Provide a home service? Discover how local search and marketing is rapidly changing
Any home services small business needs to be aware of critical changes in online marketing and local search. These changes could cause you to lose business overnight, or – if you take advantage of them – make you a premium provider of home services in your area. Before I get into some important specifics, let me paint the big picture: The home services online ecosystem is going through a mid-life crisis. The earth moves under your feet Sites like Angie’s List have been stalwarts on the scene for many, many years, and I’ll even include Yelp in this group. But recent years have seen aggressive startups like Thumbtack, Porch, Takl, and Handy enter the fray. At the same time, the tech behemoths – Google, Amazon, and Facebook – have become players. Let me add one more wrinkle to this: IAC, which owns HomeAdvisor and other online properties, is buying Angie’s List for some $500 million. They’ll rebrand it as ANGI Homeservice and move it from a recommendation platform to a marketplace. Is your head spinning fast enough now? From reviews to bookings A key to understanding this is to focus on the upcoming changes at Angie’s List – moving from merely finding recommendations to a platform where you can book a home service provider. This is the direction these services, big and small, are going – with the exception, so far, of Yelp. There are two monetization models: 1) Providers pay for leads or 2) Clients pay through the service and the service takes a cut. Google Home Services and Amazon Home Services use these models. The Google program is basically part of its AdWords platform and providers are charged for clicks and leads. Providers in the Amazon program pay between 10 and 20 percent commissions to Amazon. Google hasn’t rolled out its Home Services program everywhere yet. It’s important to find out if it’s in your area for your service. Do a Google search like this: Plumbers Your City. That’s what I did for Los Angeles. (Of course, substitute the generic term for your industry for “Plumbers.”) If you get results like those in the graphic below, you know that Google has rolled out its program in your area. We’re used to having AdWords ads at the top of Google search results pages, but you see from the above how they are a bit different if Google Home Services is in an area. These spots are now taken over by companies that are part of Google’s Home Services program. Providers have to meet certain criteria to be included in the program; note the Google guarantee. Further, Google controls the communication between Home Service providers and potential clients. When prospects call via the phone number Google provides, the Home Service provider does not get the caller’s actual phone number. This is maintained for 15 days after a prospect contacts a provider. The provider can return calls via the system, but can’t contact the prospect outside of the system for at least 15 days. Because Google is slowly rolling this out, I assume they are testing features so they can develop the best ways to maximize their revenue while providing a worthwhile service to businesses and consumers. Keep up with the times If your company provides a home service, you need...
read moreHow to sell Millennials on a 15th-century Scottish game – and your product or service
In August 2014 I wrote an article titled, Can Millennial Golf Participation Get Out Of the Rough? It looks like I and many other observers were guilty of exaggerating the death of golf, to paraphrase the great Mark Twain. However, the statistics and trend didn’t look good. Participation was down and it was having a ripple effect through a wide swath of the economy. Not only golf courses were suffering, sporting goods stores were feeling the pinch. However, I recently heard PGA officials discussing a turnaround. Golf participation boomed when Tiger Woods made the scene many years ago, but today, Tiger is essentially out of the game. I suspect that when a lot of these new golfers think about Tiger’s driving, it’s not his success on the first tee at Augusta National that comes to mind, it’s his failure on Indian Creek Parkway, near his home in Jupiter, Florida that resulted in a DUI arrest. Getting up to par When I wrote the piece in 2014 I noted efforts the PGA and golf industry in general were making to position the sport to increase its appeal to Millennials. For example, they were starting to promote playing nine holes rather than a full round of 18 holes. If you watched the recent U.S. Open, you would have seen several ads for this campaign. It makes a lot of sense and is probably beginning to pay dividends. Another major development has been the growth of Topgolf – a golf-entertainment hybrid that was conceived by the Jolliffe brother back in 2000. They found themselves a bit bored by the typical driving range experience, so they started to brainstorm ways to make it more exciting. They eventually came up with an idea that combined the idea behind darts with microchip technology. Players hit these high tech balls toward targets to score points and compete against one another. That innovation allows players of all skill levels to compete and it gives players control over how long they want to play. But, those may not ultimately have been the most important innovations. What games are popular with Millennials? Answer: video games. And, video games are often played in living rooms where gamers can enjoy one another’s company while snacking and downing a few of their favorite beverages. Popup golf Topgolf has established venues that pull all of these elements together. They have created an experience around golf, and we know that young adults are experience buyers. Further, they are working hard to expose the entire country to the idea. Topgolf has conducted a “stadium tour” where they set up their system in ball parks – it’s the Topgolf version of a popup shop! When they pull into town the local media makes a big deal about it and millions of people are introduced to the idea. John Lombardo wrote a great article that details the benefits to both Topgolf and the local ball park when Topgolf setup shop at Seattle’s Safeco field. Above I mentioned the “ripple effect” that disinterest was having on the golf industry a few years ago. It seems that the growing popularity of Topgolf is having a positive ripple effect. In 2016, the number first time golfers on golf courses rose to an all-time high, beating out the previous record set...
