Filtering Posts by Month: July, 2016

Beware of the dreaded phish.

No, not the hippie stoner band Phish (though you should stay away from them, too). I’m talking about phishing scams, where nefarious internet shysters pose as legitimate companies to try to defraud you into giving up your financial info.

Phishing scams have spiked in the past few months… and contractors seem to be especially juicy targets. In fact, some charlatans tried to phish one of our clients last week.

Here’s the story, along with 5 steps on how not to get hoodwinked by these losers…

Last Thursday, our client received an email from a reputable cloud security company. They said someone with the email address from a legitimate cloud backup company set up an account in the client’s name.

Here’s a look at the email our client was sent:

The email our client was sent regarding the suspicious account setup.

Our client was confused and slightly suspicious, as she had no knowledge of being signed up for this service. The anti-spam warning at the bottom of the email (kudos to the cloud security company for including it) shot her BS meter to “Full-On Bull Crap.” So she contacted us to ask if we created the account for her.

We did some internal research, which told us what we already knew—no one at MYM created the account. We don’t sign up our clients for anything without letting them know prior.

Our Digital Services Director hopped on a live chat with the cloud security company to figure out what was going on. The company confirmed that our client’s name was not in their database.

Do you smell that? I’m getting a whiff of something… phishy.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

We told the client the email was likely fraudulent and to ignore it—the whole scenario seemed way too suspicious to be legit.

Sometimes, however, phishing scams are harder to spot at first glance. If you find yourself receiving a cryptic email like the one our client received, here are 5 ways to detect a phishing attempt:

1.  The email asks for personal info

   Legitimate companies almost never ask for personal/financial info from out of the blue—especially by email.

2. You didn’t instigate the activity

   If you receive an email or a phone call telling you to you need to enter personal information to complete your account setup for something you did not initiate, run away fast.

3. The message is threatening

   Phishing scammers will sometimes threaten to close your bank account, cancel a service, or seize your assets (or something of that nature) unless you take the action they tell you to. In 99.99% of cases, this is a phishing attempt—real companies generally do not send out these types of intimidating messages.

4. Phony URLs

   In some phishing attempts, the email URL displayed in the message is different from what it’s hyperlinked to. In addition, phishers usually try to pass off as an authentic company by including real company names (ex: “Priceline,” “Microsoft”) on the left side of the @ symbol. Real companies, however, have their name on the right side of the @ symbol.

5. Go with your gut

   Studies show that human instinct is right more than it’s wrong—it’s our own personal BS meter. If your gut is telling you something is “off” about a particular email or phone call, it’s probably correct.

Follow these steps, and you’ll become 100% phish-proof.

Have a great day!

-Rich

P.S. Phishing scams can also happen by phone. Over the weekend, one of our Senior Copywriters, Nick Nordstrom, was also a target for a phishing attempt. A mysterious person posing as an Expedia employee (calling from a non-Expedia phone number) left Nick a voicemail. He said Expedia was having trouble finalizing his upcoming trip and that he needed to call them back “as soon as possible.”

Listen to the voicemail the phisher left. It’s hilarious how badly the guy botches the attempt–the awkward silence at the 28-second mark is particularly cringe-worthy. You can obviously tell it’s his first day in Scam Artistry 101.

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Let’s be honest: Sit-no-sales are the worst.

You dedicate the time, resources, and labor hours to go to the prospect’s home. You give the estimate. The prospect seems to be on board…

And then you never hear from them again.

Why?

One of the most likely reasons is that the prospect can’t visualize the project. The thought of spending thousands of dollars on something they can’t see, touch, or experience terrifies a lot of homeowners… so much so that some of them back out of their project entirely.

In these instances, you USED to have to decide whether to let the prospect go or relentlessly follow up with them for weeks or more.

Well, you can forget that. Now there’s a way you can rope prospects in for good and get them to say yes DURING the estimate, or almost immediately afterward.

Renoworks Pro is a flat-out amazing design and presentation software that allows you to easily close a lot more jobs at a much higher profit.

No more persistent, time-consuming follow-up. No more shrugging your shoulders and saying, “Oh, well. I’ll close the next job.”

Trust me—this baby is a miracle worker.

Here’s how Renoworks Pro works:

1.    Design: During an estimate, you take a photo of the project area and upload it to the Renoworks Pro program. You then apply product choices directly to the picture from over 250 manufacturer catalogs.

2.    Show: You present homeowners with a stunning presentation of how their home will look before the project starts. You review different materials and options in real time, so they get exactly what they want.

3.    Close: You build trust with customers, get them excited, and put them in a buying mood. They’ll not only be much more likely to say yes… they’ll also be much more likely to spend MORE.

Renoworks Pro (upper right) creates amazingly realistic and accurate renderings.

Contractors who use Renoworks Pro have reported increasing their close rates by 60%. Not only that, they are effortlessly adding tens of thousands of dollars in upsells that they couldn’t before. If you want to drastically improve your close rates and wave bye-bye to sit-no-sales, you NEED Renoworks Pro. It’s a total game-changer.

Learn more about Renoworks Pro by clicking here. When you fill out the contact form on the page, Renoworks will give you an MYM-exclusive discount: 10% off a one-year Renoworks Pro subscription, or your first month free if you open a month-to-month account (a $99 value). They’re nice like that.

Have a great day!

-Rich

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One of the best movies ever made—and this is an undisputed fact—is Rain Man.

You know the flick: Dustin Hoffman plays the titular autistic math genius and Tom Cruise plays his opportunistic brother. Cruise’s character takes Hoffman’s to Las Vegas to count cards and clean out the casinos.

