First Season Open: Trying to get my first customer!

[AAA PM]

Hello, I just opened AAA Property Maintenance in SLC, UT. I don't have a single customer yet but my site is done. http://www.propertymaintenanceutah.com/ I'm really looking for tips on getting my first customer. I'm doing both residential and commercial. I live in a newer city and contacted parks and recreation person for my city and was told there are no bid opportunities. Stike one. Help!

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

That is a great website! Did you put that together? Was it from scratch or a template? Nice job!

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[AAA PM]

Yes my website is a template. I bought it from FrontPageTemplates.com. I also have 3 other websites built the same way. Templates are the way to go if you want to do it your self because you can get a good template for under $100 and do it yourself. During all of this I've also learned a lot about SEO. Incidentally I've heard some good topics on your podcasts about SEO. I’m taking some of the tips form the “how to get your site to rank the top 7 out of 10 spots on Google”.

[Steve]

Oh I am glad that helped. I thought that was an amazing story!

Have you been able to work your social network to promote your lawn care business so far? Can you offer lawn care to your clients of your other business? Is this something that can be cross promoted?

Can you offer credit repair and lawn care to the same clients?

Could you offer seminars on the topics or write articles on it and then talk about your lawn care business as well?

Could you send an article to the paper about it?

[AAA PM]

I haven't considered cross promoting my business because I have a privacy clause that says I would never sell their info therefore if I promote my other business I'm crossing a line with respect to their privacy. Many of my clients aren't local anyway.

When you say "write articles" and send to "the paper" what do you mean? I'd like to hear more because I don't even understand how that would work. Is this common?

In your opinion what is the best way to start generating customers?

[Steve]

If you want to promote any service, you want to become known. If you write articles in your local paper about credit issues and you become known as an expert in that field, you will find it opens doors for you to sell anything, such as lawn care as well.

Is it common? No because most people don't like to market or promote themselves. They feel like they HAVE to at times, but they don't like to.

In your opinion what is the best way to start generating customers?

Work your social network. Let people you know, know that you are in business. Have them tell their friends. Tell your neighbors. Get on craigslist and post free ads. But ultimately let everyone know you are now in the game and ready to play.

How did you initially line up customers for your credit repair business?

[AAA PM]

I really like what you're saying about writing articles to the paper. I would love to do that. Who should I write to? How do I get started? I'm a wealth of info when it comes to credit, credit repair, the credit bureaus and mortgages. I could start writing about my credit repair and let then later plug into lawn maint.

My credit repair business was almost all promoted on the internet. Same with the other company I work for before that (commercial plastic recycling). Everything was advertised on the internet. Back then it was much easier to get the word out on the internet because nobody knew what I knew about online advertising. That's not the case now days and online advertising is very saturated.

[Steve]

I really like what you're saying about writing articles to the paper. I would love to do that. Who should I write to? How do I get started? I'm a wealth of info when it comes to credit, credit repair, the credit bureaus and mortgages. I could start writing about my credit repair and let then later plug into lawn maint.

I would put together an article on repairing your credit or something like that where you can teach someone something. At the end of the article put a little plug for you and your business.

"Joe Smith owns multiple business including a credit repair business and AAA Property Maintenance in SLC, UT."

Send it into the paper. Write a bunch of articles and send them in one at a time. Write letters to local home owner associations and offer to give a free lecture about this to their group. Where you would of course at the end let them know you also run a lawn care business.

The thing about all of this is you are using a key to open a door. Your key is a bad economy and people need to know how to fix their credit. Once you are in the door, they will become comfortable with you because you are teaching them. Once they are comfortable with you, they will want to buy from you.

People buy from people they know and are comfortable with.

You could become a one man promotional army now with this knowledge!

Set up a website for your area to promote that you are offering free classes. Video tape some of these classes and put the videos online. Become the local expert on credit repair. Have a link on your credit repair site to your lawn care business.

Let me know how this goes.

[AAA PM]

Steve, great feedback! I'll start expanding on these ideas, planting seeds if you will (pun intended).

Who do I send these letters to? More specifically, what dept of the paper?

[Steve]

Why not send them directly to the editor! Then do a follow up call a few days later to see if they got it and if they had any questions.

One thing to keep in mind is this. On your first article attempt, really be low key with your self promotion. Then as you start getting published, you can experiment more with it. Include a picture of yourself so they can put that in the paper as well. The more they have the better.

I look forwards to seeing what you write!

Also really consider offering the mini lectures to organizations in your area. You have a lot of great knowledge that will open many doors for you.