by tradesmeninsights | Jul 24, 2019 | Tips, Tradesmen Insights, Traditional Marketing
By Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect, Sonnhalter
The cost of acquiring a new customer can be up to five times greater than keeping an existing one.
Unless you have a unique product that no one else has, you have to compete with someone for the business, and part of that process is building good customer relationships.
Contractors, for the most part, are loyal as long as your product delivers on its promises and you don’t treat them like dirt. Bottom line is, if you treat them right, they’ll be customers for life.
Not only will they continue to be a customer, but they will become an advocate for your brand. Contractors talk to each other and believe me, if your product doesn’t deliver on its promises, word will spread fast.
Here are three ways to cultivate strong relationships with professional tradesmen:
- Stay in touch. E-mail is probably the best and most cost-effective way to this. Make them feel important, even if it’s a quick e-mail to say “thanks for your business” or a follow-up note from customer service after they helped out with a problem. It will pay off long term.
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by tradesmeninsights | Jul 19, 2019 | Industry Articles, Manufacturing, Tradesmen Insights
This post originally appeared on INSIGHT2PROFIT.com.
Welcome back to INSIGHT2PROFIT’s 2019 Pricing Challenge! Each article covers a common pricing challenge faced by businesses and provide some tips to help improve your profitability.
Now that we’re about halfway through 2019, let’s talk about the plan you set for the year. How have you performed thus far relative to your plan?
If your performance hasn’t matched your financial projections for this first part of the year, what happened? Maybe you’ve looked at your financial reports, and you see that your customer or product mix isn’t what you were expecting, or that you have been impacted by tariffs, and your profitability has suffered because of it.
That’s a start – having a rough idea of the shortfall – but you need to get to the root causes. Has a shift in your mix driven down margin rates? Are you falling short of plan due to a volume slowdown, or are pricing shortfalls eroding your revenue growth? How does that vary by market segment or by salesperson?
Analyzing the gap down to the customer-SKU level can yield clear, actionable intelligence about your problem. Well-run businesses have a strategy, and the budget is the road map to execute it. Planning at the same level of granularity as your sales allows for a healthier understanding of what’s happening within your business, why, and how to act. By having a detailed budget, you are creating a source of accountability for your team and a path for success for your business.
Accurate revenue planning and measurement is tough to do, but it’s one of our specialties. Every engagement includes strategy, a client-specific model, a detailed plan and road map to execute it, and measurement to achieve the set goals. All while leveraging our DRIVE technology platform.
To learn more about how your company can improve results for the remainder of 2019, schedule a time to talk to one of our profit experts today.
What’s your pricing challenge? Talking about pricing challenge, with tariffs ever present in the news, you may want to download our 3 Steps to Navigating Tariffs Guide.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 11, 2019 | Marketing Tips, Tradesmen Insights
Trade shows provide incredible opportunities for connecting with customers, developing relationships with the media and generating brand awareness for your company. The key to trade show marketing success is organization, proactive planning and comprehensive follow up.
In our latest Tip Sheet, we’ve laid out 10 strategies for making sure you’re taking full advantage of all the marketing opportunities associated with trade shows. Follow these tips, and you will be sure to maximize your company’s trade show presence.
You can sign up to download it here.
Need help with your trade show marketing? Give us a call or email. And check out our other Tip Sheets here.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 27, 2019 | Industry Articles, Tradesmen Insights
By Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect, Sonnhalter
We’ve talked much over the years about customer service and how important it is to resolve issues. And, we’ve also addressed the issue that customer service is everyone’s responsibility, from sales through tech support. Customer service is really all about your customers’ total experience.
This is true in our relationships with distributors as well as contractors. Manufacturers need to be careful, especially when business is on the uptick and attention to detail may come in second to short-term sales increases.
Don’t take your distributor and tradesman for granted. There’s always someone out there that can identify contractor’s needs and deliver—and it won’t necessarily be based on price or delivery—but on the total customer experience.
This article in HVACR Business by Jim Baston stressed, once again, how important customer service is in the big picture. Jim’s article is focused on the HVACR service business, but his points can be transferred to the manufacturing sector as well.
Jim breaks it down into five dimensions of service:
- Reliability: Your ability to dependably and accurately deliver as promised.
- Assurance: Your ability to convey trust and confidence.
- Tangibles: Your personal presentation and the condition of the physical facilities and equipment.
- Empathy: Your ability to demonstrate a high degree of caring and individual attention.
- Responsiveness: Your willingness to promptly and courteously respond to customers’ needs.
As manufacturers, you need to understand your customers’ (distributors and contractors) needs. Remember that everyone in your company is in customer service. If you haven’t asked your customers what their needs are recently, maybe you should. Things change and their priorities might have too. Focus on what matters to them.
If you like this post you may want read:
Manufacturers: Are you keeping up with your customers expectations?
Customer Service: What Are You Doing to Retain Customers?
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 13, 2019 | Social Marketing
By Andrew Poulsen, Public Relations Technician, Sonnhalter
When social media was in its dinosaur days, the technology’s potential seemingly capped out at reconnecting with old friends who live abroad, or more commonly, sharing with your peers that you were having a taco salad for lunch. Few would’ve predicted that social media would become not just a helpful, but an essential tool for companies to connect with customers in ways that are faster, easier, cheaper and more personal than almost any other asset within a marketing strategy.
Social media allows companies to speak with customers directly and display trust and accountability in ways that did not exist 20 years ago. However, for companies new to these platforms or unfamiliar with the volatile nature of Internet commenters, seeing countless strangers saying hurtful and profane things about your products or services in real time can be jarring, if not infuriating. Uncomfortable as it may be, these kinds of comments are inevitable. Even the most beloved brands in the world have comment sections filled with negativity from disgruntled commenters and trolls. The reality is that there is no way to avoid negative comments and reviews, but by internalizing some of these best practices, you can learn how to maintain an even keel and turn some of these upset commenters into lifelong customers.
Be quick to respond, even if you don’t have an immediate answer
Customers who leave negative feedback are often coming from a place of disappointment or unmet expectations. The last thing you want to do is make them feel like you are avoiding them or as if their opinion doesn’t matter. If someone comments on an issue they have with your business, publicly reply to the comment immediately, even if it is just to say, “Can you please email or message us with more details (more…)
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 5, 2019 | Manufacturing, Tradesmen Insights
Today we have a guest post from MAGNET (The Manufacturing and Growth Advocacy Network) organization that has a mission for helping manufacturers grow and compete in Northeast Ohio, especially the 98% of startup to medium-sized manufacturers that drive our economy. MAGNET rolls up its sleeves to provide hands-on support ranging from new product design to operations and brings education and business together to create tomorrow’s manufacturers.
The widespread adoption of technology is indisputably transforming manufacturing operations. But before manufacturers jump right in and fight for technology implementation and adoption, it’s important to understand how certain techs can work, how they’re used, and what benefits they may reap.
MAGNET details three common technology trends that are impacting manufacturing processes:
1. Expansion of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
2. More Emphasis on Cybersecurity
3. Continued Push for 3-D Printing
To read the entire post and download MAGNET’s 2019 State of Northeast Ohio Manufacturing Report, click here.
