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Our latest home improvement webinar on leads brought together over 900 companies to help turn leads into sales in the year 2012.

As is the case with most of our programs, we have an abundance of questions that were not able to be addressed on the webinar. We will also answer many of these in our monthly e-newsletter (you can sign up today on our website).

Questions on Shows, Events, and Showrooms:

1.  How do I keep my full-time people busy? There aren’t enough events.

Full time people can also work mall displays — radiate around recent installations – work on Quality Control programs that provide referrals (business now and later). There’s lots of prep, legwork and maintenance work for them too, especially as your department grows.

2.  In your seminars I’ve heard you say “no chairs” in the work area. Our people get tired and they sneak them in – - what should I do?

You have to check on them yourself frequently, or through a small group of mystery shoppers.  Hire part time men or women who can complete an 8-10 point survey after visiting your booth/display – also let your promoters know that they are being shopped – (it’s like putting a radar sign on the highway – most cars will slow down even if no actual radar is present).  I know this rule may be difficult to enforce, but it is a key ingredient to make your presence at a show more profitable.

3.  How do you avoid giving a price when they walk over to our window sample and ask “How much is this one”?

Usually the prospect does that when they’ve already asked for a “ballpark figure” and were given an explanation about why the price would be delivered in person after evaluating their project.

You could paraphrase the original “depends” response as follows:

“The price of (your product) would depend on the options you chose along with the quantity, sizes and colors – of course – once our representative sees the condition of your (current product), he’ll know what we need to do to order the proper (your product) and install it properly, meeting the conditions existing in your home.  In addition, he’ll be able to deliver a price in writing and as I have mentioned- that price will be good for one full year – may I make a suggestion? (Take control – get to the next step—search for the best time and circumstances to visit – set appointment.)

Questions on Canvassing:

1.  How do I find good canvassers?

A: Recruit and hire regularly using 5-10 sources with a well planned sequence enabling you to identify fearless optimists or manageable mavericks whose current lifestyle is congruent with earning fairly good money in only a few hours daily.  It is the kind of job that will appeal to many different circumstances.

Many of our clients hire college students as canvassers and those individuals who need a second income.  They also hire retired or semi-retired people – in short “people with available time”.  But don’t forget, we suggest the use of a behavioral profile to determine whether the canvasser being hired has a behavior adapt able to this sales support role.  Many of our clients hire canvassers who then become highly successful in that role and they find it good basic training for an actual sales position.

2.  Can I pay canvassers on straight commission?

Yes, but statistically – employee retention is better when paying a base salary PLUS incentives. There are very few stable individuals who can use their own car, work alone despite the weather then deal with the face-to-face “turn down” rate, which is common in this role, even when they are paid a high commission rate. Reminder: strong management (supervision) is the key.

3.  Vans are expensive. It’s a lot less money to send them out in their own cars. Why can’t I do that?

A: They don’t show up or they arrive late or get lost, leave early and give up easier. Sometimes they have friends accompany them. That could jeopardize your plan, create insurance risks for your company and other problematic exposures.

Check out reliable used vans.  They are less expensive than you think.

We will address more of your questions in the next blog posting, and we invite you to give the home improvement webinar another listen. The material that was covered takes constant reinforcement.

We will now continue answering questions from our latest home improvement webinar. If you haven’t done so already, make sure to read our last blog posting where we address more of the questions that were asked during the program.

Q: You mentioned “lead control”.  How does that relate to giving salespeople the freedom to handle the lead in the best way because they are experienced to do so?

A: A reminder – if a lead is any inquiry coming into your business, it then has to be structured into an “appointment” (which usually requires scripting).  A properly scripted “lead to appointment” has created information beneficial to the salesperson and anticipation on the part of the prospect.

Now let’s assume the lead is issued to the salesperson.  Most efficient sales organizations have policies where salespeople are required to turn in their leads immediately after the presentation. Unsold leads were rehashed along with “no-sits”, often producing an increase of 12-14% of the volume extracted from the same leads.

