Partnering With Allied Service Providers
September 9th, 2008 by Joaquin ErazoI just did a Google search for kitchens and received the following results:
Results 1 – 10 of about 32,800,000 for kitchens
Let’s face it; it’s become increasingly difficult to generate qualified leads in today’s tough economy. With over 32 million results, how can we possibly appear on page one? As you slowly start reviewing the results you quickly discover that there are many companies battling over the word “kitchens”. Sure there are some remodelers like us, but most are manufacturers of building products for kitchens such as a variety of countertop manufacturers and fabricators, cabinet companies (stock, semi-custom and custom), lighting fixtures, sinks, faucets, flooring, etc.
That’s where partnering with others comes in. I’m a firm believer in strategic alliances. It’s even more important today than ever. Although there are many standard co-op programs available from industry manufacturers many of those may not fit your needs.
We’ve approached strategic alliances very differently than the standard program approach. We simply contact the potential alliance and schedule a face-to-face meeting. The goal of the meeting is an honest and open discussion to understand each other’s goals. It’s interesting what comes out of these discussions.
Usually manufacturers say that their goal is simple -we want to sell more product. Remodelers on the other hand expect a great product offering along with price and service. Interestingly, many times both of those goals are accomplished along with extra things that help remodelers tremendously such as:
o Product literature to help describe features and benefits
o Samples to share with potential clients
o Product knowledge seminars and installation trainings
o Cooperative advertising both traditional as well as on-line
o Reciprocating links on websites
All of these lead to accomplishing both goals. It can be done, all it takes is starting out with an open and honest conversation about what’s important to each party.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Joaquin,
I enjoyed your class on Friday on this subject and would be interested in having the powerpoint for my files if you have the opportunity to send it over. Your talk helped me to identify partners that I had overlooked, and some new strategies to discuss with our PR firm. I’m going to go find my contact at the furniture store I use all the time also. If you are interested and send me an e-mail I will share our “Handybucks” with you.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Joaquin, I heard you speak at the Baltimore Show last Friday. It was very informative and gave me a sense of reassurance that my marketing strategies are in line with others in our industry. We are spending six figures on Yellow Pages (Idearc) and Yellowbook advertising. The early results of the ads lead me to believe that our dollars could be spent in better places. However the Idearc books almost force you in to a small one line ad or remain with our half and full page ads. Example, If I take a full page ad in one book (approx $750 per month) and scale it back to a quarter page or business card size it is about the same price as our full page ads because of volume discounts and other arm twisting tactics. I tried to play tough and told them were out only to come crawling back when they didn’t try to stop us from leaving. Please share with me your experiences and thoughts on my arch rivals the Big Yellow Books???
September 16th, 2008 at 9:02 am
April,
I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the talk and I’m happy to hear that you are taking action immediately after the show. I’ve always felt that what you do with the information you get at these shows is much more important than the show itself.
Here’s Case’s “secret recipe” for speaking to furniture companies:
* Identify who heads-up all delivery of furniture
* Begin by praising the company and its product offering (be genuine)
* Share that both your company and theirs is targeting the same demographic
* Ask how the company handles any damage that occurs to the home during removal, delivery and set-up of new furniture
* Position you company (preferable your handyman arm) to take care of all client needs
* Highlight that the goal is to make the furniture company look good
* Most importantly, make sure that you are clear that your goal isn’t to make money off of the work, but just to get into homes that may have future work for Shirey.
I would love to see your pieces for “handybucks”. I’ve very familiar with Shirey and met Donna Shirey several years ago and was very impressed. You have a great organization and I’m sure this program is top notch.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Scott,
Let me get this out of the way right from the very beginning; “I can’t stand yellow pages or their reps”! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in marketing for 18 years and over that period of time yellow pages were instrumental in lead generation and were a key part of my marketing mixes. However, it’s the year 2008 and the consumer has changed.
Initially I was shocked when I read that you were investing six figures in yellow pages. Then I went to your website and discovered that you service a broad geographic region and you are a specialty contractor. Thus, marketing budgets like these are common.
Here’s my two cents on yellow pages. First of all, I’ve based all of my marketing decisions on raw data. There was a time when yellow pages worked great and the cost per lead was decent. We’ve scaled back due to a significant increase in cost per lead with these sources. Second, we measure close rates. It’s still common to see yellow page shoppers contact many listing in a book and have you come out. Over the years we’ve seen our close rates decrease.
Recognizing these trends we began scaling down our presence in the books to see if there was an effect on our numbers. We didn’t see measurable differences. That was us. I would encourage you to execute the same test and measure results. Today, we only have bold listing in each book and we’re OK with that (as a full-service remodeler).
You mentioned playing tough with them. My experience with them over the years has been similar to executing a real estate transaction. In a real estate transaction virtually everything is negotiable (points, closing costs, furniture, etc.). I wouldn’t recommend threatening to walk away; instead try to have them “throw in” web listings, pointers from other categories, i.e. see our ad under windows, inside back cover full page ads, a sticker in the front of every book, etc. It can’t hurt to ask.
Good luck on your number crunching and negotiating!