Hey contractors 5 questions your sales letters must answer

Hey Contractors, 5 Questions Your Sales Letters Must Answer

You already know something that, if you pay attention to it, will help make your marketing far more effective.

Ready to learn what you already know?

Grab three or four advertising, direct mail sales letters from your junk mail pile and read them. As you are reading them, see whether the following questions pop into your mind?

1. Who are you?

2. What do you want?

3. Why should I care?

4. What's in it for me?

5. What do I do now?

They did, didnt they? I...

Construction, contractor, business, advice

You already know something that, if you pay attention to it, will help make your marketing far more effective.

Ready to learn what you already know?

Grab three or four advertising, direct mail sales letters from your junk mail pile and read them. As you are reading them, see whether the following questions pop into your mind?

1. Who are you?

2. What do you want?

3. Why should I care?

4. What's in it for me?

5. What do I do now?

They did, didnt they? I hadnt noticed it until it was pointed out to me by a copy writing expert.

If you rely on direct mail or email to promote your construction business, you MUST craft your piece to answer those questions in the order shown.

Those five questions go through every prospects mind whenever you telemarket, direct mail or cold call them.

That is because your prospects defense system is on high alert as soon as they come across your message. They are thinking...

"Im busy. Do you realize how important my time is? If you can solve a problem, I might give you a few more seconds to explain yourself."

When you try to get their attention, you are interrupting their day. Youve got to get their attention quickly and hold on to it.

If you dont address these questions in the right order, you will lose their attention. You will frustrate them. They will throw your letter away, hang up on you, delete your email, erase your voicemail, or have their receptionist send you packing.

Getting them to stay with you until you answer the fourth question is the trick. You cant jump the gun by answering question number four first. It will not work.

Most advertisers makes that mistake. They go right to question #4.

Naturally, your answers to each question must be worded properly. Dont say something like:

"Im Carl the Painter. I paint anything and everything." (Who are you?)

"I want you to hire me for your painting needs." (What do you want?)

Yeah. Thats going to work well.

Listing services is a mistake commonly made by contractors. Look at their web sites. Look at their advertising. Its simply amazing how frequently contractors answer the first three questions by listing their services without ever mentioning a
benefit to the prospect.

Get to the point and get there fast. Tell them why your offer should matter to them. Give them a reason to care and some of the benefits theyll gain and they will keep reading.

"Hey Paul, Carl Friendly here, and I have a quick question for you.

"Do you enjoy painting your house? You know what I mean - repairing the walls, covering the floors, climbing ladders, and cleaning up afterwards? I dont know about you, but I just hate the long hours it takes to keep my house looking good. I know Ive got better things to do with my time. Dont you?

"Wouldnt it be great if you could snap your fingers and make your house look great again? Well, Ive got the next best thing for you. Hire me to do the work for you.

"Ill get the work done quicker, it will look better, and you will be free to spend your time on more enjoyable and valuable activities.

"Call me (866-555-1212) to get your house looking great again while you are out golfing, fishing, or doing whatever you like to do with your free time."

Sounds better, right?

Something else to keep in mind - people buy what they want, not what they need.

People buy things to solve the problems they want solved, not the problems they need solved. Don't try to pitch to a problem they don't care about.

Last but not least, you must understand your prospects frustrations and problems before trying to write copy. Make sure your copy commiserates with them (shares their pain). You know, misery loves company. Its an emotional thing.

 

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Hey contractors here s a sales commission plan that ll supercharge your profits

Hey Contractors, Here's A Sales Commission Plan That'll Supercharge Your Profits

What Im going to share with you today is the single most powerful trick I know for supercharging your bottom line.

At some point in time, if you are going to grow your construction business beyond $2 million, you are going to need someone working on sales full time. Now, maybe sales is your thing and you want to do that full time. Fantastic.

Its almost always best when a business owner is committed to selling. But even if you sell successfully, you may still end up wa...

