The following is an excerpt from “How To Market Your Handyman Business” (a 1 hour and 41 minute free training course download available to our visitors).
Jassen: Exactly alright for those of our listeners that are on the call now is when you’ll want to bust out a piece of paper, a pen, start taking some notes if you haven’t already done that let’s dive right into the meat of the material here, you already talked a little bit about lead generation but in general what are the two biggest marketing focuses for any handyman when they’re looking at marketing their business?
James: Well, really there’s two different types of marketing I look at there’s marketing to your internal list you want to build up a list of all the people that know you whether it’s friends, family, business associates, anyone you meet and you hand them your business card and they hand you a business card back, you want to add them, anyone who inquires about getting a quote from you or finding out about your service or that you meet and you think would be a good prospect down the road those are the people you want to have on your internal list and what you want to do is you want to maintain that list, you want to nurture that list, you want to grow that list and then you want to consistently market to that list week in, month in but you want to do it over and over again because those are the people that you are going to get business from it’s very hard to do a conversion from a cold market straight to a client but that’s the next part the first part is market to your internal list the second part of it though is to market and then directly grow that client and prospect list and there are gonna be times when you’re going to do direct marketing out there and someone is going to go right from inquiry to paying clients and they’re gonna want to hire you to do some handyman work but that is the hardest sale you’re ever going to make-
Jassen: Right
James: -the easiest one you’re going to make is your warm list people that know, like and trust you and they’re ready to do business with you when they have a need and those are also the people that are going to refer people to you as well.
Jassen: So what you’re saying is one of the focuses is doing marketing to grow your – I call it a house list – to grow your internal list and then the other side of that coin is nurturing that relationship with the people on that list is that a good summation?
James: I think that’s a perfect summation and I think what people don’t realize is a lot of handyman business owners come in and they think that there’s only one type of marketing and that is marketing to get new clients right up front and it’s really not a good model to have if you’re trying to like think in your head what this looks like the model of I put out advertising, I get clients, and I go to work and do that not a good model. It’s not appropriate, it’s not reality, really what tends to happen is the people that know, like and trust you tend to call you when they have work for you to do and then you go do the work. It’s rarer for you to go do direct marketing and get new clients.
Jassen: Exactly, well especially for handymen because a handyman is somebody that you’re going to need on specific occasions you know when something breaks or if you’re doing some renovations or you know something comes along it’s usually when you call a handyman to do something it is preceded by some instigating factor and so if you have a relationship with a handyman there’s probably going to be you know – I don’t know a ceiling fan goes out on a rental property or something like that you go “Oh, OK I need to call George.” And so if you’ve if the handyman has nurtured that relationship then that prospect on the handyman’s list is automatically going to think of “oh I need to call George”, right?
James: Yeah, as long as you’ve got top of mind awareness and where that comes in is that constant marketing that you’re doing to your internal list to remind them who you are, you know what you’re about, that they know you, they like you , they trust you, you put testimonials in there, you kind of keep them abreast of what’s going on in your life and your business and then the people that didn’t really know you that well and that’s like one or two contacts in order to meet you, those guys get repeated exposure so that when they do need a handyman and they can refer you, or they can either use you themselves, or they can refer you to someone else that does need it and they happen to say “Oh yeah, I do know a guy, I get a newsletter from him once a month, really nice guy, get’s a lot of great testimonials, does some really great work I’ve seen some pictures you should give him a call” and then he’ll have your number because you’ll be sending them stuff and it won’t be too long even if they don’t have your number that they’ll get something else in the mail and be able to give it to them.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. Want access to our full 7 hour training course? Upgrade to “The World’s Greatest Handyman Marketing Course” today to get instant access and take your handyman business to the next level.
Jassen: But, it’s also possible to be in a niche by selling information about the niche.
James: Absolutely.
Jassen: And there’s this whole world out there with stuff about information products, affiliate programs like click bank where you can go an find products to promote, promoting the products, getting a commission on the sale, you know, downloadable content, it’s a whole world out there we’ve got CD’s about that and other people have produced courses and E-books and what not about how to get involved in the information product industry, but that’s another way to be involved in a niche and selling within a niche, but not having the products in stock for that niche.
