Alchatek Blog

So you’re a contractor with an amazing business model and have superior results under your belt. Whether your focus is in soil stabilization, leak seal, or slab lifting, it’s a known fact that growing your contracting business is hard work. As a technical consultant, I am aware that many contractors focus so much time on generating new leads that they may overlook another great source of new revenue: re-engaging past customers.

In case you didn’t know, it costs about 5 times more money to attract a new customer than to sell to an existing customer. I’m speaking to your pockets aren’t I? And it's 50% easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new customer. It has also been said that 80% of most business revenue comes from just 20% of its existing customers. (Source: Forbes Magazine's "Five Customer Retention Tips for Entrepreneurs".)

Here's a list of customer types who are likely to provide repeat business...

• Large scale commercial property owners
• Large scale residential owners
• Chain stores
• City education department's/districts
• Municipalities/govt agencies

If you put your mind to it, I'm sure you can think of a few more. You can also reach out to individual residental and small business customers ocassionally.

Customer Retention Tips

Remember, customers do not owe you their loyalty, it has to be earned. You may be the most qualified and diversified contractor in the area, but if you want to get that repeat business you have to implement a retention program. Here are a few suggestions...

Create an email newsletter. Send out tips and advice that your customer base may find helpful. You can also include case studies or success stories from recent jobs. Holiday greetings are always good as well. Throw in a promotion or discounted service offer every now and then, but make sure your communications are always primarily focused on useful content.

Gifts, holiday cards and birthday cards are a nice way to express customer appreciation. Mailing them items like this will help you stand out from the crowd a bit, as more and more people are moving towards a "digital only" approach.

Take a moment on a regular basis to check up on your past customers' social media accounts. Like, favorite and share anything you find relevant or interesting. This is just another way to remind them that you're interested in how they're doing and that you're available, should they need any further assistance.

Anyways, you get the idea. Take some time to brainstorm and I bet you'll come up with some unique approaches of your own. If you're too busy to do this kind of stuff, hire a part-time assistant. The jobs you get as a result of these activities may pay for the assistant, and then some. Give it a shot and find out.

In the previous post, I discussed creating an effective personal LinkedIn profile for contractors. In this post, I'll discuss creating a contractor company page on LinkedIn. (Please note that you have to create a personal profile on LinkedIn before you create a company page). 

LinkedIn company pages help to build brand awareness by promoting your business and services to customers and industry professionals.

Creating the Page

1. While logged into your personal LinkedIn profile, move your pointer over Interests at the top of your home screen and select Companies
2. Click Create in the Create a Company Page box on the right side of the screen.
3. Enter your company's official name and your email address.
4. Click Continue and then proceed to enter your company information.
   • This is the space to complete an overview and detailed description of your company. Mention key services and include a few points about what makes your company unique.
   • Be sure to keep your description concise and use words that your customers may search for.

Insert a Logo and Banner

A LinkedIn company page is essentially an extension of your brand. A banner and logo will bring your page to life. It also shows on employee profiles. (Be sure to have any employees add the company page on their personal profiles for greater reach.)

Next, you want to create an attention grabbing banner to feature a key message. Next, create an eye-catching background image and feature key messaging on your page.

Company Updates

Updates are basically what you share with your connections (similar to a "post" on Facebook).

Posting tailored content consistently is the most effective way to engage your target audience.

Your main objective is to engage rather than to simply advertise. Share thought leadership pieces, advice and helpful tips related to your contracting niche, etc. Include media such as videos, presentations, images, and even info graphics to keep things exciting. Your goal is to help your target audience instead of simply making sales pitches.

LinkedIn’s activity level is not the same as other more active social platforms. Don’t overload your followers’ feeds with constant updates. Stick to one post per day or three per week. The best times to post are early in the morning or late in the workday.

Showcase Pages

LinkedIn showcase pages are essentially an extension of your company page and can be used to highlight and differentiate services. This allows users to follow certain pages for specific topics or services of interest. More relevant content in their news feeds leads to higher engagement rates.

Promotion and Engagement

Your employees are your biggest advocates and also the best place to start building up your company page followers. Encourage your employees to create LinkedIn profiles and add the company. They will start receiving company updates to like, share and comment on, which in turn extends your reach.

Promote your company page by linking it to your emails, newsletters, and blogs. Add a button to your website to make it easy for visitors to click and follow. Send an email to existing contacts and encourage them to follow your company page. Use your other social channels to cross-promote your page such as FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Conclusion

Many contractors are not using company pages to their full extent. Unlike FaceBook, this channel isn’t crowded yet. LinkedIn company pages are slated to grow significantly, and if your target audience is there you must create and expand your company presence. Be sure you follow the Alchemy Polymers company page for regular updates! 