Incidentally, in well managed sales organizations, once the lead is given to the salesperson as an appointment, the salesperson is not permitted to call and requalify the lead. If that process is elected, you will immediately determine a lower sit (presentation) rate.  Some leads are easier to work than others, yet a good prospect, inefficiently handled is often categorized by the salesperson as a weak or poor lead. That constitutes a break down in the marketing to sales program and will usually lead to higher marketing costs.  Leads retain dominant value for about 48 hours. While they are not dead after that, they lose the strength of the impulse which created the contact.  When you receive a lead, act on it ASAP.  Confirm that you are interested in it and don’t set conditions about whether it is worthy of a sales call.  The chances are that you and your salespeople may need training on how to handle leads of this nature.  Most of our clients confirm leads (irrespective of the source) within minutes.  They have computers set to verify their interest in the prospect immediately.  Any delay diminishes the prospect’s value in your eyes and it diminishes your value in theirs.

Q: How do the most successful companies handle lead intake and lead distribution to their salespeople?

A: Many confirm their leads within 5 minutes of their receipt (via email).  Lead intake, confirmation and rehash personnel are rescripted and highly supervised.  Salespeople are required to return a confirming sheet from all prospect contacts, enabling telephone follow-up in conformity with the “Do Not Call” laws.  Sales managers frequent “ride-alongs” to observe and enforce methodology.  In a recent survey, we were able to measure the success of the companies who had diversified lead development and strong controls in place.  In most cases these controls produced an increase in sales.  Many saw their 2009 sales exceeding those of 2008.  Many also require a quota of self-generated leads by their salespeople to achieve monthly bonuses.

Q: We were inundated with questions regarding less qualified leads.  Some requesting “information only”, others coming from 3^rd party sources which had incurred delay on reception.  While these leads require laborious techniques, they often bear fruit.

A: We call these “nebulous leads”.  Nebulous meaning not clearly defined.  These leads are frequently developed through “3^rd party” sources who run elaborate promotions or lead development campaigns.  When companies receive these leads and try to bring them to a point where a product and a price proposal can be presented, they experience a great level of frustration largely because their organization at all levels (1) call intake, (2) lead setting, (3) lead issuance is not on the same page and what follows is chaotic lead “mismanagement”.

Here is some thought on how to identify this kind of lead which was acquired by the means explained above.  Individuals that we classify as “nebulous” are usually prospects who haven’t committed themselves – yet would be open to listen and look.  The lead, once received, requires finessing beyond that of the prospect who says “give us a price” or “an estimate”.  Nonetheless, this prospect is identifying themselves as a potential customer.

Add them to your database and continue to follow up with them on a semi-regular basis. However, here is the caution, follow up too often and you may risk them opting out of your marketing, but if you don’t follow up enough they may forget about you entirely. As such, you need to continually strive to achieve the perfect mix.

Q: We hear the word “prospect” “lead” and “inquiry” used interchangeably at many seminars.  Are these all the same?

A: No, and here’s why.  A prospect is someone who can use your product or service. If you have found a way to get someone to respond to your marketing devices thereby acknowledging their need, you have a prospect which you can identify for lead purposes. If they do not respond to your marketing devices or that of others they are nonetheless a prospect and will remain so until someone gets them to acknowledge their need and sells them.

Q: Doesn’t this kind of lead represent a real challenge for salespeople who have never had to use them before?

A: A prospect requesting an estimate, responding to direct mail or registering at your booth at a show may openly declare “need.”  However, often the need may be deeply hidden in a prospect’s response for information, such as “send me some information”.  To add complexity, the prospect may say “we’re not going to buy now.”  This is complicated by the perception that the prospect hasn’t stated their need and the lead gets labeled as weak or poor.

The more sophisticated companies don’t try to force the “information only” lead upon the salesperson who had no respect for this kind of lead or doesn’t understand it.  It still requires marketing skills to turn that into an issued appointment.  One of our clients in a Midwestern city makes the following comment regarding this kind of lead after he developed a marketing technique with a series of “follow ups” which ultimately produced an issued lead (appointment).

“Most companies – don’t – or – won’t follow-up on an “information only” lead – we do.  Over a period of 6 years we sold $1,900,000 business with leads such as these.”

Q: What techniques work the best with unsold or unissued leads?

A: In our experience, a system that uses scripting, which in turn encourages a prospect who, in the past, hasn’t seen the demonstration, to view it now. This process is called rehash.