James: Yeah, and you know, there’re few things that are more profitable than selling information.
Jassen: Well, one of your favorite sayings, that I love, is “nothing generates cash flow like information products”.
James: Right. Yeah, like selling information products.
Jassen: But, nothing builds wealth like real estate investing.
James: Yeah, yeah, I’m a full time real estate investor.
Jassen: Yes, you are.
James: I do this part time.
Jassen: Yep. So, the power of those two things together is incredible.
James: Yeah, I would agree.
Jassen: So, let’s go on to, we’re down to fifteen or twenty minutes and we still have four more steps to cover.
James: Alright, then! That sounds good, let’s do it!
Jassen: Let’s do it! With the first two steps you can be up and going and making money online, there’s no doubt about that.
James: I would agree with that.
Jassen: Step three is what I’m calling here external marketing.
James: Yep.
Jassen: And what I mean by external marketing, I mean driving traffic to the market place listings, auctions, etc., that you have up on Ebay and have on Google Base, etc.
James: Yeah, there are like five day seminars on marketing, you know, everything from Direct Mail to Google Adwords, to other pay per click advertising to, you know, banner ads, search engines optimization, there’s all these different ways to generate traffic to these things and the more targeted traffic, not just traffic in general, don’t go buy like, you know, this 5 million hits for ten bucks because, you know, half those people, or more than half those people are not going to be interested with your products.
Jassen: Just so you know, I’ve done that and the results were abysmal.
James: Okay, so lesson learned. You don’t have to go spend the money on the 5 million traffic; you can just take Jassen’s word for it that you’re not going to get very good results from that, but yeah you need to drive some traffic to your things unless you’re going to these market places, which we discussed earlier.
Jassen: Right, now I wanted to talk about two very specific things that are basically free…
James: Okay, good.
Jassen: …for generating traffic, to like your Ebay auction listing or your Amazon market place listings. Okay?
James: Okay.
Jassen: First one, participate in blogs, discussion boards, forums, etc…
James: Okay.
Jassen: …that relate to your niche.
James: I think that’s a great idea.
Jassen: And how you do this is you, you know, you could use Google or your favorite search engine to search for, you know, blogs and forums and discussion boards that relate to the industry and then you sign up and you join and you start participating in the topical discussions.
James: Yeah, you become someone who, you know has an opinion of these things and is helpful.
Jassen: Yes. Or, if it’s a blog you start commenting and you become a regular commentator on the blog.
James: Right.
Jassen: Now, here’s how you do this. If you choose a specific niche there’s kind of an assumption on my part anyway, that you know something about it and so…
James: Not always true by the way. I am a perfect example of that.
Jassen: I’m aware of that.
James: Okay.
Jassen: But, if you know something about it or just in general you have information to share, you become a helpful resource on that discussion board. You participate in the conversations and offer engaging, meaningful information. One of the things I like to do in discussion boards is to answer newbie’s questions.
James: Yeah.
Jassen: Because there is always a slew of questions on every board out there from new people.
James: Yep.
Jassen: So, when you join one of these boards, you are a new person, but kind of stake it out for awhile and do a lot of reading and learn the answers to these common newbie questions, because they’ve been answered before and you can learn the answers even if you don’t know them yourself.
James: That’s right.
Jassen: And then you reply to these people who are newbie’s, who are posting the same question over again and you answer them.
James: Yeah.
Jassen: And with that occasionally, you know, if it’s appropriate, do not spam these boards.
James: Yeah, I will agree.
Jassen: They will block you, kick you off faster then, you know, you can even think it.
James: If you hang out there long enough you’ll get a feel for what is legitimate help and what is spam.
Jassen: Right.
James: And then you’ll start to understand it a little better and, you know, I wouldn’t post right away.
Jassen: No.
James: I would wait a little bit like read it and kind of keep on top of it.
Jassen: So, you know, and where appropriate, you know, you might be able to include a link to an auction or a posting, but always on these boards, well, not always, but a vast majority of them will want you to have what’s called a signature line.
James: Right.