If you have even a passing interest in gambling, you know that card counting is a HUGE no-no in Vegas. It’s not illegal, but casinos don’t like when their prey—excuse me, “customers”—have any sort of upper hand over the house.

In Rain Man, a casino finds out about Tom Cruise’s scheme and has some goons kick the snot out of him in a back alley. In real life, you’d probably just be banned from the building (at least, I hope that’s all).

The truth, though, is that while card counting is frowned upon, it’s a 100% surefire method to clean up in Vegas.

Want to know a 100% surefire (and completely kosher way that won’t get you beaten up) method to clean up with PPC? Put MYM in charge of your campaign.

The guy who runs our PPC division is the Rain Man of pay-per-click. He’s a wizard with PPC numbers—so much so he often bores me to tears with his endless talk about impression share percentages, click-thru rates, and other nerd stats.

I guess you can say I’m Tom Cruise in this scenario (except better looking). The difference is I don’t use my Rain Man’s special ability solely for my own personal gain… I harness his otherworldly PPC powers for the benefit of our clients.

Here’s an example…

Our PPC Rain Man is currently helping a client called Home Masters clean house in Las Vegas. We launched the client’s PPC campaign on December 13th, 2015. Since then, they’ve generated 118 PPC leads. One hundred and eighteen.

It took the standard three months to fully optimize the client’s campaign. But once we did, well… the results speak for themselves.

For example, during Cycle 6 (5/14/16 to 6/16/16), Home Masters’ PPC campaign generated 33 leads at a cost per lead of only $150.25. What’s even more amazing is that from June 6/5/16 to 6/11/16 in that cycle, the company’s campaign brought in 12 leads for $85.57 per lead.

Think about that: Fresh, high-quality leads for 85 bucks a pop. Eighty-five dollars can’t even buy a few bags of groceries anymore. And it’s, what, a third of the cost of one of your kid’s college textbooks?

But low-cost, high-quality leads like these are possible when you have the PPC Rain Man helping your campaign. No gambling, chance, or luck involved. As long as you follow a few extremely simple requirements (click here for info), we guarantee it will make you money.

Want to know if your website is getting enough eyeballs and producing leads? Let us perform a Website Visibility Audit. We’ll tell you exactly where you’re ranking on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. And if you have an active PPC campaign, we’ll put it under the microscope to see if it’s bringing in business—or hemorrhaging cash.

Get started by clicking here.

Thanks!

-Rich

P.S. In the next day or two, I’ll tell you how we painstakingly overhauled every square inch of a client’s SEO efforts in one week. From updating the keywords to improving the nerd coding to posting 60-plus blog articles that search engines go gaga over, we gave this client’s SEO “the works” in just seven days. Stay tuned.

In my 20+ years in marketing, I’ve developed an eagle eye for spotting bogus get-rich-quick schemes and gimmicky products that are 100% hype, 0% results.

And trust me—this kind of crap makes up most of the industry.

So when I come across a rare marketing solution that delivers on its promises and actually WORKS, I feel it’s my God-given duty to share it with others.

That’s exactly why I’m emailing you today. I recently came across a fantastic, ultra-effective marketing tool made specifically for contractors.

No joke—this is a complete game-changer if you’re looking to land more jobs… and higher-paying ones at that.

It’s called Renoworks Pro, and it’s a design and presentation software that is massively improving contractor close rates during estimates.

Believe me, this baby has the selling power of Zig Ziglar, Billy Mays, and David Ogilvy combined. It’s literally made contractors millions of dollars they wouldn’t have made otherwise.

Here’s how Renoworks Pro works:

1. Design: During an estimate, you take a photo of the project area and upload it to the Renoworks Pro program. You then apply product choices directly to the picture from over 250 manufacturer catalogs.
2. Show: You blow away homeowners with a stunning presentation of how their home will look before the project starts. You review different materials and options in real time, so they get exactly what they want.
3. Close: You build trust with customers, get them excited, and put them in a buying mood. They’ll not only be much more likely to say yes… they’ll also be much more likely to spend MORE.

Renoworks Pro (upper right) creates stunningly realistic and accurate renderings.

Here’s proof of how powerful Renoworks Pro is…

Mike Damora has been using the program since 2008. It’s been an indispensable tool on every estimate since then, and it’s why he sells projects at a 128% higher price than the national average.

“The national average for a window job is $8,800. My average is $20,000,” Mike says. “And while the national average for a siding job is $12,000 to $14,000, mine is $30,000.”

Renoworks Pro makes upselling a whole lot easier for Mike.

For example, he recently went a prospect’s home to provide an estimate for a whole-home remodel. As Mike always does, he designed the project on Renoworks Pro during the quote. He showed the prospect what the project would look like with stone.

The homeowner was blown away. He LOVED the stone. He had to have it, no matter the price.

Bam! Immediate upsell to the tune of thousands of dollars.

And this kind of result is common for contractors who use Renoworks Pro. Take a look at these testimonials for cold, hard proof.

I’m telling you, this program is going to have potential customers positively clamoring to do business with you. It can totally change your business.

If you want to know more about Renoworks Pro, give the company a call at (877) 980-3880 or visit www.renoworkspro.com.

Mention that MYM sent you to receive 10% off a one-year subscription, or your first month free if you open a month-to-month account (a $99 value).

Happy marketing!

-Rich

P.S. Don’t worry—you don’t have to be an egghead or a “techie” to use Renoworks Pro. Your depth of computer knowledge could be limited to knowing how to check email, and you’ll still master the program within a week. I’m by no means a computer nerd, and I got the hang of the program in a couple days. It’s a piece of cake.