Qual-Ports = Awareness + Answers
Dec 3, 2009 Topics: commercial construction industry
Coty Fournier
LESSON: If you make Joe Buyer wait or work too hard to weed you in – he will be forced to weed you out.
Attention Jack Seller! Awareness is no longer enough - Joe Buyer needs answers and fast.
Calling all commercial construction companies out there chasing work! As an industry, we all collectively spend billions of dollars every year nurturing our existing relationships, pursuing new ones and just plain trying to get our name out there – with a frustratingly low ROI. Even the best of the best can’t escape the ineffectiveness of our most common sales and marketing methods. And would you believe the results have little to do with the economy?
To explain why, lets take a look at things from the perspective of Joe Buyer and see what we can learn. Imagine Joe Buyer up on his soapbox speaking to all the Jack Sellers out there, from the heart, with a sincere desire to help. Let’s listen in on Joe….
“It is in our best interest to attract highly-qualified and competitive construction companies to work on our projects. You are an important part of our success equation. Let me help you to help me – so you can improve your chances. Here are some reasons why the most typical sales and marketing methods are not as effective as they could be:
- Your websites are not always as helpful as you might think – whether I find them or not. At their worst, they tell me your company name and contact information and leave me no compelling reason to call you. At their best, even professionally designed and expensive websites, with pretty pictures and carefully crafted messages might make me consider calling you – if they contained all of the answers to my questions that I need first – which they don’t – so I don’t. Sorry, I know we all thought websites were going to be the magic bullet.
- Your emails are not always as helpful as you might think– whether I read them or not. At their worst, they are unsolicited and get deleted. At their best, I might recognize your company name, and scan through your email looking for the information I need, and take the bait on your embedded web- link (refer back to #1). Sorry, I know emails are the quickest and easiest form of communication.
- Your print ads are not always as helpful as you might think– whether I see them or not. At their worst, they tell me your company name and phone number and leave me no compelling reason to call you. At their best, they make me aware of you for a second, and they might make me consider calling you – if I had all of the information that I need about you first – which I don’t – so I don’t. Sorry, I know print ads are very expensive.
- Your online ads are not always as helpful as you might think – whether I see them or not. At their worst, they leave me no compelling reason to click on them. At their best, they compel me to click through to your website (refer back to #1). Sorry, I know online ads with a link to your website were supposed to be another magic bullet.
- Your phone calls are not always as helpful as you might think – whether I take them or not. At their worst, they are interruptive and waste my time. At their best, they might be helpful, if I had all of the information that I needed about your company first – which I don’t – so they aren’t. Sorry, I know it isn’t easy to pick up the phone and ask for work.
- Even your referrals from past clients or peers are often ineffective – whether they reach me or not. At their worst, they are referring me to you when I don’t have a need for you. At their best, I might be looking for you, but the person referring you cannot provide me with all of the information that I need – which puts me back to work looking for it. Sorry, I know everyone thinks that referrals are the Holy Grail of sales.
Do you see the pattern here? All of these sales and marketing methods DO create awareness for you. BUT unless awareness leads to immediate answers to my questions – the awareness will fade fast. It’s true. Your efforts would be MUCH more effective if all of the information that I need to qualify your company were readily accessible at the time you have my attention. ”
So what does ‘readily accessible’ mean to Joe Buyer in today’s market? It means 5 things:
- - allow him to find the answers to ALL of of his questions
- - on his own
- - on the internet
- - in seconds
- - for free
ANSWER: Build and maintain a complete Qual-Port on JobSite123.com. And make sure that all of your sales and marketing activities lead Joe Buyer directly to it.
Tags: answers, Awareness, commercial construction companies, competitive construction companies, emails, industry, Networking, online ads, phone calls, print ads, Qual-Ports, readily accessible, referrals, websites
