Upcoming events

A previous seminar led by consultant Bill Caswell. For more information about the upcoming event and to register, visit this site.

Please consider marking your calendar for two special events in January and February.

On Jan 12 in Ottawa, I will be giving a special presentation to the Construction Specifications Canada Ottawa Chapter about Social (online) Media and AEC Marketing, and on Feb 16, we are sponsoring a special Webinar with Business Consultant Bill Caswell on Taking Your Construction Business to the Next Level.

We'll have more posted on both events within the next few days. Fees are modest.

Can a party overcome the negative consequences of canvassing?

Leonard Megliola at Bestline Plumbing in Los Angeles keeps thinking up new marketing ideas -- and maintaining successful older ones. He is one of the leaders in implementing practical marketing approaches, and should be an inspiration to other contractors wondering how to really build their businesses in good and hard times.

This weekend on Contractortalk.com he suggests another idea, which he thinks will help mitigate some of the negative results of his (successful) canvassing initiative.

Actually, this is something I have been thinking about for many years.

Next week, I am going to look for a location in a neighborhood where I can give away free hotdogs, soda, chips, coffee mugs, calendars, ink pens, helium balloons, and literature. We may even get one or two arcade rides that will be free for small children.

As we draw in a crowd, we will hand out literature explaining the free services we will be providing in their neighborhood for the next week. We will set appointments at the booth. For those who don't set an appointment, we will warn them that our canvassers will be knocking on their doors to bother them.

We will deliver 5,000 brochures one day before the show and 5,000 brochures on the day we have the showday. Each brochure will have a coupon that will give free hotdogs, soda, water, mugs, etc. We will use our 10 inch by 6 foot Acrylic tube filled with candy to help draw a crowd.

This campaign will cost about $2,000 to $3,000. One good job will leave me with a profit and we will build a very good presence and branding effect that will be long-term. I may do this two times a year in each neighborhood.

Everybody love a good free hotdog.

I like these ideas, and I like his use of flyers, and so on, and think they all are good and valid approaches -- though I stand my ground that canvassing, while undoubtedly effective and profitable, is a bad form of marketing in most circumstances. Free hotdogs are good; waking up people at their homes, and disturbing their dinners to sell homeowners stuff, is not -- for the majority who don't want to be bothered with intrusive selling messages. But I can't argue against canvassing's effectiveness.

The OGCA Symposium

It's 5:00 a.m., and in a few minutes I'll be heading for a five hour drive to Toronto to pick up Chase, and then will drive another two or so hours north to Collingwood, to attend the fifth annual Construction Symposium co-ordinated by the Ontario General Contractors' Association.

This symposium is one of the highlights of the business year, and is certainly worthy of a couple of nights of overnight travel (and the long drive). The reason: The OGCA has found a way to combine solid education with truly practical networking (and for those who wish, some recreation) in an intensive but practical schedule. The Symposium is not your typical "tax write off vacation conference"; you know, the type of event where formal sessions take a couple of hours, and then you spend most of the day on the golf course. Here, the Symposium is set so that after people arrive on Thursday evening -- allowing contractors in most parts of southern Ontario to get virtually a full day's work done -- you are 'in class' all day Friday, with a few morning sessions on Saturday. If you wish to extend your working sessions into a weekend break, you can -- fair enough, the Blue Mountain Resort is a wonderful all-seasons ski and golf resort.

The Symposium attracts a virtual who's who of Ontario's construction industry, and from a marketing perspective for businesses supplying or serving general contractors around the province, it is a no-brainer to attend and sponsor the program. (What better way to market than to be an expert speaker on a topic of relevance to your interests? That type of leadership requires time and planning, not cash -- but many businesses spend significant sums of money on formal sponsorships and receive appropriate recognition for their contributions -- while of course making the event lucrative to the association, and a great economic value to members who attend.)

We've supported the symposium for several years with substantial editorial content, no-charge advertising and publicity both before and after the event, so this year, the OGCA granted us a couple of admission passes and permission to set up a display. The latter is why I am driving -- carting the display material is a challenge (and prohibitively expensive on our cautious budgets) if you fly.

On Friday, especially, I'll be absorbing incredible amounts of information. More in about a day . . .