Take an example of a prospect who received a presentation that wasn’t sold, but later agrees to have someone come to their home and review the original presentation and price proposal (in well-run companies this also includes sales which were cancelled or were credit rejected).  Rehash requires a “refined” technique that starts with a scripted phone call that contains no risk or threat to the prospect – in fact, implies a “benefit”. This task is never allocated to the original salesperson.  It is, for the most part, a call center issue made by a marketer, not a salesperson.  The rehash lead is seldom, if ever, issued to the original salesperson (for obvious reasons). He/she didn’t’ sell it the first time and the no-sale or cancellation may have been created by a malfunction in the presentation.

All leads which do not turn into issued appointments or remain unsold, or those cancelled or credit rejected should be accumulated into a database.  We call the use of this database to manufacture sales asset recovery. The company has an investment in these leads and any sale made from the database has very few costs related to “reissuance”.  Most successful companies acquire 20% or more of their revenue annually from their database and their customer solicited referrals.

If we did not get to your question, please email us directly at admin@daveyoho.com and someone will get back to you shortly – - and don’t forget, part two of this home improvement webinar series will be held on Decmeber 13th.

Last week’s home improvement webinar on lead generation was a rousing success. There were over 950 companies on the program and we received numerous questions. As is frequently the case, we did not have enough time to answer them all on the webinar so we took the opportunity to respond on our blog (the first series of questions and answers are covered in our latest e-newsletter – to receive a copy e-mail admin@daveyoho.com).

Here is a sampling of the questions we received:

Q: You give the impression that many home improvement companies have tried canvassing, yet few have been successful at making it work “long term” within a practical budget.

A: As we pointed out in the webinar, it is not uncommon for companies with a canvassing program to issue as little as 30% of their canvass leads as appointments. In addition to that, they may only gain entry into 40-50% of these homes for a presentation.  They experience a closing ratio lower than they do for other leads (some of this is attributed to the salesperson’s dislike of that lead). Then top this off with marketing costs that sometimes exceed 20% (some even much higher).  Not a practical way to do business.

Q: Has your company made a study of effective canvassing programs?

A: You bet, and here are some of the basics:

Unless companies subscribe to a plan that includes territory and time selections (by management) for canvassing in middle income neighborhoods, they’re off to a poor start.

It is human nature to try to find the path of least resistance. Better neighborhoods with higher income families frequently represent better education and more well-informed prospects and in turn represent more complications in developing a lead.

But there’s more to it than that.  Actually, there are about 51 components for an effective program. The script language is extremely important.  Intelligent people with money to buy the products you offer have to receive information which they see as beneficial.  Many canvassing groups use a mini-presentation book at the door.  One company we studied has canvassers earning $40-60,000 annually with a fully loaded marketing budget of approximately 9.6%.

Q: What kind of results can be effective with a well-managed canvassing program?

A: The better managed companies have a 50-60% issue rate, a 60-80% sit rate and marketing costs below 15% (fully loaded).

Here is an actual case study of a very efficient program:  Canvassers working (average) 4 to 5 hours daily produce ½ lead per hour set with the homeowners by the canvasser (via cell phone) with their office. This translates into a 60% (minimum) presentation (sit) rate and a minimum of 1 presentation (sit) produced in less than 8 hours of the canvasser’s effort.

One of the keys in this last case study is the “canvass manager” who makes everyone (including himself) adhere to the “model” of the program.

Is it easy? No. Is it successful? Yes. Is it cost prohibitive? This particular company operates with overall marketing costs at 13% and their canvass program (fully loaded) is slightly over 12%.

Q: We are considering hiring a company to do our canvassing.  What are some of the cautions?

A: We received the same question from 12 companies who participated in the home improvement webinar.  If you tried canvassing on your own and couldn’t make it work, or it was too costly, you may succumb to someone who encourages you to let them do the canvassing and provide you with the leads.  There are several smaller companies who provide this service – however – be cautious of “canvassing companies” who want to sell you leads. Several larger companies who provide this service do not appear to have “long term” success stories.

Q: Our salespeople don’t like the canvass leads, so we haven’t been successful with closing many.  Apparently our canvass program “stinks”.

A: Your question probably contains the answer.  You hired salespeople, promised them bona fide leads and they expect to get them. However, if you are allowing your salespeople to determine the source of leads you will never get a canvassing program to work, and since this is but one form of face-to-face lead solicitation (which also includes “shows” and “events” and “SFI programs”) the failure is not in the lead, but in the method of adapting a salesperson on how a face-to-face lead has to be handled to obtain results. Unfortunately this is a management failure.

