More creative ways to spread the word about your business.
Jake Wolf started his landscape business after posting “Landscape design student needs your home for portfolio development” on a local yahoo group. Within a week of his post he received 30 calls and had lined up enough work to quit his job.
Jake’s plan for 2007 is to have 100 customers signed up for his monthly fertilizing and pesticide program. Here are his plans for signing that first 100:
My plan for signing up 100 new customers by the spring rush.
- Send out a thank you email to all existing customers and alert them to my plans for next year.
- Join as many local online groups as possible. Many allow new members to introduce themselves.
- Call up landscapers who don’t have pesticide licenses and work out an affiliate deal with them to take care of their fertilizing and pesticide applications.
- Start writing an email gardening newsletter and heavily focus on local needs and resources.
- Offer free gardening classes just like a Tupperware party with someone hosting and bringing several friends over. Trust me, this beats giving free estimates.
- Film educational gardening clips using local people and host them on youtube.com. Include links to the most recent one in every email signature.
- Forget the website, almost no one visits the current one. Get listed in free local directories instead.
- Say hi to every neighbor of existing and new clients. Pesticide laws require neighbor notification. Why not knock on their door and say hi?
- Offer a travel savings discount to your customers if they help you get more work on their block.
- Say something new and always include a call to action. Everyone already knows landscapers cut lawns, mulch, top soil, prune, snow removal, bored yet, insect control, fertilize, retaining walls, mickey mouse, landscape design, irrigation, ponds, pavers, oy this is too much and this is only half of it!
Jake will make his 100 new clients. How do I know? Look at the list. He’s actually ‘doing’ things to grow his business. He’s not just sitting by the phone.
More ideas soon. In the meantime, click on the “comments” link and leave your favorite way to advertise.
