Extreme Marketting Tips!!!!

[CHEESE2009]

I believe everyone here should watch the movie, "Thank you for smoking" It's AMAZING & inspiring. A brief summary: The chief spokesperson and lobbyist Nick Naylor is the Vice-President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He is talented in speaking and spins argument to defend the cigarette industry in the most difficult situations. After watching this movie, it made me want to research marketing tips big stores use & such. I learned something interesting from a website, pretty basic but neat. Let's say you want to make a sale. Example: You meet a potential customer & tell him you will offer him lawn service for $150.00 a month, his lawn is tiny. The customer thinks about it but realizes that's a crummy deal. SO now his mind is at work, knowing the deal is crap & is prepared listen to the next deal, & will most likely accept if it's better than the first. You say, "alright, well we can offer lawn service for you at $80.00 a month but only if you sign with us for 6 months" The customer realizes this is a better deal, realizes he needs lawn service for the entire season anyways. You know that your still making a profit, & this price was the one you WANTED him to accept. The customer is relieved that this new offer was better than the last, & he/she accepts it! So basically give your potential customers a silly expensive deal, they will deny it, offer them something better with a slight difference & you shall receive a new client. Apparently this is a business TRICK, but I don't see anything wrong with it. Stores do this both ways, maybe the opposite. Buy one product for $5.00 or by 3 for $10.00 kinda stuff.. Win Win situation for companies. The product still sells for it's worth & profit is made regardless of their choice.

[CHEESE2009]

Lawn care business tips

Example 2 Scott: I will clean your gutters for $150.00. Customer: Hmm, that's a little high. Scott: Well if you can wait until Thursday next week, it will only cost you $120.00. ($120.00 is the actual cost to do the gutter job anyway) Customer: That's good! Add a little spin, 0% sacrifice to yourself & your customer.

[picframer]

Depends on the customer, if I ask for a quote on something and the provider offers a crazy high quote, doesn't matter what he/she says after that I am not interested, this approach remonds me of the used cars sales men or vacuum cleaner sales people, neither do I care for.

For me I like knowing what it will cost me straight up, I treat my customers the same way, I think maybe once of the 240+ jobs we have quoted did someone try to dicker, we land 96% of our quotes so what we do works for me and what I will stick with.

Same with the fall 10 to 25% off specials, first thought is is the service overcharged in the first place, these guys must be hungry for business, wonder what their work is like, I know many, perhaps most of the clients I deal with think this way also, this is based on their feedback.

If one sounds hungry, advertisies hungry, quotes hungry, you will probably stay hungry.

Just my 2 cents.

[Steve]

Scott,

It would be fascinating to see if you played around with this and became the most profitable lawn care business operation in your area.

In a sense isn't this similar to what we have discussed before on here about the importance of giving a bid in person? So you can read the persons body language and see what kind of reaction they give you?

When you have a little wiggle room on your price and the potential customer finds it too high, then you can possibly lower it if you get them to sign up on the spot.