Management frequently “succumbs” to the complaint of the salespeople that these are “weak leads”.  When the sales department convinces management this is the case, the marketing department is told to get a stronger lead. Ergo: the number of leads decrease and management is unhappy because they don’t have enough leads for the salespeople.  Weak canvassing methods include “looking for”.  Successful canvassing programs treat the canvassing department as part of the sales methodology. At the risk of being repetitious, modern techniques require that the canvasser be hired with a behavioral profile indicating sales “traits” and the ability to follow special scripting devices which often includes a mini presentation book. The appointments were set via cell phone from the canvasser and the prospect to the call center.

Again, at the risk of being repetitious, The successful companies measure not only the number of leads which are produced by hourly effort, they measure the hours it takes to produce a sales presentation from the leads acquired with a marketing budget of 12% to 15%.  In short, the entire process is treated as a science – not – an art form.

Q: We received numerous questions on “diversified lead sources”.

A: Today’s marketing techniques, whether for a small company trying to stay alive or a large company attempting to expand, have to include diversification. Smaller companies may have 10 or 12 sources for lead development; larger companies 30 to 50 sources.  Companies who choose not to diversify their home improvement marketing typically tell us:

• The majority of their leads are referred to them through a satisfied customer.
• We are a recognized name in our territory, so we don’t do much advertising.
• We invested heavily in print ads – yellow pages – web design – or similar and couldn’t make it profitable.

Here is what you have to remember.  In every market and for every product or service sold in that market, there are a certain number of prospects who develop a “need” for most of the products sold.  The trick is how to identify and find these prospects then sell them without resorting to being the “lowest price” in town.

The next “trick” is to find ways to identify and attract prospects who haven’t yet met the explicit need level, but could be convinced to “take a look”.  That requires a good marketing technique which then has to be balanced with a strong sales technique.

This is not being critical of those who get “referred” as a good contract or source, because referral leads are great; most salespeople love them. The reason they don’t get more of them is usually determined by their lack of “asking for them”. If you can develop enough business without advertising or spending promotional dollars, I applaud you. However, keep in mind that past customers should be solicited for referrals with a plan that meets the requirements of your local state laws.

We will answer more questions on our next blog posting so make sure to subscribe so you can receive updates as they happen!

They responded to your marketing message.  They became prospects, customers (hopefully satisfied) and they can be the source for quality inexpensive leads. The term proximo marketing is used to define any type of marketing around completed jobs or jobs under construction

For siding, roofing, gutters, windows, cabinet facing as well as other products we recommend a marketing method called “hang em.”  This is a door hanger which briefly describes the product(s) being installed on a neighbor’s house.  It requests phone, email or fax responses.  In this format you extend the range to a larger number of neighbors, perhaps an entire development.  “Hang em” is phase one, which can be followed by direct mail, direct solicitation or both.

The next step (beyond direct mail) would be personal contact.  Here the salesperson (or canvasser) makes a house call to get a specific appointment.  If your salespeople seem loath to take on this task, hire canvassers to do the job instead.

Don’t give up after the first pass through this neighborhood.  Thirty days later repeat the process with another “hang em” and a direct mail postcard a few days later.

David Alan Yoho makes the following recommendation to all of our clients: Mail the radiation letter upon approved status using the customer’s name and address (with approval). Mail a postcard the week before the installation. Knock during the job and hang ‘em then – in conjunction with obtaining referrals, etc by visiting the customer.

The wise home improvement marketer takes advantage of the completed job and utilizes it as a center for proximo marketing. Working around the job isn’t complicated.  Mostly it just isn’t done wisely.  If your product is a sunroom, kitchen, deck, bath or similar, these lend easily to an open house format.  The agreement to do so is structured during the sales presentation and invitations are sent out to neighbors over your new customer’s signature. The RSVP invitation can extend to ten neighbors on either side of the completed job and to twenty on the other side of the street plus those in the general neighborhood who are friendly with your customer.

A continental breakfast, lunch, brunch, or snack paid for by your company and hosted by one of your staff becomes an inexpensive “lead potential” and contact.  Each attendee signs a guest book page giving name, address, telephone and email address, as well as permission to re-contact by phone for product changes, special offers, etc. Remember, you will need the latter to meet the qualifications of the “Do Not Call List” (check your state for specific qualifications).  A power point presentation with before and after pictures and a lead form can make these neighbors ideal prospects.