Your LinkedIn profile is your personal branding page. LinkedIn can be an important part of your strategy for finding new contacts and customers in your industry. Often the first thing people see before they even click your profile is your name, photo and headline. Always use a professional quality photo. Do not skip the photo or you'll lose some credibility.

Headline

LinkedIn allots 120 characters for your headline. Do not just name your position. Add in what you offer, for example "President at ACME Foundations: Concrete Leveling and Soil Stabilization". 

Summary

In this space, LinkedIn allots 2,000 characters to summarize your work and accomplishments. This is key area in which LinkedIn looks for specific keywords to bring your profile into search results. This is the best place to use terms and information that potential customers may be looking for.

This is also the space to place media. This can include job photos, YouTube videos, blogs, and articles quoting you, presentations, and even a screenshot of a testimonial page.

Experience

Here you have the option of importing your resume. Do more than just that, take advantage of adding a media piece or two. Potential customers are more likely to look a little longer and that may lead to more business prospects.

Recommendations

If at all possible, try to get at least two recommendations from people influential in your industry or people who have hired you for jobs. Be sure to give them talking points that point out your strengths and character.

Endorsements

Endorsements are basically people attesting to the skills you have listed on your profile. List these skills with the most relevant at the top and the least relevant at the bottom. To build up those endorsements, you could endorse others and hope they endorse back (or email associates to specifically endorse you for a certain skill).

Connections

Build up as many LinkedIn connections as possible. This maximizes your profile visibility. Connect to all the people you know, such as friends, family, alumni, colleagues, customers and experts in your particular industry.

Contact Information

For this section, a simple email would suffice. That way, you are always within reach and there isn’t a chance that you are missing out on an important business opportunity.

URL

A URL is a web address. You can customize your LinkedIn account address to contain your first and last name. If your name's already taken, you can add a middle initial or a number to the end, etc.

Updates

Similar to a Facebook "post" or a "tweet" on Twitter, updates are basically what you share with your connections. This is the one of the most important aspects of your LinkedIn profile. It is the perfect way to engage your contacts on a daily basis and stay visible. It is a way to update your status with industry news and new accomplishments.

Conclusion

With this guide you should be able to attract the audience you want and strategically use LinkedIn to your advantage. Last but not least, make sure you follow the Alchemy Polymers company page! Look out for the next blog post in which we'll guide you through creating a company page for your business. 

Want more info on marketing your contracting business?

Many of the contractors I’ve worked with over the years have had to give a presentation at one time or another. In some cases they need to make a pitch to a potential client (for example at municipality or state agency contract meetings). In other cases they have the opportunity to market their services by giving presentations at trade shows, “lunch and learn” seminars, webinars, home owner association meetings, professional association events, etc.

Presentation opportunities can sometimes arise on short notice. This is why you can benefit from creating presentations ahead of time. If you’d like, you can ask our marketing team to critique your presentation. You can also inquire about getting a member of our sales team to co-present when an opportunity does come along.

Incorporate the following tips to create a powerful presentation for your contracting business. Some of these suggestions may seem contrary to everyday conventional practice, but who wants a run of the mill presentation? We’ve tested this approach time and time again, with consistent positive results. It will be worth your while to at least give it a shot.

Less Words

As a detail oriented professional, you may be inclined to pack your presentation slides with lots of text in order to get all your important points across. This is not the most effective way to give a presentation. It can lead to information overload and a drowsy, impatient audience. When creating a presentation, you want to condense the information and only include text that is absolutely essential.

Powerful Images

Now that you have seriously scaled back your text use, the next step is to make the presentation livelier. The audience needs to be actively engaged rather than bombarded with data. If you associate a powerful image with each essential point, the audience is better able to visualize and remember the concept.

Engaging Stories

Once you have simplified your text and added visually striking images, you can add extra punch by incorporating stories to get your points across. As a contractor you probably have many stories from the trenches. Telling a story is a surefire way to make sure a message sticks.

White Paper Instead of Note-Taking

One thing that dilutes the impact of even the most powerful presentations is audience note-taking. This habit guarantees that half their time is spent looking down at their desk rather than paying attention to you. That’s why it’s helpful to prepare a whitepaper (basically a multi-page essay with any essential graphics) that summarizes all the key points from your presentation. Inform the audience up front that there is no need to take notes, as they will receive a written summary afterwards. Explain to them that they’ll get a lot more out of the presentation if they provide their full attention.

Conclusion

Since I believe in giving credit where credit is due, I'd like to acknowlede that most of these ideas came from the book Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds.

