Readers' Question:

Late last night, I received the following email from a reader.

. . .as you can see by my email address I own a garage door repair business......

It has been three years now of success even in a down market... We owe this success primarily to our online marketing methods coupled with some really great closing techniques....... however we seemed to have hit a plateau ... Although we capture a lot of sales online it seems as if our traditional marketing skills are lacking .... We learned the hard way that Yellow Page ads just don't cut it any more to the tune of a $20,000 loss and have since been disabled by fear in the paid advertising arena...

Upon reading about Bestline Plumbing I wondered if their model would work for us as well...

What are your thoughts on this?

My response: (As I haven't received permission, I won't disclose the email writer's identity.)

I think Leoonard Megliola can teach you useful marketing approaches. So, much closer to your home (If the the top ranked Garage Door Service on Google is yours) , can Glen Kohlenberg of Absolute Aluminum in Florida.

(Just checked further, if you are in (a California location), you are far away from Florida, of course, but why can't I find you on Google ... are your online methods working the way they should, and have they been developed fully?)

Leonard has used flyers; Glen developed a co-op magazine, where he had affiliated businesses and suppliers pay much of his marketing costs.

Would I copy them absolutely, quickly, and without testing, however? I'm not certain. The reason is you need to find the model right based on your own experience and your style of business.

Paid advertising is indeed scary because most models require you to spend a significant amount before you know whether things are working. Leonard's flyer model is effective in his neighbourhoods, Glen's model requires a fair bit of co-ordination and may be challenging to replicate.

How are you marketing online?

Indeed, readers of this blog can find inspiration in the marketing success of some contractors frequently referenced in these pages. They appreciate that one size doesn't fit all, and that marketing techniques and methodologies need to be tested over time, and often changed. They generally do this in a pragmatic and logical way; without completely ditching the 'old' approach, they experiment with alternative methods, and if one works, they adapt it to their systems.

This is a challenge because you need to mix enough commitment to give a marketing idea a proper trial (usually first efforts don't work so well), with enough flexibility to change -- this is why fixed annual Yellow Pages contracts are, in my opinion, deadly -- you tie your budget for one medium and, worse yet, one that is in decline! (However if you are currently using the Yellow Pages successfully, don't ditch them without forethought and confidence that you can do something better -- I would seek independent consultation on making a smaller Yellow Pages ad more effective and then allocate the money saved elsewhere, though. Don't buy what the Yellow Pages rep sells you without a great degree of caution.

(Through an unrelated Internet group I have a friend who has just taken a job as a Yellow Pages representative in Canada. It will be interesting, as time progresses, to gather insider perspectives from the Yellow Pages organization.)

You can download the Bestline Plumbing Manual by visiting the Wordpress edition of this blog at http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com, and viewing the sidebar.

The FW&D marketing and business model: Intelligent building from a local base

Ned Overton of FW&D LLC in Arlington, Virginia near Washington D.C. His trailer is less for equipment and material storage than marketing -- it has a 'take one' box with flyers for people walking or driving by.

Yesterday, Karen Buckley and I met Ned Overton of FW&D LLC in Arlington, Virginia and I discovered how to build a successful contracting business from scratch.

Overton's two keys to success have been his ability to connect to immediate community needs, and really thoughtful (and inexpensive) marketing.

Overton had been a career employee with the Prince William County Fire Department in suburban Washing on, D.C. for 25 years when he retired in 2002 after 25 years of service. His responsibilities before retirement involved the staffing and scheduling of hundreds of firefighters in various stations. This challenge required him to be acutely sensitive to individual personalities to ensure working harmony and safe operations.

As retirement approached, a cycling friend who works at a local building supply dealership suggested he could start a second career by installing replacement windows and doors in his neighbourhood. Overton had been a carpenter before joining the fire department, and his neighbourhood, Fairlington (the "F") in the company abbreviation) has plenty of windows and doors needing replacing.

The neighbourhood's solidly-built townhouses, originally built during World War II to accommodate military families, had last been refurbished in the 1970s, when the neighborhood's residences had been converted to condominiums. Now, more than 30 years later, these windows and doors needed to be replaced.

Overton recalls his first order, from an free online Yellow Pages listing. Then others arrived, from the local community newsletter (where print ads cost less than $100 a month). Soon, referral business started, as Overton gathered all the information he could on various aspects of the business.

He found people needing windows and doors also wanted other services, including roofs, deck, new kitchens and bathrooms, and complete remodeling projects. Rather than turning this business away, he discovered he could do the work effectively and with client satisfaction.

Overton serves communities throughout the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. He generally stays clear of the Maryland suburbs unless he receives a referral call -- he is acutely aware of the cost in time and effort to serve communities outside his area. Of course, just the Virginia suburbs give him a large enough market area.

