Marketing Lessons For Carpet Cleaners From a Local Business Exhibition

I’ve just returned from a local business exhibition with over one hundred small businesses exhibiting. It’s a great place to learn.

Marketing experts like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham speak about the need to look at businesses outside of your own and learn from what they do well. I must admit that there didn’t seem to be much to learn from what they did well but plenty from what they did badly. These lessons are so much easier to see in a different industry as we are usually too close to our own.

Lesson 1. The need to qualify. Virtually everyone who stopped me failed to find out if I was a qualified prospect. (A qualified prospect is someone who: 1. must be able to buy, 2. must be able to enjoy a benefit, and 3. must be the decision maker)

Here’s an example: A very pleasant man on the Freesat stand proceeded to give me a long spiel about how I needed to have Freesat in my home as it would save me money. “I may not need to subscribe to Sky, particularly if I don’t watch the movies or the football” was his pitch. After about one minute I stopped him and told him that I’ve already got a Freesat receiver (which actually wasn’t true, but it was the only was to stop him). He’d fallen in love so much with his product that he forgotten to fall in love with his clients. Freesat is a High Definition service and I have only just bought a new plasma tv so I simply wont be using Freesat for the foreseeable future. He simply wasted his time with me when he could have been speaking to someone interested (wanting to enjoy a benefit) and ready to buy.

Lesson for us: Have a system in place to make sure prospects are qualified and filter out those who don’t. Many people have dirty carpets…but they don’t care! Or they don’t want to pay premium prices to have them cleaned.

 

Lesson 2. Need for a USP (Unique Selling Proposition). A business owner of a very high-end hi-fi stand caught me looking at his gear. That was enough for him to launch into his pitch. Again he failed to qualify. He simply assumed that I was interested. I bluntly told him that I wasn’t his target market or ideal client as I would never spend that amount of money on hi-fi. He did then explain that they also sold lower-end televisions. So I asked the all-important question: “Why should I do business with you versus your competitors?” His answer was the usual “we give better service; we look after you blah blah blah”.

By coincidence I have just bought a large screen LCD TV which was faulty. I bought it off the internet through Amazon. When I phoned to tell them that it was faulty, it was absolutely no problem at all. They simply asked “would you like it changed or would you like a refund?” No arguments or fuss. I changed it for a plasma TV. Now that’s great service. To just say that you give “better service” is not a compelling reason for a prospect to choose you.

Lesson for us: Make sure we are able to give prospects a compelling reason to discriminate in our favour. This must be specific reasons not just “good service” It must also be different from all our competitors. In our industry we can’t all “give the most thorough cleaning or it’s free” or it’s not unique now is it?

Lesson 3. The need to look the part. A firm of painters and decorators caught my eye because their target market was clearly high-end work. Everything on the stand indicated that they do a quality job except the young man who was sitting there. I can only describe him as unkempt and scruffily dressed with long hair and jeans. Not the sort of person I would want in my house. This is what’s known as an anti-USP because it works against the USP.

Lesson for us: If we are targeting high-end clients make sure that we look and act like they want us to. This includes having our vans clean and tidy, wearing a uniform and saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Make sure that our whole business is congruent with our message.