For more tips on how to create a powerful presentation for your contracting business, or to inquire about co-presenting with one of our specialists, give us a call at 404-618-0438.

Want more ideas for marketing your contracting business?

In previous blog posts we’ve discussed marketing your concrete repair business using referral sites, a blog, and social media. Each approach has its own set of benefits. This blog post will be focused on the advantages of marketing your contracting business at home shows.

Home shows are a fairly well known marketing method. But if you’re new to the industry, this is a subject worth reviewing. Home shows provide face to face contact with potential customers who are looking for home repair solutions. Many attendees at home shows are actually in the stages of remodeling, landscaping and decorating their homes. This could even be your chance to converse with other businesses and potentially form new contacts.

This face to face approach is valuable as customers are able to see product demonstrations up close, ask in depth questions and get to know you a little. Some shows offer additional promotional material specific to your business. This can include anything from listing your business on the show website, sending out direct newsletters, temporary custom websites, exhibit workshops, and news releases.

Want more suggestions for marketing your contracting business?

We've partnered with Accord Financial Group to assist our customers with equipment financing.  Here's what makes them unique...

• Financing equipment purchases since 1992
• Average 1,000 transactions per year
• $300,000,000 total financings
• Nation-wide coverage
• Both new and used equipment
• About any kind of capital asset — from $5,000 to $1,000,000
• A portfolio of programs accommodate different customer sizes, types of business, and credit quality
• Unique payment structures are available for differing customer needs
• Great terms for customers with stronger credit
• For challenged credits, they take the time to get to know a customer's special strengths

Want to discuss financing your next equipment purchase?

As I mentioned in my blog post Use Social Media to Promote Your Contracting Business, LinkedIn isn’t only for job seekers and recruiters. LinkedIn can be an integral part of your business social media strategy. If you aren’t on LinkedIn yet, make sure you read that post. If you ARE on LinkedIn (or when you DO get on), make sure to follow the Alchemy Polymers page immediately! It’s important for you to build your network of companies and individuals in this industry. In addition, we post all of our educational blog articles to the Alchemy Polymers LinkedIn page. Following our page is one more way to make sure you don’t miss valuable content.

Follow us on LinkedIn NOW!

Click here:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/alchemy-polymers

Want more info on marketing your contracting business?

As a Marketing Assistant at Alchemy-Spetec, I am constantly asked to come up with ideas for blog posts – especially from a marketing perspective. One subject I’ve noticed we haven’t covered yet is referral sites. As a contractor, I’m sure you’ve heard of sites such as HomeAdvisor, AngiesList and Thumbtack. If you’re new to the industry and haven’t heard of them, they’re basically sites that customers visit when they are looking for a contractor. You may have listed your business on some of them, or you may not have tried any of them yet. Either way, I hope you find this brief overview helpful. Some of these programs have been proven to work and are a great way to get reviews and word of mouth going about your contracting business. We’ll take a look at benefits, precautions and best practices for using referral sites.

Benefits of Using the Right Referral Site

Because you’re putting yourself in front of customers who are actively seeking your services, you can increase your marketing ROI compared to other methods such as cold calling, print advertising, etc. In addition, referred customers are typically less price sensitive than cold call prospects. Referral sites are also a great way to build your reputation by accumulating positive reviews from customers. Not to mention the fact that they can increase traffic to your website. As discussed in our blog post How to Promote Your Contracting Business with a Blog, increased web traffic sends positive signals to search engines and increases your SEO rankings.

Precautions

Before you do business with a referral site, it’s always a good idea to check them out on the Better Business Bureau website. Search the business name and then go to their listing and find the complaints section. You may also want to Google their name, plus the word “reviews” to see what you come up with.  A cursory search of the three sites I’ve mentioned by name revealed a mixture of opinions among contractors. You’ll also want to figure out what platforms are relevant to your niche for branding and outreach purposes. So make to do your homework and thoroughly research any referral site you are considering.

Best Practices for Using a Referral Site

First impressions are very important, especially with new customers and definitely when it comes to reviews of your company. Make sure that your profile on the referral site clearly defines who you are marketing to and how they will benefit from the services that you are offered. Once you start getting customers through these sites, resist the temptation to immediately pester them for reviews. Sometimes it is better to give them time to evaluate the job done so they can give an accurate and much more valuable testimonial. Do not forget to thank a customer for their business and positive reviews. You may want to send personalized letters/emails/or even a phone call to those who have given you a positive review.

Conclusion

I hope this article has provided you with a deeper understanding on how to market your contracting business with referral sites. These platforms are essentially doing the dirty work for you while keeping valuable advertising dollars in your pocket. Implementing a referral program on the right site can exponentially increase your customer base.

Want more information on marketing your contracting business?