Current business volume is about $1 million a year -- he is hoping to double that to $2 million within the next year. Window and door jobs generally generate about $5,000 in revenue, kitchen and bath renovations of course can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Fair enough, but how does he achieve marketing success.

Overton, at 57 years old, indicates he is like a sponge for information, especially from sources like contractortalk.com. He has learned simple techniques, like answering all inbound calls with an initial remark "Thank you for calling", to more thoughtful uses of online resources in explaining his company's services.

"When we receive a call, office co-ordinator Meaghan Hudson often refers the potential client to relevant pages on my blog, website, or our youtube.com videos," Overton says. This allows the potential client to see first-hand the quality of the company's work -- and of course the potential client can also view the FW&D's lengthy list of testimonials.

Other marketing techniques include:

• Company wine. Overton says he has high quality bottled wine with the company label. "The wine has to be really good, because the people around here know good wine," he says. He gives the wine as a 'thank you' for referrals or to clients when a job is completed.

• Use of effective and simple local resources. He ensures his flier in a local "door hanger" service stands out from the crowd by using a thicker stock paper Similarly, he is happy to pay a local leads service whose operator charges a 10 per cent commission when the lead pans out. "We just build the cost into our price, and if a client doesn't respond after we provide an estimate, we pass the information on to the leads service provider -- who often helps to close the sale." Because clients are satisfied with the work, and the leads service operator can make thousands of dollars for a lead, Overton receives many leads.

• The trailer. Overton says his job trailer is too small to be really useful for equipment and work -- but is a great advertising vehicle as it is in front of the home on residential streets. The trailer has a "take one" box for flyers -- and it draws business.

• Rational service extensions. You may call FW&D for a simple window replacement project, a relatively small job for about $5,000 for 10 windows. Then, seeing the work quality, clients order more services -- Overton says he will often do uneconomically small projects to either serve former clients or build relationships for larger work. His wife Alica provides design and co-ordination service for the larger interior renovation projects.

Perhaps the most impressive element of Overton's service, and the reason it is successful, is his ability to connect with the people in his community; his home office reflects his clients' environment and employees and former employees 'connect' as if part of his family.

Can you follow Ned Overton's example? I think so -- and, like other contractors I've met in my journeys around the U.S. and Canada, he will be happy to share his insights and observations with you, just as he acknowledges the ideas and advice he has received from others on contractortalk.com and elsewhere within the online community.

Different roads for different folks

That's me, getting ready for my ride through the Malibu Canyon to visit Bestline Plumbing in Gardenia (Los Angeles). Not everyone likes sportbikes, and not everyone needing plumbing services is middle-aged or older. You need to define your niche and demographics in setting your marketing goals.

Leonard Meglolia at Bestline Plumbing in Los Angeles says he finds virtually none of his business from the Internet, and virtually all of his clients are middle aged or older. (The older client demographic has remained consistent from the start of his business, he says.)

Accordingly, for him, the website doesn't serve much marketing purpose, and if his salespeople are going to provide images of what needs to be done, they will print and give the photos right to the homeowner.

Is this the only way to go? I think not. Just as some people drive Buicks, and others prefer sportbikes, still others believe motor vehicles are gas guzzling environmental headaches, and prefer the bus or bicycle. The right marketing approach depends on many circumstances, including your target market. (Bestline may not find younger clients profitable, but surely homeowners in their 20s and 30s also have plugged drains, failing pipes, and wish renovations including new bathrooms and kitchens.)

As well, it is interesting that Leonard Meglolia engages in communications in online forums like contractortalk.com and uses his website to connect and provide resources for other contractors.

You might also note how Meglolia is willing to try new things, and in the process, discovers ways to make his core marketing methodology -- flyers -- even more effective. He tried a canvassing strategy, and developed a new kind of flyer offering free services to support the canvassing initiative. He is shocked by the huge response to this new flyer. The natural question to ask is: Why not just use the new flyer (modified to correct some flaws he developed) and forget the canvassing process? In other words, the enhancement to his core business method has occurred when he tried something different.

The Bestline Plumbing story -- Advertising flyers and marketing systems

Alex Lacek (left), with Leonard Megliola and David Callahan at the Bestline Plumbing offices in Gardenia, California (Los Angeles). Megliola shares many clues and his business documentation with other contractors through an obscure link at his website.

How can a plumbing contractor, who started with $1,800 and some bad luck in 1973, grow to a $5 million business (and continue growing) during recessions? I wanted to find the answers to these questions, and did yesterday, finding my way on the rented sportbike through the Malibu Canyon and then some urban streets few Los Angeles tourists would ever visit to arrive at Bestline Plumbing in Gardenia.