During the “open house” provide an inexpensive gift (i.e., gift card from gas stations, supermarket, or fast food restaurant) as a thank you for their attendance.  The presentation on your company and product should be limited to general information.  You are not selling the job. That remains an aftermath responsibility of the salesperson that will get the lead.

In the case of those who attended your open house, and you have their phone number and email address together with permission to call, you are now in a position to glean additional prospects as an aftermath of the installed job.  If your sales presentation to all prospects and a follow up includes solicitation for referrals you will find that proximo marketing pays off with low cost leads.

The advent of e-mail marketing has led many businesses to lessen their use of more traditional approaches such as direct mail and telephone, and the reasoning behind this is simple: E-mail marketing is less expensive, and it capitalizes upon the technology that more and more customers are comfortable making purchasing decisions from nowadays.

However, many companies take it a step too far, in that they abandon the use of direct mail and telephone altogether, when in fact this will do more harm than good.

The most effective method of communication is a multi-channel approach whereby a mix of these methods is employed to reach as many of your customers/prospects as possible.

Keep in mind that a portion of your database will not use e-mail to consider what you are offering. The same is true with direct mail and phone solicitation. To effectively reach every potential buyer you need to employ the use of every potential channel.

For the purposes of this posting I am only going to discuss phone, e-mail and direct mail although there are numerous other strategies you should be using as well.

The question you need to ask yourself as a business is: what is the ideal mix of multi-channel marketing?

While there is no definitive answer, a recent marketing study put out by the University of California sheds some light onto how you should develop your marketing mix.

According to the study, customer spending hit its peak when phone and direct mail contacts were combined 6 times each (this does not include e-mail). The thinking is that direct mail and phone strategies are complementary in terms of their impact on customer behavior.

In regards to e-mail:

• Per every phone contact, the ideal number of e-mails is 5 to 6
• If you bump this number up to 3-5 calls, the ideal number of e-mails drops to 2 to 3
• Per every direct mail contact, the ideal number of e-mails is 5
• If you bump this number up to 5, the ideal number of e-mails drops all the way down to 1

It is also vital when developing your marketing mix that you focus on not being too intrusive. Your customers and prospects value their time and if you interrupt them too much they will begin to see you as a nuisance.

The same marketing study listed the ideal number of single channel contacts over a 3 month period of time:

• 3 via telephone
• 3-4 via e-mail
• 9-10 via direct mail

In a time where everyone wants to abandon direct mail, many customers view it as the least intrusive of all these methods, and as such you should continue to incorporate it into your marketing mix.

At least as long as it’s not horribly ineffective.

I enjoyed participating in the most recent home improvement webinar on lead generation and appreciate the opportunity to answer many of the questions on canvassing that we received in this format.

Q: What is the best way to pay the marketers in the field – by the lead or by the sale or both?

A: A base salary (per hour) incentivized by issued appointments or presentations (provided minimum goals are met), further incentivized by the number of hours taken to produce those results. The team leader’s compensation should be similar based on the average of the team.  There are typically additional bonuses paid on gross numbers but are conditional to certain “hours to demo or issue” being met first. Additionally you can create a “pool” of funds which are based on the percentage below budget. (i.e.  canvass marketing budget – 14%, actual expenditures – 12%, equals 2% of net volume generated. And you can distribute a portion of this (i.e. 20%) to individuals within the group on a “per” performance basis if warranted.

Q: Lead generation for mid to high end remodeling – what works?

A: I’d start with your database.  Leads you’ve had in the past which you have not had an opportunity to present, those to whom you proposed and did not sell and those prospects you sold who could not get financing – then examine your previous customers, solicit them for additional work, ask them for referrals and don’t hesitate to use the methods we recommend for sunrooms, basement refinishing, cabinet re-facing and bath rehab.

Q: How do I convert more of the leads I currently get into appointments?

A: I recommend to give the webinar another listen.  A great deal of the information that you need is contained in that 90 minute program.  On our website there are also numerous home improvement articles on this topic that I advise you to download at no cost.

Q: When are the best hours of the day to canvass?