Jassen: And in your signature line you’re suppose to tell a little bit about yourself, etc. Well, you can put a link in most of them to your own website or to an Amazon listing or to an Ebay auction, so…
James: Or, maybe just, you know, author of and have a title of a book and if people are interested they can go in and find the book that…
Jassen: That’s right. So, you know, that’s a way to drive traffic to your listings. Another one, we already talked about using Google Base to actually post products for sale…
James: You can have, like reviews or other things up there on Google Base as well.
Jassen: Yes, you can post reviews about a product, you know, it’s almost like you’re writing a short little article about a product and then you can put something to the effect of, you know, if you’re interested in ordering, more information, etc., then Google Base lets you put in links and you can put links to your Amazon or Ebay listings for example…
James: Okay.
Jassen: And the beauty of that is that those reviews and whatnot get indexed in the Google search data base.
James: Yeah, that’s really good.
Jassen: So, if you’re selling palm trees on the internet…
James: Yeah, right.
Jassen: …and you write up something in Google Base about palm trees and you have an e-bay auction, you know, for palm trees…
James: Or, palm tree information or…
Jassen: …or palm tree information…
James: …how to care, or how to get palm trees at a discount, all those things.
Jassen: Yeah, anything related to palm trees or whatever your niche is and you put a link in Google Base, and then you, you know, people can find that by doing just a regular Google search. So, that’s another way to do it, those two things in particular are what I wanted to touch on.
James: Okay, good.
Jassen: Now, we have an entire marketing CD.
James: We do, yeah, this is not a replacement for the marketing CD, but a lot of what we talked about in this call earlier is the places you can go where you don’t really need to focus on marketing, because you’re paying to have them market it for you.
Jassen: Right, but what I wanted to point out in step three is that you can do external marketing.
James: Yeah, and you know, the other one I just want to add and I don’t even really want to talk about it, but you can become an expert by writing articles and submitting them to article directories.
Jassen: Yes, yes.
James: Yeah. Okay, lets move one because I thing we’ve got about twelve minutes left.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. Check out Online Business Setup Step By Step or our free downloads.
I first learned this from Tony Robbins in his time management course, but I’ve also seen other real estate investor coaches use some similar categorization and graphing to give each investor a visual of how they are in each of the major critical areas of real estate investing.
While the categories you could rate yourself in are open for debate, I have broken down my categories into the following 5 based largely into the major checklists in the Real Estate Investor Wiki (links are to exclusive resources for our Real Estate Investor Bronze Members):
- Marketing
- Buying
- Selling
- Funding
- Business Management
Let’s take a look at the graphic below:
This graphic shows the 5 major categories along with 4 different sample investors: Master, Experienced, Beginner and New.
The Master Investor in this example has a 10 point rating in each of the 5 areas. In the real world, I believe this doesn’t exist. There is ALWAYS room for improvement and to think that you are a 10 out of 10 in any any area inherently limits your ability to get better.
The Experienced Investor has many categories that are skilled, but still needs to improve on certain ones especially Business Management.
The Beginning Investor has some basic experience and know how in the early skill sets, but still needs additional experience and practice to become better in some of the processes.
And the New Investor has essentially no experience or skill in any of the Categories.
You can use a tool like this to conduct a personal assessment to determine what you need to work on in your business and then work on that to make the biggest impact in your business.
For example, if while doing your own personal assessment, you discover that you are rating yourself well in all areas, but Funding is a 2, then focusing on Funding might give you the biggest impact in your business.
Until my next post,
James
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO – Earlier today, LearnToBeRich.com, the world’s premiere resource for real estate investing and business systems and marketing posted its 300th blog post.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” lead contributer James Orr said when he wasn’t really interviewed for this article. “I knew the public really needed a single place they could go to get the absolute best information on how to succeed as a real estate investor and to get implementable marketing and business system solutions for business owners of all types.”
Orr was modest in his assessment of providing the best quality resources and tools. His experience with marketing and business systems both specifically for real estate investors and for a variety of businesses is almost legendary in the circles he travels.
