Are you confident about your marketing plan?
Good news…When you build a solid marketing foundation, business growth is almost certain.
But one word of caution: if you price your lawn and landscaping jobs too low, accelerating your marketing could kill your company.
Better news…A solid marketing plan can help you build confidence pricing your jobs. You see, when you have a steady stream of jobs flowing in, you won’t feel the pressure to lower your prices.
Just so we are clear…every business owner needs a solid marketing plan. BUT…You don’t need a complicated digital marketing plan…especially when you are young in business or young in the effort to build a marketing plan.
Just like the skills of blocking and tackling create a successful football team, the basics of marketing will attract job after job. We covered the Landscaper Marketing Plan Step 1 right here. We encourage you to get these three parts of your marketing plan working for you first to automate lead generation.
Please…make certain you have completed step 1 and step 2 before you let some “marketing guru” get you to spend piles of money on online techno attraction pay-per-click SEO booster AI services (or whatever they may call them these days).
Really…I’m deeply troubled when my clients ask for my opinion about spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on techno marketing…when they have not built out their marketing foundation. Once step 1 is a solid part of your plan, it’s time to implement step 2.
Your List is Your Greatest Asset!
Seriously. You might think your skid loader is a money maker. But the skid loader ain’t worth much without a steady stream of clients willing to rent it from you (with a well-paid operator).
It’s true. Your equipment is an asset. Its value is recorded on your balance sheet. It’s value can be determined by this equation:
Skid Loader Purchase Price – Accumulated Depreciation = Asset Book Value
The math is pretty straight forward when you are working with tangible assets like a skid loader. But it’s not so easy to place a value on a list of clients. So allow me to give you a few things to think about.
When we say, “Your List is Your Greatest Asset”, this would only be true if YOU, the business owner, learns how to capitalize on the future income you can create from this list. Let’s dissect this “list” for a minute.
Your “List” is a list of names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or cell phone numbers. This list should be made up of these following groups of people:
- Existing Customers – the folks who you are working for this month and next
- Past Customers – those who trusted you enough to hire you in the past and the relationship was positive
- Dream 100 – the list of the absolute 100 best, most desirable, most profitable and most emotionally rewarding clients you could dream to serve in your market area.
- Community Influencers – folks who have the ability to refer you or your company for desirable work – like your banker, accountant, insurance agent, doctors, attorney, local politicians, friends, family
- Unconfirmed Past Leads, Quotes, Proposals – the folks who never hired you, but did respond to your marketing in the past. They are likely buyers and following up with them costs very little.
To get any asset to produce income it requires effort. So your list can’t just sit there in a digital file box or manila folder and never get any attention or effort.
Your list becomes your most valuable asset when you apply marketing.
Your 2-Part Communication Plan
We know some of you already know how to turn your list into your company’s most valuable asset. But just in case you are looking for a sure-fire way to grow your company, let’s share exactly what you need to do.
Your two-part marketing plan most include a commitment for:
- Regular, ongoing and frequent communications
- Quality communications that share useful information
You must decide that communicating with your list is your most important marketing priority. Seriously…you must decide that you will communicate with the 5 groups of people on your list on an ongoing basis.
When we think about “frequent” communications, we are thinking about weekly, bi-monthly or monthly communications. If you want to build a meaningful relationship with your customers, you must initiate positive messages.
If you sit back and wait on customers to complain before you talk to them, you’ll always be playing defense. Create a successful marketing offense that scores by building trust and winning new contracts. You’ll find more money coming your way when you choose to communicate with a consistent frequency – weekly, bi-monthly or monthly.
Next, you must focus on the quality of your communications. If you provide lawn and landscape services, sending your customers answers to the most frequently asked gardening questions is a winning strategy.
And here’s the secret that makes the quality of your communications get better and better over time. You simply listen to your customers. You write down their questions…in their own words…and then you answer their questions as completely as you can…in your own words.
Month after month, year after year, the questions just keep on coming your way. You only have to answer three or four questions a month to build a highly valued, frequent communication plan.
Since you love landscaping…and you want the best for your customers, answering their questions should become the highest priority part of your customer service. If you answer their questions, they won’t be annoyed with your communication. They will appreciate it.
We know there are lots of questions about how to execute such a marketing plan. Like, should we use email to communicate? Should we use old fashioned mail to communicate? Should we text? Perhaps we should do a mixture or all of the above?
These are questions we’ll dive into in our next Wealthy Landscaper Letter.
Until then…
Hit reply and tell us what you think. Are you following through to make your list your most valuable company asset?
We look forward to your reply.
Tony Bass, founder
866-923-0027
PS – Do you have a marketing challenge? Are you stuck or confused about your marketing? We’ve built multiple 7 and 8 figure businesses. We’ve coached 400 more on how to double profits in 12 to 24 months. Perhaps it’s time for you to do the same. Click here to purchase and schedule a private phone consultation with Tony Bass at 50% off the regular price.