A: In most markets (some differ) the best hours during the week are 4-8pm. Generally, there are more people home on weekends. Saturday and Sunday are good all year due to sunlight and temperature. 3 out of 4 of our clients experience their best days on Sundays (noon – 5pm). Saturdays usually start at 10am.

Q: How many man hours to produce a lead?  How many man hours to produce a presentation?

A: There are lots of variables, starting with your definition of a lead. No matter the client, we always begin with “budgeting by the demo” since this is a demo business (although the “issued appointment” is our preferred unit of measurement and compensation since it’s easier to define and avoids time-wasting discussions and arguments.)  Once we’ve identified the amount of money we can budget for and compensate for a demo, we work backwards to the issued appointment. The key issues are what it’s costing you, the average sale and the close rate at which your sales force is capable. Here are some safe averages. If your average sale falls in the $8,000 to $12,000 arena, you can probably make a profit up to 15 hours to a demo although you will likely be over budget. Most of our clients need to fall under 12 hours to a demo although we personally never want them over 10 hours to a demonstration. The sweet spot is when you can manage your entire canvassing operation under eight hours to a demo.

Q: What should the sit (presentation) rate be for canvass leads if you have a 65% sit rate for conventional leads?

A: Sorry, your sit rate should be higher than 65% for any lead including canvass. And I’m unsure if your defined sit rate includes a full demo. We typically define a sit rate as all parties being present with an understanding (and agreement) to a certain amount of time set aside and with consent again to those terms at the door allowing us to proceed to the walk-around. Typically, our goal is to attain a 90% or better sit rate. Demo rates should be in the 80’s. Anything under 75% probably indicates that you’re inefficient in multiple areas, starting with how the initial appointment is set.

If you have any further questions on canvassing please e-mail me at david@davidyoho.com and don’t forget to check out the earlier blog posts reviewing questions from our last webinar.

Finally, our next home improvement webinar will take place on September 13th so make sure to register today!

When you are crafting your home improvement marketing strategy, there are a number of questions you need to ask yourself.

Do you know what is and is not working?

Do you know your lead cost for each of your Internet strategies?

Do you know what a ‘goal conversion’ is?

Are you reviewing your ‘goal conversions’ in your Analytics weekly?

Do you know how many leads your website is generating?

If you answered no to any of the above questions, you might be wasting valuable marketing dollars and not be aware of it. You have many great opportunities to be able to use your website data to track your results for better goal conversion and see a significant return on investment.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

1. Goal conversion – Any action that a visitor can complete on your website that results in a lead (or data acquisition) being submitted to you for follow up.

Are you aware that 50-60% of your conversions online will come in by phone? Do you have a separate 1-800 number to track and credit your website  for this call?

2. Google Analytics – Tracking software that monitors vital statistics on a website and shows how many visitors came to the site; the amount of time visitors spent on the site; how many pages per visitor that were viewed; the bounce rate (percentage of people entering and leaving from exact same page); and percent of returning visitors vs. new visitors, etc.

In order to be tracked properly in Analytics, goal conversions need to be set up and tracked by “unique” thank you pages. Once this is done, Analytics can report goal conversions by your various traffic types:

Direct – Visitors coming directly to your website

Organic – Natural, ‘unpaid’ website traffic

Referral – Outside websites sending traffic back to your website

Paid – Pay per click traffic

Other – Traffic from unique trackable links (such as newsletter traffic, for instance)

Wouldn’t it be nice to have this info at your fingertips to let the data tell you what the best decisions are for your website and Internet marketing strategies? Are you interested in tracking these results so you know what is and what is not working in order to increase the number of goal conversions from your website?

To end with, let me leave you with a quote: “The value of web Analytics solutions is not in their ability to collect data, but to measure customer behavior which provides a basis for replicating success or driving change.”

Bring Me My Leads is unique in developing Internet marketing strategies for the home improvement industry because of our association with Bee Window, so we have proven benchmarks from our clients. We understand what works and what does not work, and since we live and breathe it on a daily basis we understand how to crunch all the necessary numbers (cost per lead, demo rate, conversion rate, etc.) and how to track all of these results.

Search Engine Optimization is rapidly becoming one of the best ways to promote your website online and ensure that you get listed high in the rankings by Google and various other search engines.

For those readers who are not familiar with the practice of SEO, expert Aaron Wall defines it as: “The art and science of publishing and marketing content in a way that brings significant profitable and targeted traffic to your website.”