read more5 crippling customer service non-calls
The most devastating customer service calls are the ones you don’t get. They are far more damaging to your business that the ones you get a chance to answer and respond to. When you have an irate, disappointed, or troubled customer on the line or in front of you, you have the opportunity to turn the situation around. When customers or clients don’t even bother to pick up the phone or head down to your location to talk to you, it officially becomes a “lost cause.” People have natural, built-in scales that are always either consciously or subconsciously weighing costs against benefits. For example, all of us, at one time or another, have hung up while on hold waiting for help from a customer service rep. In these cases, we have judged that our cost in time and frustration isn’t worth the benefit we would receive talking to someone at the company. Let’s start our list with this one: Waiting too long. There’s a legal maxim that says, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” A similar principle applies in business. When customers are left hanging on the phone, or go to a store to find the customer service line going out the door, they sense the delay and say to themselves, “My time is valuable, this just isn’t worth the bother.” There are other mistakes we make serving our customers that are related to this. Making customers repeat themselves. Customers perceive this as another attack on their time. And, let me make one thing really clear: when customers sense this, they conclude that you don’t value their time and this demonstrates that at your core, you don’t respect them. Once they feel that your attitude is one of disrespect, they will return the attitude. Make sure that situations can be corrected at the first customer service contact. Not delivering enough value. Let me go back to those internal scales I mentioned at the beginning. If the value of your product or service doesn’t outweigh the effort to go through your customer service system, customers will abandon you. They won’t even bother to give you the opportunity to make things right. If you have a “throwaway” product, you have a throwaway company. Competitors are outshining you. Let’s say you’re in the housecleaning business. Your service is adequate but you have a customer whose neighbors are really talking up their cleaning service. The neighbors related how their service “goes the extra mile.” Sooner or later your customer is going to say, “I need to try this company!” If your product or service isn’t the one commanding the word-of-mouth advertising (or Yelp reviews) you’re in trouble. Customers won’t call and tell you to up your game, they’ll just silently drop off your active list. The final straw. Do you, or anyone in your top management, get notified when customers have lodged more than one customer service inquiry or complaint? Customers get to a point when they give up on your ability to make things right, even if they think you’re giving it your best effort. It’s those internal scales again. They’ll decide they just don’t need you anymore. I suspect you’ve lost some customers for these reasons. Do you know who they are? The owners of successful companies follow up with the customers...
