Marketing to businesses (continued from my future post)

[Chadhardy]

I wanted to create a new post about marketing to businesses because after my previous post (Future of IT) I realized I'm barking up the wrong tree (residential). Since I've opened my shop (kind of a storefront, but no glass exteriors) I've thought of getting a larger location (with glass exteriors) to draw in more customers. Last night I spent several hours analyzing all of my revenue numbers and it finally dawned on me that I NEED to focus on pushing my Commercial IT services.

As I've mentioned in other posts my business offers 4 primary services (with mobile just starting in the past 2 months). Here is how they contribute to my overall revenue:

IT - 41% (Residential - 14%) (Commercial - 86%)
Website Design - 31%
SEO - 27%
Mobile - 1% (after 2 months)

So why in the world would I want to incur more expenses with a larger office and more overhead for services (Residential IT & Mobile) that only make up 9% of my overall annual revenue?!?

So to the real question: How can I market myself to small businesses within a 30 mile radius of my office? I live in a small town of about 5,000 people and I have 4 other small cities within 20 minutes that have about the same population.

I sent out a simple questionnaire asking my existing business clients a few questions, here are the results:

If I wrote a blog about small business technology (computers, websites, marketing) would you read it?
60% of respondents said they would read the blog (the older the business owner the more likely they said no)

If I sent you a printed newsletter would you read it?
50% of respondents said they would read a printed newsletter (but it was more of an afterthought, like if I didn't have anything else to do)

If I gave classes about business technology (free and/or paid) would you attend them?
75% of respondents said they would attend classes

How can I get more clients like you?
Overwhelmingly the answers to this question boiled down to referrals from friends, face to face meeting, networking, etc.

I'm a member of my local Chamber of Commerce (which unfortunately isn't well organized at all!) and the person running it (our Chamber is run by one person that's how small it is) has talked about me doing some Lunch-and-Learn meetings about some of my topics (we don't currently do lunch-and-learn meetings) so this would give me some exposure. The after hours meetings are far and few between.

There are no local networking groups (unless you include Kiwanis and Rotary). I actually started a networking group a couple years ago, but we could get no more than 10 people to attend and we already did business with each other (and most went to school together).

Other than walking the street and knocking on doors I don't know what I should do. The business clients I have now I've been working with for years so I have a great relationship with them, but I want to grow beyond their sphere of influence.

Sorry for the wall of text and Merry Christmas!

 

[Chadhardy]

A couple followup questions:

1.) I charge $125 per hour for on-site work. How far would you travel for that hourly rate? Maybe I'm limiting myself by only focusing on a 30 mile radius? I can be in larger cities (Atlanta, GA) within an hour or so.

2.) How much remote work do you do in comparison to on-site work? Do you have any clients where you've only done remote work and never met them? Once again another way I may be limiting myself by thinking of distance. I'm sure @callthatgirl does most of her work remotely!

 

[BlackLabTechs]

My initial thoughts would be think BIGGER! Why limit yourself to 30 mile radius? If you setup yourself up properly to support businesses (RMM tool) you can support 95% of problems remotely. Businesses are more willing to pay reasonable travel time as well so those expenses can be re-captured.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Hope my reply manages to stay flowing...as I'm typing this as I'm doing some remote work...so

*We focused on SMB clients over 15 years ago. The place I worked for back then realized there was much more money in "consulting/labor fees" in supporting biz clients, versus retail sales. We started working on getting fixed "monthly" clients....basically what has now become the trendy "MSP" thing. Just..back then...it wasn't called MSP.

*Chambers....going to local business chamber events.

*Building relationships with certain professionals. Higher end accountants was a BIG one. Accountants typically drive the software that many businesses run on. I'm not talking about for small businesses that just use Quickbooks...but higher end ones, that used software like GreatPlains, Sage products, McCullough, but yeah even Quickbooks.

*I have had great...great success, in pairing up with a "high end" local alarm install company. They've been in business over 25 years, and they are known to be "the best"...and they cater only to high end "big name" clients that are willing to pay more for better products.

*BNI groups...both my colleague and I did BNI groups...I did it for over 7 years, my colleague is going on near 10 years and still doing it. We got a lot of good business through that.

*Non-profits....someone getting a few good non-profit clients....they know each other and spread the word....you'll often find good referrals to new non-profit clients come from your existing ones.

*Ask Ask Ask! As you drive around and see businesses that you would like to get as a client..try to find out who works there. You state you live in a small town. Chances are...you know someone that works at a particular business, or you know someone who knows someone. The "sphere of influence" is likely pretty overlapping in a small town such as yours...doubt you have to go beyond 2nd tier to find someone.