When asked why he thinks the LearnToBeRich.com website has become so popular, he casually replies, “If you give people what they want and need, it is easy to see why we have become the leading place for real estate investors and business owners to come seeking up to date, easy to follow and implementable strategies for vastly improving their business results.”
And Orr means business. With his 300th post, he says he is just getting started. Having just finished writing the first draft for his first book in a single weekend a few days prior based on his popular webinar How to Earn Six Figures with Google AdSense, he is confident that he will hit over 7,000 blog posts for his exclusive Bronze Members and guest visitors by 2011.
Will he do it? We will all need to wait and see, but having created massive multi-billion web page networks in the past, the smart money is betting he will.
Often times when I talk about real estate investing, I break the topic up for two primary groups of people: lazy folks and poor folks. I want to point out that I don’t believe you can successfully become a real estate investor being BOTH lazy AND poor, but I know you can be successful using either one of these methods.
What do I mean when I say lazy folks and what do I mean when I say poor folks?
Lazy folks are people that have more money than time and they are willing to spend money to have things done for them.
Poor folks are people that have more time than money and are willing to do things to save or avoid spending money.
While I cover detailed examples, implementation strategies and more in other articles, courses and checklists, here I will present some very basic examples of what I mean.
Let’s say you are trying to find great deals to purchase or wholesale as a real estate investor. What is an example of a lazy way of finding deals? Paying a bird-dog or wholesaler to find deals for you. Another example of a lazy method is to place an ad in the newspaper to have motivated sellers call you with properties they want to sell.
What’s a poor way of finding great deals when you have more time than money to invest? Calling on “properties for sale” ads in the newspaper, calling “for rent” ads in the newspaper or on-line, or placing free ads on free classified websites are all good methods. Driving (or walking) around your town looking for vacant of distressed properties is also a good poor man’s strategy.
Can you see that someone who has limited money to spend on starting their business, but who has a lot of time might be very attracted to the poor methods? Can you see that once your business is up, running and generating some cash flow that you might need to start leveraging your time by hiring out some tasks, employing more of the lazy methods?
Both methods can work, but each one utilizes different resources in different proportions: some use much more time and some use much more money.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. In our training materials (which are included free for Real Estate Investor Bronze Members) we cover many different methods for both Lazy and Poor marketing methods. Sign up for our Real Estate Investor Bronze Membership today to access those materials plus get access to our on-going training and free consulting.
In this audio program, which is part of the Top Secret Courses series of real estate investor courses you will learn to save yourself hundreds to thousands of dollars by allowing the author to pass on a concise abridgment of what their favorite real estate guru has taught them about real estate investing.
Why not learn from the mistakes and experiences of others? If this audio program can save you from making a $10,000 mistake by sharing with you some of the best tips and tricks that the author learned from their extensive real estate study and activity, wouldn’t that be worth $10,000 to you? You can either forge a new trail or follow in the footsteps of someone who has been there before you… it is up to you.
This audio program includes the following:
- Subject To
- 3 Ms of Marketing
- Right Side of the Desk
- You Don’t Need Money To Invest
- Investing for Cash Flow versus Equity
- Marketing Techniques To Sell Houses Quickly
- Systems
- Using Leverage
- You can think small or big… why not think BIG!
- Ruthless Accountability
- You Have To Make Offers To Buy Houses
- Beware of the $10,000 Profit per House Trap – Markets Change
Details:
- Featuring Jassen Bowman with Sasha
- Running time: Approximately 73 minutes
- Includes access to members only password protected website with outline and supplemental information
- Product ID: TSC0004
There are two ways to access this audio program: first, you could purchase it at full retail by itself and instantly download it. To do that, just click on the link at the bottom of this page to add it to your shopping cart and checkout.
Or, there is a much easier way, less expensive and better way… just upgrade your account to the Real Estate Investor Bronze Membership and you can download this and over 100 other real estate investor courses covering a variety of topics including the topics mentioned above in far greater detail than is covered in this audio program alone. Plus, Real Estate Investor Bronze Members also includes consulting time to get your specific real estate investing business related questions answered and worked on by some of the sharpest real estate investing and marketing minds of our time. Upgrade today to the Real Estate Investor Bronze Membership.
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