paid ads on Instagram? What is a carousel ad? How can you hone in on your target? What are some of the automation options? Key Lessons Learned: Instagram Marketing Instagram is extremely large and growing rapidly, more than 100 million users have come on board since April 2017. Many Facebook users naturally become Instagram users. The first step is to start an Instagram account and then create a business account either within Instagram or through Facebook. It costs nothing to set up and post, the only time you will spend money is when you want to advertise or boost your posts. There are several types of paid ads you can run on Instagram and most of the time, the ads themselves are very non-intrusive. Don’t discount Instagram because you think it’s only used by youn

In this week’s episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Scott Smith and Justin Jacobs discuss list segmentation and why fishing in the right pond is the best way to catch fish. Main Questions Asked: How can I get the most out of my existing customer base? What does it mean to develop a customer avatar? How can I improve response rates? What is the best way to grow my list? How can I target a specific area without wasting money? What should my average value per customer be? What demographics should I look at when selecting a list? Do you have a recommendation for the number of prospects I should send to? Where can I get a list of prospects for my area? Key Lessons Learned: Loyalty Loyalty is a very popular word these days and it stretches across industries. Technology has enabled price shopping in retail but less so with larger purchases. In those situations, customers are looking for expertise. Price shopping may get the customer in the door, but service will keep them coming back. You don’t want to be