Going Beyond Repeats and Referrals

By Jonathan Sweet
 

Repeat and referral business is the heart of any successful remodeling business. We all know that. I've got an article coming up in the May issue of Professional Remodeler on creative ways remodelers are driving that business.

But how can you get more out of your past clients? Tenhulzen Remodeling in Redmond, Wash., is undertaking a process that will use input from past clients to drive its entire marketing process.

It's a process that he's learning from Phil Beakes, CEO of the Peregrine Insight Group. I talked to Beakes about the process and how it can help remodelers by identifying their best customers and figure out ways to attract more like them. 

It's a four-step process:

1. Figure out what their common characteristics are. Part of that is based on demographics: income, home values, where they live, etc. But the more important part is the psychographic, how they behave. "These are people that tell you the truth, that treat you as a trusted adviser as opposed to a vendor." Michael Tenhulzen and his team identified the following as some of the characteristics of their ideal customers: upper middle class, business owner/management, friendly, trustworthy, family-oriented and social.
2. Identify the perfect past customers. Depending on your client base this could be 5, 10, 15. Tenhulzen identified 15 customers and set up interviews with 12 of them.
3. Interview those customers. There are some key questions Beakes tells everyone to ask: 1) Of all of the remodeling contractors you looked at, why did you choose us? 2) We think we're in the remodeling business. What business do you think we're in? 3) What's the one thing we can do to lose your business tomorrow? The important part, Beakes says, is to get down to the emotional level that drive the buying decisions. "People buy out of emotion and back it up with logic," Beakes says.
4. Use the information you gather to write marketing copy that appeals to that. Tenhulzen is redoing its materials to reflect an emotional appeal rather than a fact-based approach.

Beakes says too many remodelers worry about marketing when they've got a ready base of marketing geniuses right at their fingertips. 

"They'll tell you why people like them will buy," he says. "They'll tell you how to attract the ones you want and detract the ones you don't want."