Last week, I wrote about how Brian Elias has the whole marketing arena figured out in our remodeling space. I also laid out the six functions that businesses need to figure out in order to thrive, noting that almost nobody figures out the marketing side of the business.
Most company owners I talk to either handle the marketing themselves and/or have a “marketing person” that is essentially a glorified traffic control cop (coordinates mailings, places ads with publications, contracts with website companies, etc.).
Almost never is there a bona fide marketing expert involved in the mix. There’s nobody who really understands how to write ads that sell. Or create web copy that converts browsers into prospect and prospects into customers. It seems like everyone in the industry learned their marketing from “the company they used to work for” or from “looking around and doing what everyone else is doing.”
This is how we get thousands of websites that all pretty much look the same and say the same thing. How many websites start out by saying: “Welcome to XYZ Remodeling LLC. We’re a family owned and operated business that has proudly been serving the Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding North Texas areas since 1978.” When your marketing looks, smells, feels and sounds like everyone else’s, nobody stands out, and everybody suffers. Then guys like Brian Elias swoop in and devour all the market share. All of it.
Think of your business as if it was on trial with a life or death sentence at stake—because it is! Would you want to be your own attorney and defend yourself? Or hope that the court-appointed lawyer with his online law degree would get the job done? Remember, if you don’t gather all the evidence you need and present it to the jury (prospects, in your case) in a bold, compelling, and passionate way, you’re dead meat.
The parallel here is that your background probably hasn’t built (lawyering or) marketing into one of your strengths. Realistically, I do not encourage you to try to make marketing one of your strengths. I’m a big believer in focusing on what you’re really good at and surrounding yourself with experts in the areas where you’re weak.
Just as you wouldn’t attempt to represent yourself in an important court case, I would encourage you to reach out for professional help with your marketing. While it costs more than doing it inhouse up front, paying a little more now beats the heck out of getting clobbered and losing long term.
Trust me: not calling somebody who is qualified is costing you money. Every. Single. Day. And that, my remodeling friends, is a price you shouldn’t have to pay.
