When I first began to seriously study marketing for my landscape and lawncare business, about 12 years ago, I learned about many fascinating resources that enabled me to build my landscaping, landscape maintenance, landscape lighting and Christmas decorating businesses much more quickly and effectively than other contractors within the landscaping industry.
And of all the strategies that I’ve used to grow my landscaping and other green industry businesses (and that I teach), there is one that is my favorite, hands down. I have since titled this strategy:
“The Landscaper’s Referral Flood Formula”
But before we talk about the formula, there are two critical concepts that you need to grasp.
First off, people prefer to hire landscaping contractors whom they know, know about, respect, like and trust on a personal level. Sounds like common sense, right? But when it comes to generating referrals, you have to start to look at the world through your prospective customers’ eyes.
Stop and consider that for a minute.
Think about how YOU make a decision to hire a home service contractor or even a doctor, lawyer or any other provider of services.
You feel more comfortable if you KNOW them or if you KNOW ABOUT them, right?
The more RESPECT you have for their expertise, experience and knowledge, the more comfortable you feel about hiring them.
And when you feel like you can TRUST them, and if you really LIKE them, then it’s really a no-brainer as to who you will choose as your sole provider. And a large majority of the time that’s without even considering any other options, taking bids or shopping prices.
Secondly, you need to realize this: People feel accountable and take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the results of their referrals.
You will NOT get referrals unless people are certain that you will provide your landscaping, lawn care or other related services at an exceptional level.
Referrals reflect directly back on the person who MAKES them. And nobody wants to be perceived as an idiot by referring an unworthy landscape contractor.
Are you with me?
Alright, with that in mind, let’s talk about my Landscaping Industry Referral formula. In fact, I have this same information on my computer desktop and refer to it often.
Here’s the formula:
GREAT RELATIONSHIP + MEANINGFUL NURTURING + MONTHLY COMMUNICATION = TONS OF REFERRALS!
Let’s take a DEEPER look…
GREAT RELATIONSHIP: What exactly does this mean?
Well, it’s the KEY to the FIRST simple concept I talked about above. But it’s more than that. It’s about the QUALITY of the relationships you have in your landscaping business with your clients.
A great relationship means that people feel like:
* They know you, and like you
* You’re a professional in the jobs you do
* They trust you
* They automatically want to work with you, and when they think of landscaping, lawn care, landscape lighting, or any other service you provide they think of you and/or your landscaping business.
And the great thing is that ALL of these things are controlled by YOU and your staff.
* YOU control how FREQUENTLY you communicate with them
* YOU control the VALUE you provide to them through your landscape services.
* YOU control their perception of your professionalism.
Here’s a secret: when you use my Going Green ™ monthly newsletter templates to send out to your landscaping or lawn maintenance clients, 90% of all the hard work it takes to build a QUALITY relationship is done for you. You just plug-in your company information and logo and let it go to work for you.
It’s working for over 250 of my clients right now (even in the so called ‘bad economy’.
Let’s move on…
MEANINGFUL NURTURING: What do I mean here?
For most landscapers and other lawn and landscape contractors, the only reason they contact anyone is to ask for business or to collect money. So people are usually ‘on the edge’ and skeptical in their relationships with landscape businesses.
That’s a bad type of relationship to have with clients and prospects.
But it’s different for lawn and landscape contractors who use “welcomed” contact, such as my Going Green™ newsletter templates, or their own company newsletters.
See, first and foremost, we fill Going Green™ with top-quality, DESIREABLE information about Landscaping, Home Improvement, Consumer news, Financial Tips, funny jokes, teasers, and several ‘involvement’ and response devices.
Specifically designed to do ONE thing: Make your reader feel WELCOME!
Going Green™ is NOT all about landscaping or lawncare. It’s a HUGE MISTAKE to send out information just about the services you offer. That’s because you’ll lose the readership of people who are not looking to purchase anything new right now.
(By sending out a newsletter that is service or product specific, you miss out on the relationship building aspect (which is the whole point of sending it out in the first place).
BOTTOM LINE: Anything you send out must be WELCOMED and ENJOYED each month to be effective.
Now to the THIRD part of the formula:
MONTHLY COMMUNICATION: What do I mean by this?
There are actually 2 parts to ‘monthly (at LEAST) communication’.
First, there is ‘frequent’. MULTIPLE studies within the direct marketing industry have repeatedly shown that for every month you fail to make contact with your customers, prospects and referral sources, YOU LOSE 10% of the value of your customer base.
Think about that.
Enough said there – that is huge!
Secondly, there is ‘communication’. When you send someone something of value (like and interesting and stimulating newsletter) people naturally want to reciprocate with you. That’s human nature.
And when you let them know exactly HOW you want them to reciprocate, they will do it, and they WANT you to tell them how. So:
* Tell people that you rely on referrals to run your landscaping or lawn maintenance, or lighting, or lawn care business
* Tell people that you welcome their referrals and ASK for them!
* Reward people when they do send a referral
* Reciprocate with them by sending referrals to your clients as well
I really hope you’ve found this information helpful and that you will make a conscious and systematic effort this year and beyond to improve your referral based marketing. We all know that referrals are the best new landscaping clients we can acquire.
As I mentioned earlier, most of this is common sense and you’ve probably heard it somewhere before. But if you’re anything like me it really helps to hear it over and over again. My hopes are that this article will prompt you to take action right away.
My hopes are that this will be your best year ever (and MANY of my clients are doing just that, some with 20-40% even in the weak economy. And many of them attribute that success to relationships and to using a monthly newsletter.
Larry
Larry Brown, CLP
Green Industry Success Systems
P.S. Many contractors across the country are using my Going Green™ newsletter templates to communicate with theirs clients and maximize referrals. It really works. But we are only allowing ONE contractor per zip code to use this tool and many zip codes have already been locked-up (if your area has already been taken, I apologize). To check out the Going Green ™ system and to put it work in your business right away, just click here:
http://www.greenindustrysuccess.com/newsletter
P.S.S. Feel free to call me directly at (601) 442-9440 if you have any questions.
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Recommended Resources
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http://www.greenindustrysuccess.com/system
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