Out of all the questions that I get, marketing has always been leading the way. I’ve been teaching a lot of tricks of the trade and people want to have a shortcut inroad to marketing success.
Everybody’s asking for leads. They want to know how to get the phone to ring. How do you advertise, how do you get repair calls, how do you not depend on storms for business? People get tired of knocking on doors all the time for their business.
All kinds of marketing questions. It goes on and on, to be honest with you, for me, marketing has always been easy. It’s not that complicated, it’s not about fancy algorithms, it’s not about where you want to be, it’s not about learning all the geeky stuff.
Marketing is as easy as one, two, three. So, here are my three laws or three rules in marketing and I’ve been very successful with them. It works hundred percent of the time. Some stuff you can control some of it you can’t. Let me explain.
Work on your Grades
Rule number one, you must work on your grades and then your grades work for you. If your grades are bad from the beginning, I don’t care how hard you try, you’re never going to get that A at the end or it’s going to be 10 times harder.
Conversely, when you start with an A, you don’t have to convince your potential customers that you are awesome at what you do, that you are a fantastic company to hire. It’s so much easier to get new business because potential customers already know that you are one of the best in the business. They see your great grades.
So, first you must work on your grade. When you start a business, the first job is to get five-star reviews.
Trying to get on your desired marketing platform with a one-star review and see how long it takes you to grow on that platform. It’s impossible, you’re not going to get leads, you’re going to get crushed.
If you’re starting on a platform, any platform, I don’t care if it’s a Facebook, Angie’s List, Home Advisor, where you are buying your leads, I don’t care, if you start on a platform and your grades are good, it’s only going to get easier to get customers as well as more new A plus grades and reviews.
As a matter of fact, once you have like 10-15 positive reviews, people will find it much harder to report a one-star or negative review. They’re going to be like hey this guy is really trying, like he has already built a reputation. I don’t want to ruin his reputation.
So, by working extremely hard on your grades at first, it’s going to make your marketing efforts ten times easier. I always put in extra effort and energy in the beginning of my journey because I know that from that point forward if I do it’s going to be so much easier.
As a matter of fact, if I sign up for a new platform, I would spend an entire month, and I would ask all my clients to give me reviews. For example, at house.com we have something like 23 reviews. We send all of them invitations to review us. So, they have a platform they like and use, they give you their emails, and they send out reviews on your behalf. Organic marketing at its best. To this day, that reputation, and those reviews are working for me because I worked for one-month years ago on that platform.
Reap what you Sow
Rule number two, comes from the Bible, you reap what you sow. You can only control that which you are sowing every single day. You’re not going to be able to control the reaping part.
There are two types of contractors
One type is always wondering why they’re in such a mess, don’t know how to generate leads, and wonder why they don’t have jobs.
The other type of contractor always has plenty of everything. Always is looking ahead, always planning, they never have problems with marketing, they never have problems with the leads. They are kind of like living the dream.
The difference between the two is that, when you are constantly sowing, you’re going to be constantly reaping.
When you wake up every single day and you spend time on creating content, on advertising, on doing little things with discipline every single day, you’re sowing. You can control that. For example, make videos, write SEO blogs, post on social media like Facebook, wrapping a vehicle in advertising. Those little things add up. They may not produce overnight result, but when you do a little something every single day, you’re sowing, and you never know what you’re going to reap in return.
But if you do just one thing every single day, say you ask for reviews every single day. Guess what, one day you’re going to have150 reviews. When you are creating content helpful to your audience, when your writing blogs for your website every single day, you can control it. By me controlling what I’m sowing, one day I will be getting what I cannot control, I’m going to be reaping. I will be reaping leads and that organic marketing stuff works.
But a lot of guys they don’t want to spend the time sowing. Scratching their heads wondering why they are not doing well. Then later they go back and are like hmmm why didn’t I do that, why didn’t I sow anything? You cannot reap what you do not sow.
So, you don’t get to choose what you reap, but you can make the decision on what you are going to be sowing today. So, my question to you, what are you sowing in your marketing every single day? Because if you don’t have the discipline, if you don’t have a routine, guess what, you’re not going to be reaping anything anytime soon.
Don’t be STUPID!
Rule number three, don’t be stupid. Just don’t do stupid stuff. I see it all the time.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently,” Warren Buffet.
For example, if you wrap a vehicle, don’t speed in the neighborhood. Don’t get those complaints. Once you get your name out there you expose yourself. For the better or for the worse. I see guys drinking at the bar with a company shirt on. Or driving recklessly on the highways in a company vehicle. Stuff like that will ruin your reputation.
I have read a Google review of a competitor with one star because of a driver which has nothing to do with their work.
Read the reviews. If they’re saying things like this guy in a company car started chasing us down and we felt threatened for our lives, with my pregnant wife in the car. I mean it’s stupid stuff like that. If you read a review like that, you’re never going to call that company.
It only takes a couple minutes to ruin the reputation that you spend so long working hard to build. So, whatever employees are doing while representing the company, I mean the decisions they make, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s womanizing on the job, driving stupid, these decisions, stuff like that will ruin your reputation. Make sure you and your employees don’t do any stupid stuff while representing the company in any shape or form.
Final words
Those are my top three marketing rules. What kinds of rules do you have? What do you think about content like this?
Please comment below. Maybe share some stories, agree or disagree. What kind of videos and blogs do you want me to do next? We want to hear from you.