read moreHow to prepare your business for sale
One of Don Draper’s most memorable lines in “Mad Men” is, “The day you sign a client is the day you start losing him.” Smart business owners apply a similar thought to planning, founding, and managing their companies: The day you start your business is the day you start preparing to sell it. If you don’t have an exit strategy in mind when you start and build your business, you can paint yourself into a corner and be left with no good ways to get value out of what you have worked so hard to build. And if you’re depending on selling the business to fund your retirement, the problem is magnified because you won’t get any “do-overs.” There are two critical elements of preparing to sell your business: Identifying your buyer, Organizing or preparing your business for maximum value. Although the second point above should be acted on first (you should always be building your business for maximum value) let’s look at point number one no because it does have some impact on your preparation. Who will buy your business? There are three general categories of buyers you need to consider: Family member, Key employee, and Outside buyer. As I alluded to above, you want to present each of these buyers with a business whose value has been maximized. However, with the first two on the list, you need to do additional prep work. If you’re going to work out a deal with a family member or one of your current employees, you need to be sure that they have been sufficiently trained to take over the reins. You would probably want to go into a transition period to make the sale and change in leadership go smoothly for everyone involved. If you sell to an outside buyer, there’s a good chance that some kind of training or transition period will be part of the sales agreement. Grooming your business for sale You need to keep an eye on the finish line from day one. However, that doesn’t mean there are strict rules that apply to every phase of your business development. It means that you need to be ready to make the correct course adjustments depending on the stage of your development. Let’s look at one of the first ways to groom your business for sale to illustrate this. Maximize cash flow and profitability. With the exception of some tech startups whose value is based on potential payoff in the future, most businesses are appealing to buyers when both the top and bottom lines look healthy. This means that as you get nearer to the time when you want to sell, you don’t want to be taking a risk on a costly new venture. It’s fine to gamble a little when you’re not close to your exit date, but it will bite you if you’re not able to turn it into a profitable venture by the time buyers start looking over your operation. Diversify income streams. If you’re a service business with one or two major sources of revenue or a manufacturer with few products, this can lower the value of your business because it scares potential buyers. They will naturally wonder what happens if they lose one of these key accounts or sales drops on your...
read moreHow Airbnb turned a bad deal into a winning hand
Humans are risk adverse by nature. It probably comes from the days when we risked being chased down by a sabertooth tiger whenever we ventured outside of our caves. Entire industries and product lines are built around this fact: insurance, hedge funds, home alarms, and many more. If you’re in one of these businesses, you want to play up the dark side of risk, however, most of us aren’t in a business that benefits from heightened risk. We’re in businesses where we want our customers to feel no or minimal risk. And, this is doubly true when we’re trying to establish new customers. There is always a risk associated with anything new. How do you lure new customers out of the comfort zone associated with the product or service they have been using for years and try yours? There’s an old adage, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” Risky business Nowhere is this problem bigger than when you’re trying to establish the legitimacy of a new business model. When a new business model finds a successful way to minimize the risk experience for consumers, we can all learn a lesson. The recent experience of some friends brings this to mind. They were headed out on vacation to visit family and friends. When they went to make hotel reservations, they were shocked by the prices. They couldn’t find anything under $300 a night and didn’t want to spend that much money. They decided to see what they could find using Airbnb. A little background is in order here. This couple is older, Baby Boomers, in fact. While I’m sure than many Boomers have been happily using Airbnb since it launched, I think it takes more convincing to make them believers. In any case, the couple found a great property. The price and location were ideal. They made the reservation and then started to look forward to their stay. The dreaded call The bad news didn’t come until much later. While they were only hours away from checking into their Airbnb, they got a call from the property owners: There was a plumbing problem that wouldn’t be repaired until the next day. There was no water, shower, or toilet in the property. The property owners were very apologetic and my friends were sympathetic; they had once owned a motel so they knew that things like this can happen. They cancelled the reservation and found a hotel room. They knew that their payment in advance would, of course, be returned. Here’s what surprised them: Two days later they got a call directly from Airbnb asking about what alternative arrangements my friends had made. If they had to pay more for lodging, Airbnb said to take a photo of the receipt, send it to them, and they would refund the extra cost as well as the original cost of the Airbnb stay. With one fell swoop, Airbnb eliminated much of the risk of using its service. My friends told me that they would certainly give Airbnb another try. Money talks… Generous money-back guarantees, paying for return shipping, and other risk-minimizing tools are virtually always worth it in the long run. But there are some caveats you need to recognize. First, the systems assuring the quality of your products and...
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