Driving Around And Literally LOOKING For Homes That Need Your Services Is A Quick Way To Round Up Easy Leads
Use Your Brains Instead Of Your Checkbook To Generate Home Improvement Leads
By Rich Harshaw
A few years ago I was talking with one of my clients, the owner of a very successful metal roofing company in Indianapolis. We were working on a dizzying array of sometimes complex roofing marketing campaigns including everything from high-frequency mailers to radio, pre-positioning materials, home show displays, phone scripting, email marketing, and more.
At some point during one of our many conversations he sighed and said, “It was so much easier when I was young and new in this business. I got all the business I could handle by driving around high-end neighborhoods in my truck with a handheld microcassette recorder looking for homes with roofs that clearly needed to be replaced. I’d make a note of the specific addresses on the recorder, then go back to the office, jot them down, then send them a simple hand-addressed letter saying I had noticed their roof had some issues and would it be okay to come over and give it a formal inspection?”
When I quizzed him a little bit more about how many letters he could send in a day (ten to twenty, a few times a week), how many responses he would typically get (two or three for each ten sent), and whether or not the inspections led to quality sales (yes), I asked him the only remaining logical question:
WHY ON EARTH DID YOU STOP DOING THIS!?!?!
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