Marketing with Other Service Professionals

Today I had the privlege of doing cold and warm calling with Victor a printer and toner salesman. He sells printers and cartridges and also services them when needed. He is well liked and has two hundred and fifty accounts.

I moved out to Bowmanville where Victor has lived for many years. We both attend the same place of worship so he graciously offered to help me find accounts in Bowmanville and Oshawa.

Today for the first time I canvassed with another salesman. It was quite the fun experience. It was far more encouraging and easier.

He introduced me to his clients who were very friendly and took my card. That is what I call warmcalling. Victor simply said this is a friend of his who has moved to the area from Toronto proper and is looking for some clients. It worked well. WE only visited about 5 or 6 places and of those I have two serious prospects. That is quite something, often when I cold call I have to make several dozen visits or calls before I get a serious inquiry.

We are going to plan to do this again. Speaking in person to existing customers is very valuable since the clients are warmer and they trust you more quickly. I am likely to get jobs that I wouldn't normally get since they may only choose a window cleaner who is recommended by their friends.

On an encouraging note a pizzeria owner called me. I had left a quote and card a couple months ago, and she wanted me to come biweekly to clean the windows. She was happy with our work and is now a new client. It restored my faith that leaving business cards works at times, I was starting to think that it was pretty useless since I seemed to get little response from even serious people that took my card but for one reason or another never called me back

Are you looking for a reliable Toronto Window Cleaner. Call Mike, 647-409-8144

mike@mmwindowcleaners.com
http://mmwindowcleaners.com

Overcoming Barriers to getting customers

As the month of February progress I'm thinking more and more of spring. Not that in Toronto spring ever comes early, but soon warm weather will be here and people will be thinking of getting their houses cleaned.

Our company, while our focus is on commercial, I enjoy getting some residential clients and would like to grow that part of the business more this year.

So I've thought of ways to increase the residential calls I will get in the spring.

I have been paying more attention to my website. Very briefly, my website was on page one of Google when searching the term: Toronto window cleaning. However, I wasted that opportunity, and now it's back to page three. So I've been working on updating my website more, and tweaking it to improve my listing.

Secondly, I've been looking at my commercial customers, and the people that work at their stores as a way to cross-market. They have trust in me, a relationship with me, and I have a free opportunity to sell them on cleaning their house. Many people that work at the store see me cleaning the windows, and know I do a good job, am cleancut, reliable, and friendly.

However, this is important - many think that window cleaning by a professional window cleaner for their own house is something only rich homeowners can afford to pay for. They may feel that it is too expensive.

So if you keep that in mind, you can overcome that objection right away. And open up many more opportunities and get many more customers this spring.

As it was, I spoke to an associate in the store, and gave my card. She said it's probably too expensive. So I said, no, it's quite affordable, and I'll give you a good price. I said that window cleaning starts from just $80 if you have a small house, and are doing the outsides. I said I would give her many options, including cleaning only the outside, or only the first floor windows. Her whole outlook, and demeanor chaged, she enthusiastically said sure, she will definitely call me. She was suprised she could afford window cleaning and an objection was overcome.

So think about common misconceptions and barriers to people hiring window cleaners, or whatever business you are in. Overcome those objections first, because, the customer may just politely take your card, and not call you, because they think it is too expensive or they have some other unstated misconception.