Construction, contractor, business, advice

What Im going to share with you today is the single most powerful trick I know for supercharging your bottom line.

At some point in time, if you are going to grow your construction business beyond $2 million, you are going to need someone working on sales full time. Now, maybe sales is your thing and you want to do that full time. Fantastic.

Its almost always best when a business owner is committed to selling. But even if you sell successfully, you may still end up wanting to add another salesman.

If sales isnt your thing, then you will definitely need to hire a salesman. Either way, you are going to be faced with a critical decision.

How should you pay your new salesman?

Draw (salary) plus commission? Bonuses for sales generated? Increased commission with increased sales volume? A higher commission for new customers? Straight salary?

All of these are commonly used approaches. Not one of them is likely to produce the profit results you seek.

If you let your salesman have his way, he will want a draw plus commission. Most will ask for a pretty stout draw and a relatively modest commission based on revenue sold. Dont agree to that!

Draw plus commission lines the pockets of your salesman regardless of whether he is making you any money. The purpose of draw plus commission is to drive sales volume. Dont fall into the trap of thinking sales volume is important.

You need your salesman to focus on PROFITABLE work. Let your competition sell the unprofitable work. Thats work you dont want and you certainly dont want your own salesman bringing it to you.

How do you get your salesman to chase profitable work? You align his pay to profit.

Put in place a pay plan that rewards him for profitable work and punishes him for unprofitable work. Basically, make him a pseudo-partner. It is surprisingly easy to do and Im going to show you how.

1. His entire compensation should be based on commissions on gross profit (a commission rate often in the 20% range).

2. He should be guaranteed a minimum income, whether his earned commissions surpass it or not.

3. His commission rate should stay the same regardless of sales volume or profit generated.

4. If he doesnt earn his guaranteed minimum income within a reasonable time period, say 18 months, you replace him.

With this approach your salesman will be highly motivated to ask for the highest price possible. He will not leave $100 on the table, because with a 20% commission, he would be leaving $20 behind. An example will drive the point home quite clearly.

Lets say your salesman has estimated a jobs direct costs will run $10,000. Lets look at how the usual approach, draw plus commission, compares against my recommended approach for driving desired sales behavior.

The salesman being compensated with the standard salary plus 2% of sales has little incentive to risk losing a sale by raising price. If he sold the job at cost, he would earn a $200 commission. If he sold the job for $15,000, he would earn a $300 commission. He only makes an extra $100for substantially increasing the likelihood of losing the job.

He will not raise the price to $15,000 just to earn the extra $100. Of course, you lose money if he sells the job at $10,000 but he doesnt care. Its all about volume, right?

Now, lets look at my recommended approach.

Your salesman earns nothing if he sells the job at $10,000. He earns $1,000 if he sells the job for $15,000 and he earns $2,000 if he sells it for $20,000. How motivated will he be to pursue the highest price possible? Very, very motivated.

Do to the potential windfall he can earn, he will become a master at qualifying customers. He will not spend time on price sensitive customers. He will aggressively pursue the customers who value your companys superior services and are willing to pay for them.

These are exactly the customers you want him to pursue because not only are they profitable, they tend to be far more loyal, and tend to be far more willing to refer you to their friends, family, and professional associates.

Look at what you get when you are paying a 20% commission on gross profit. You pocket $4,000 for every $5,000 of gross profit your salesman generates. Sure, a great salesman will make a killing with this type of pay plan, but youre going to make an even greater killing.

You want your salesman earning $200,000 because that means he contributing $800,000 to your OH&P. Imagine having four such salesmen in your company. How well off would you be?

This is the type of pay plan that will draw top salesmen like flies. Where else in the construction industry, or any industry, are they going to have a chance to make that kind of money?

You know the difference between a $50,000 salesman and a $200,000 salesman? You go broke with the first and get rich with the second!

In summary, the best way to supercharge your bottom line is to implement a sales commission plan that rewards your sales force for generating gross profit. In doing so, you will make sure that they have your best interest in mind.

 

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