https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVekFsVtfnY
IN THIS VIDEO, COREY PHILIP TALKS ABOUT:
- How being referred to as “The Guy” denotes a glitch in your marketing strategy and what you can do about it.
Related: Epic Post of Powerful Contractor Marketing Ideas
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Have you ever got into the customer’s door —
You show up there, whether it’s a scheduled service or an estimate, and the customer goes,
“The screen guy is here!”
Or, “the air guy is here!”, or the “concrete guy is here”, “The roofing guy is here.”
You don’t want to be “The Guy”.
If the customer is thinking of you as just “the guy”, you failed.
Totally failed at marketing and conditioning the customer before you show up.
Here’s the thing, you want customers, you need customers to know, like, and trust you.
Let me tell you, they are not knowing, liking, and trusting “the guy”.
That’s all evidenced by the fact that they refer to you as “the guy”, not in your company’s name, or the guy from the such-and-such company, and not your own name.
If you really want to have powerful marketing, make your customers know, like, and trust you before you get out there.
Make sure that they’re not calling you the guy because the guy is not unique.
The guy is not different.
There’s a million screen guys, air guys, plumbing guys, concrete guys, drywall guys, landscape guys, moving guys, carpet-cleaning guys, door guys — there’s a million guys out there.
You don’t want to be them.
You need to be different and you need your customers to know who you are.
It’s very powerful and it’s very important that they know who you are before you show up.
How can you do this?
How can you make sure that the customer’s know who you are before you show up so when they get to the door, they’re not calling you the guy because it really irks me inside when I get to the door and the customers call me “the guy”.
But, it’s nobody else’s fault but my own as a marketer, as a salesperson, as a business owner, whatever my role is and whatever your role might be, it’s up to you to make sure that the customers don’t know you as the guy but know you as you personally with your company for what you do and the quality and service that you provide.
So, even if you’re just a salesperson, you work for a company, there’s still ways that you can differentiate yourself so when you get to the door, the customers don’t call you “the guy”.
I’m hearing customers in my head right now.
It’s totally painful.
I’m recalling situations when I get out there, show up for an estimate, in my case because I’m not the service technician but show out there for the estimate, customers’ go, “Oh, Jane! The screen guy is here.”
I mean it’s just painful in my head.
It’s like nails on a chalkboard.
It’s not good but it means there’s room to improve.
So, let’s get to the point of this — the meat, the potatoes.
Contractor Marketing 101: Differentiation
How can you differentiate ourselves?
1.) BIOS on your website.
When you’ve got an appointment scheduled, send the customer an email with your picture and the bio in it and your name.
Send it to them.
And then, follow up again an hour before you go, so, “Hey, make sure you got the last email” to drive them back there to read it.
That’s one powerful way.
Real simple.
Doesn’t require much input to it.
Put together an email with your bio or link to the website that’s got your bio and a headshot on there.
Customers are going to know who you are and they’re going to feel like they know you already before you got out there.
I can’t tell you how powerful it is when I get to a project or get to a job site or get to an estimate whatever it is, and the customers are like,
“Corey! Nice to meet you. You know, you look like just your picture. You look young but you look just like your picture but you know, I already feel like I know you. I’ve read your articles on the website. I’ve read your blog posts. Read your bio. Yeah, you’ve gone to FGCU, that’s great! You started the company when you were young.”
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Boom.
They know, like, and trust you.
It’s so powerful and I’m not “the guy”.
For the times I’ve been the guy, oh, I don’t want to be the guy.
I want to be Corey that they already know, like, and trust.
So, send them the emails before you go out there and make sure they get it, at the very least.
And the other best way of doing it, Facebook Ads.
You probably know I was going to say that ‘cause I love my Facebook ads.
When somebody gets into our sales funnel —
1) we generate our leads from Facebook ads, so they’ve already seen the stuff before they contact us.
So, at some point, we’re jumping the gun in front of it.
We’re already getting in front of them before we actually need to.
But, they might have run across our blog posts.
That’s what I am saying, where they could get some content.
But once they get their estimate or no matter how they came in, to us, whether they came from the pay-per-click ad or one of our print ads, or they’ve seen the truck, referred, etc, once they request the estimate and we essentially qualify them or say “Hey, yes we’ll provide you the estimate”, now they get dropped into our Facebook ads funnel.
Boom.
They’re seeing that content which is going to be, in some ways, about me.
It ’s not directly about me.
We do run ads for our project manager bio and stuff but those aren’t our best performing ads, I will say.
But we do run all the content blog post style ads where, to read the blog post, they’re going to have to link from Facebook, from Facebook it links to a blog post etc.
Boom!
Down at the bottom, there’s a bio.
Customer’s read that.
And they eat that up and that is so powerful right there.
But even after that, go back and email it to them as well.
What you really want to make sure is that they know you, they like and trust you, before you go out there so they won’t call you “the guy”.
I hate being called “the guy” when I am out there in front of the customer.
Now, if I am called the guy what do I do?
Here we go.
Go into our story.
Tell the company story and tell them how I came to be with the company, or why I started the company.
In my case, why I started it because I am one of the founders.
Or if you’re just an employee, how you came to be with them.
So, in that case, in that point — let’s just say you’re in front of them.
If you’re following my Valve Stem Strategy, this automatically flows in after you’ve talked about their project, dropped the price, and then you’re going to show them similar projects, then you can get into the company (story) if you’re following that.
If not, you might just ask, “How did you hear about us?”.
And they’re going to tell you, “Someone referred you to us”.
At that point, say, “Let me tell you a little more about the company.”
And then, go into the story. Use a tablet to back it up with some images.
Story – a very powerful differentiator so you can avoid being “the guy”.
Number one, you don’t want to be the guy.
If people are calling you the guy, you’re marketing is horribly wrong.
To avoid that, before you get out there, make sure they know, like, and trust you.
You can use Facebook ads, emails, and other powerful way of doing it.
If you have anybody on your street, that’s something that you can do, that’s a little trick I use,–
If you got anybody you’ve worked for, you can kind of, drop their name or house address.
Tell them to talk and say, “Oh, Yeah. I’ve worked with them. Ask them about me.”
That can do it.
But email is the most powerful there.
So are Facebook ads.
And then from there, once you’re in front of them, use your story.
You want the customer to think of you as a person and think of your company.
You don’t want to be “the guy”.