Dave Johnson ran a small rug cleaning business in Central City. He had a name for the business that told clients exactly what he did – Dave's Superior Carpet Cleaning. After doing some research on what other cleaners in the area charged, he determined that his rates were right in the middle – not too high, and not too low.
Dave had higher aspirations, though. He wanted to do better than just squeek by. He wanted to make enough money to support his family comfortably, but he also wanted to have the time to spend with them. Dave wanted to make more money than his competition, and work fewer hours. He saw some of the cleaning businesses in other cities with their large, flashy trucks and new he could do just as well himself.
While Dave was looking for help, he came across ProfitAsAnExpert.com – Agile' Marketing's training system on increasing his wealth as a Recognized Expert. Dave looked it over and decided that the cost was worth it, and he'd give it a try.
EXCLUSIVITY
The first thing Dave did was to look at his target market. Originally, like his competitors, he saw everyone with a carpet as a potential client. But to work fewer hours and increase his income, he would have to focus on clients who could pay more, and who used a cleaning service on a frequent basis. As a result, he would have to narrow his marketing efforts. He would have to become more exclusive.
Dave looked into local carpet suppliers, and picked one that carried the highest-end carpet in the market. He went in and spoke with the owner, and told him honestly that he wanted an idea of where his high-end carpet was being installed. He offered to work with the dealer to offer a value-added service to his best clients. They worked out a deal where Dave would perform cleaning for the first year of the carpet's life, at no cost to the carpet owners. Dave had his first partner.
In return, Dave found out that in the past three years, one construction company had been installing the best carpet in the houses they built the Riverview development. This is where Dave decided to focus his efforts. He upgraded his work attire to a better uniform: crisply pressed chinos and a logoed dress shirt. He designed a new mailer that featured himself happily cleaning a high-end carpet.
CERTIFICATION
While he was getting other marketing aspects ready, Dave contacted the manufacturer of the highest-end carpet, Excelsior Carpets. They offered a program to certify anyone who took it to become an expert on their carpets. This certification also covered care and cleaning, so Dave invested some time and money in the course and within two weeks, he was a certified Excelsior Carpets expert. He incorporated this certification into his marketing efforts. He also went beck to the original dealer and asked if he could quote the dealer as recommending him. The dealer agreed. Now Dave had two other experts who would certify that Dave was the person to go to for cleaning the highest-end carpets.
Dave took his newly-minted expertise to the local Home Builders Association. He offered to write articles on carpet cleaning for their monthly newsletter. In addition, he booked a booth at their annual Home Show in the spring. He was planning on using their attendance list to add to his marketing efforts, and to use his new expertise as a carpet cleaning columnist to add cachet to his marketing efforts.
REPETITION
Dave put together his new brochure. Instead of trying to target a nearly anonymous 50,000 people in and around Central City, he concentrated his first efforts on the trendy Riverview neighborhood. Dressing up in his best uniform, he visited the neighborhood and went door to door. Where people answered, he introduced himself and dropped off a packet that repeated his qualifications, as well his status as an expert on cleaning high-end carpets. He made a deal with one homeowner to clean their living room carpet for free in exchange for listing the owner as a satisfied client.
Dave also crafted a 12-week plan to hit and re-hit the area with mailings of his brochures. He knew that it took several exposures to an advertisement before it crossed into the conscious mind of the viewer. He would mail several invitations to the neighborhood, mentioning his web site and the number of his booking agent. His web site also repeated his bona fides as an expert on cleaning high-end carpeting.
RESTRICTED ACCESS
Dave had hired a phone service to act as his booking agent. Of course, he could concentrate on giving a client he was with his full attention. But the agent gave him another benefit. Potential clients would have to go though a chain of access (a short one, true) to get access to “Dave the expert.” He realized that if anyone could get to him, at any time, he would no longer be literally in demand. He put together a list of the questions that were frequently asked of him, and wrote out standard answers. Theses FAQs he posted on his web site, and added as a separate sheet in his printed marketing packet.
EXPERT PROOF MATERIALS
Dave compiled the articles he was writing for the Home Builders Association newsletter and, by adding a couple other short articles, he was able to put them together as a printed book. The articles, now chapters, outlined why keeping a high-end carpet clean was important, and why not just any cleaning process was best. Dave put a higher price on the cover of the book, made sure his picture and contact info was featured prominently on the back, then bought several dozen copies himself from the printer. He began to use these books as his business card, and to include them in the marketing package he gave to prospective clients.
He also arranged to be interviewed by local newspapers and trade association publications, and then copied those into his marketing kit. In addition, Dave did some video and audio interviews, and made them available on disk and on his web site. The book, the articles and the videos became his Expert Proof Materials, reinforcing with current and potential clients that he was, indeed, the go-to expert on cleaning high-end carpeting.
As a side effect of his expert status and limited availability, Dave was able to raise his prices to be some of the highest for any carpet cleaning service in Central City. This allowed him higher income from fewer hours of work each week. He was able to afford to upgrade his equipment more often, and to hire workers to do the actual cleaning while he spent time promoting the services his company offered.
Within just a couple of years, Dave's Superior Carpet Cleaning had gone from “also-ran” to becoming the one service that people wanted to hire to clean their carpets.