Leonard Meglolia says he obtains about 90 per cent of his business through advertising flyers -- 50,000 to 100,000 per week. These flyers, hardly works of art but obviously effective, blanket his service area in the Los Angeles area, largely lower-to-middle income neighbourhoods, several times a year.

He says if other plumbing contractors followed his system they would see their phone ringing immediately. At present, he says he receives about 15 to 20 service calls a day. The phone rings, in good times and hard (though he can find neither rhyme nor rhythm to the calls; some days the phone doesn't ring at all; then everything goes crazy, some seasons things work really well; others are disappointing. Megliola knows, however, that if business slows down he can step it up by sending out more flyers, which represent most of his marketing budget (about 10 per cent of sales.)

Is repeat and referral business vital to his success? Surely it is. He estimates about 73 per cent of his clients return for more, and he uses a few mailers and reminders for his 6,000 name list each year. "But I can only 'remind' my old clients a few times -- most just respond to the regular flyers they receive like everyone else," he says. "You can only communicate with your former clients a few times a year, anyways, but they all receive a calendar and pens from me each year."

Is this the flyer story the entire picture? Not exactly. Here are the other essential pieces of the Bestline success story:

• The sales culture is deeply ingrained in the business. Crews led by a sales leader earn commissions for their work, not fixed salaries. The average employee earns about $65,000 per year. However, no one minds -- Megliola's flyers and marketing provide enough leads to keep everyone busy.

• The company has a non-scripted but highly effective relationship-building model when its sales plumbers are in homes. The Bestline representative takes pictures of the problems and provides photographic evidence. This time and care to communicate the situation builds rapport and confidence. (Before digital cameras were available, Bestline used more than $1,000 a month in Polaroid film.)

• The company avoids long term debt -- equipment is purchased at distressed auction prices -- and (with its commission based model) avoids fixed costs. This is not a business with fancy offices and state-of-the-art electronics.

• Megliola focuses on his niche: Middle-aged and older residential clients who need plumbing work done. Early in his career he was burned by a new home builder who stiffed him for thousands of dollars. He doesn't rely on the Internet for business, and generally is not successful in selling to younger clients, who often seem to know more about the work than his team.

Megliola says he will try new things, and learn from old. Early in his business career, he tried a cable television advertisement. It didn't work, but the agency he used as a secondary project developed a simple ad for the Pennysaver which, in the early going, attracted much business (this medium stopped working for him in the late 1990s.) He avoids the Yellow Pages and other directories -- the last thing he wants are clients calling several contractors for competing quotes.

Home shows sometimes work, but less than before. He is experimenting with door-to-door canvassing; he says the project is initially working, but he is not sure how sustainable his canvasser will be; but the revised advertising flyer he is using in co-ordination with the canvassing program might work well on its own.

Megliola says if he had to start from scratch, he would use his flyers. He said anyone in a smaller community, say 80,000 to 100,000 people, could quickly dominate the market with effective flyers, and the results would be fast. But few people will actually follow his model. "I had someone in here who spent several hours with me, and then said, 'this would not work for me,' and gave up before he even tried the process." If you are on a low budget, you can deliver the flyers yourself, like he did at the very beginning.

There is another aspect to Bestline's success, however, which I realized when Alex Lacek and David Callahan joined us in the interview. The two employees bantered freely and easily, they reflected equality and mutual respect with their boss and a comfort with the work standards and rules.

Callahan joked that he knows he will make a sale when he sees a Buick in the driveway -- every time he appears at a home with that model of car, he sells plumbing services. (I suggested he should become really good friends with the local Buick dealers and their sales reps.) Lacek noted that the company doesn't micromanage its employees, perhaps some plumbers take some materials from the shop without clearing this stuff with management, but in turn, the group keeps an eye on everyone.

Formal and routine staff meetings are rarely necessary; but "if you screw up and we have to go back after hours to fix things, you'll hear about it the next day," Callahan said. Everyone gets along, most of the time.

So, should you commit a few thousand dollars and have some flyers printed up? Sure, go ahead, but maybe spend a few days in Los Angeles and see if Megliola will allow you to ride along with his plumbers on sales calls. He hasn't set up a consulting business; he doesn't charge for his working manual which is freely available here, and relates exactly how he does business.

My sense is most people won't follow his lead because he doesn't look successful like in those get-rich-quick marketing pieces; you know, the guy standing in front of a luxury mansion and riding the coolest car. Gardenia is not Beverley Hills or Malibu. Bestline Plumbing doesn't look like anything special from the exterior.

But Leonard Megliola has indeed discovered the secret for a plumbing business success -- one which could, I think, be replicated with most residential-focused trades -- and he'll share it with anyone who is interested.

I've posted a link to a downloadable copy of the complete Bestline Plumbing manual at http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com. (Just leave out the .blogspot and you'll get there!)