Because of this shift in Internet promotion there are numerous providers available that make ridiculous promises that are unattainable. Be very dubious of any company that:

• Promises to take you to the top of Google’s search rankings in a matter of days
• Only fixes your “meta-keyword” tags
• Offers to fix your website to make it “SEO-friendly” so that fine tuning over time will not be a necessity
• Creates numerous doorway pages and mini-sites that are simply duplicate copies of your primary site. This is a sure way to get black listed.

However, there is another problem with SEO that exists further below the surface and it involves the conflict that it can create with your website copy.

A company that you end up working with may do all that they promised in helping you work your way up the search engine rankings – - yet as a website owner your ultimate goal should be conversions whether they be in the form of leads or sales. Just because something is 100% SEO optimized doesn’t mean it’s engaging for visitors.

There is a practice called “keyword stuffing” that involves placing keywords an inordinate amount of times within the copy on your website. There are two types that can be damaging to your brand:

1. The over-reliance on these words are deemed to be “black-hat” tactics, and can get you penalized or even banned by Google
2. An abundance of keywords is used, not to the point where you will be penalized but where it detracts from the copy and does not leave the website visitor with a good impression of your company.

In either case you are setting yourself up for failure in the long run. Strong SEO takes time and practice (and in many cases some struggles along the way). However, make sure you take the time to educate yourself before you invest thousands of dollars into optimizing your website.

Also, take a look at the latest list of the top SEO companies in the U.S. and if you have any questions about best practices don’t hesitate to contact me directly at brad@daveyoho.com.

Some years ago, while head of Surfa Shield Institute, I decided to do a test to see whether our franchisees were actually reading the mail that they received. I sent out a 3-page memo to the over 30 franchisees except an integral part was missing. There was no second page…

Out of this large number, only 3 actually responded. Was it because they skimmed the memo and didn’t actually read it? No, because at the bottom of page 3, I gave brief mention of a $100 prize that one of the franchisees would win that had been explained in detail on page 2. Had they skimmed the memo they certainly would have noticed this.

So what does this mean? In all likelihood, the large majority of these franchisees never read the memo.

The reason I bring this up is twofold:

1. I wonder if your employees are doing the same thing. Be proactive and run tests like this in your business to show your employees the importance of inter-office communication and how messages can be lost when a lack of attention is given.
2. I encourage you to continuously follow up through different marketing channels with your prospects and customers because there is a good chance they are not seeing your message the first couple of times that it is sent.

There is a lot of great news to report even though we are only 1 month into 2011. Many companies in the industry are already reporting significant growth over 2010. This recent report from the National Home Builders Association echoes these thoughts, while other reports are predicting significant future growth within the industry.

However, despite these positive reports, it is vital to stick to a system. If you don’t stress this to your employees and colleagues on a daily basis then there is a strong likelihood that you will begin to “freelance” which leads to nothing but trouble.

If you don’t have a system for managing your leads, here is one that we recommend to all of our clients and customers:

• Log every lead into your database.
• Every lead must contains a name, address, phone number, email address and fax number and a permission to call slip attached.
• Leads are confirmed (optimally within 48 hours) into appointments.
• Lead issuance is supervised and the number of leads issued daily is regulated. Unsold leads are reported, detailed and returned within specific time parameters which can range from 30 days down to 24 hours.  (The shorter time allowed the better).
• Measure the efficiency of the salesperson who is issued leads – by    dividing the number of leads issued into the net sales volume produced from the leads.
• Rehash unsold leads to confirm appropriate use by the salesperson and if not sold they are entered into a database for future solicitation.
• Review and analyze the presentation rate, gross close rate and net close rate (gross close less credit rejects, and cancellations) for each salesperson and the company as a whole.
• Salespeople generate up to 20% of their business from leads which they developed personally (self-generated leads).
• Teach and enforce referral solicitation as part of the sales plan
• Adopt a performance model which spells out for the salesperson the projected number of leads which will receive a presentation and the percentage of closes – vs. – leads issued as well as the estimated percentage of business the salesperson is expected to develop from self-generated leads.
• Management conducts ride-alongs and performance appraisals of the salespeople.

For more information on how to implement this system in your organization please e-mail us at admin@daveyoho.com.