^^^You'd be amazed at how well that can work. I found that especially helpful when I was in BNI...stand up in front of an audience of 30 or so..and ask for a warm lead to "ABC Company". But doing this on your own, asking friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances at clients you already have...it works.

We are old school. We've been in business almost 15 years...I remember the early years...trying to get past 200k annual, 250k, 300k..then the snowball started rolling..the big 500k year, the recession..then a climb again to mid 700k 2 years ago, and last year we busted the million mark..and we are a little LLC of 5 people, 4x of us propeller heads and an office manager. We don't worry about SEO much, or even our website. Our current website is very outdated and stale, my colleagues son did it. We're working on having it totally redone by an agency this winter..finally..but, my main point being...look at the history and growth we had in nearly 15 years. By doing things the old fashioned way. Word of mouth, and referrals, and shaking hands!

 

[gadgetfixup]

Last night I spent several hours analyzing all of my revenue numbers and it finally dawned on me that I NEED to focus on pushing my Commercial IT services.

Analyzing the past without a retail site, doesn't forecast what your future would be with a retail site. Of course your retail numbers were low, you didn't have a retail business. With that said, retail might not be the ticket for you. I've been a retail computer store about 20 years and service work pays the bills. Retail sales are just icing on the cake and much of our inventory is experiencing longer and longer turn-over times. It's difficult to tie up thousands in inventory and wait for it to sell to make a buck off it.

It is difficult to compete with big box stores and we are looking to expand our commercial offerings once again. I started in this biz with commercial clients and got real tired of having huge numbers in receivables and little in the Bank. That is why I opened the retail biz. I was happy everything was paid for when it left my hands. Fast forward 20 years and now computers in the PC world are practically a short term commodity that can be replaced with better and faster for around 50% more than the cost of most repairs. We had a niche in the refurbished laptop biz until manufacturers dropped down to $300 new laptops. That biz has pretty much dried up as well now.

So now back to the commercial customers that have higher demands but also bigger wallets. You'll find few of them will spend a week deciding if a laptop is worth $100 to repair. We bill our commercial clients and their only concern is tracking what they're spending and keeping their employees actively working.

I said all that to say this, rather than crunching your past numbers, you should do market research to discover what potential revenue you're leaving on the table and if you've got a couple established shops in your area with such a small population, there probably isn't enough crumbs on the table to afford another shop. Stick with commercial.

 

[callthatgirl]

Great thread and thanks for the mention. My territory is global (means, I will do a skype call with people in the UK or AU if they want), but I am only marketing heavy to the USA and Canada. Once I have help, I will go more global. But yeah, I don't see why anyone with remote support options would limit their territory. I am 100% remote and don't have limits, if I can remote in.....I'm in!

So before you dive in and sign a large lease deal, figure this out...people don't want to go anywhere anymore, not if they can sit in their offices and click buttons. Looking at your services list, almost all of those could be done remotely, so maybe a nice sized office would be better? I'm still at home, but I have a large office, but doesn't matter, my office was my truck for most of 2015 traveling.

Very awesome you did the questionnaire to your clients, kudos.

My only advice is do massive SEO for your whole state. You have SEO as a service, so I would think you could conquer more and definitely try to get those smaller cities. I just landed a $1300 job because I did SEO in a very small town in a very small state, knowing no "Office 365 Experts" would be within 500 miles. And they needed me, so I won the remote job and they wanted onsite for training. No one is going to the middle of no where these days.

I did a small marketing review just last night.
60% from Google
13% from referrals
12% from Linkedin

the rest was just randoms from past years.

 

[Chadhardy]

I'm really curious after receiving the responses who here actually has a marketing plan?

It seems like like @callthatgirl does Google PPC but who else has a plan that they implement each day/week/month?

I work better when I have a concise plan to implement. I think my first step is to determine who my ideal client is. Then start reaching out to those people consistently. Whether that be stopping by there office, mailing them something or like @YeOldeStonecat said find someone who works there through networking.

 

[callthatgirl]

It seems like like @callthatgirl does Google PPC but who else has a plan that they implement each day/week/month?

Mine is all organic.

 

[callthatgirl]

Clarification on my end (aka, my point of view)

PPC is advertising, people see your content as you pay. Marketing is a long term committment to keeping your brand/company in the eye of specific audiences for long term, via client retention: Newlsletters, social media, BNI, LinkedIn, etc.

My blogs are living in google as long as they let me have them rank well. This is a long term marketing effort in my opinion. As long as I keep the keywords alive in consistency, the brand will stay with people as they go out looking for ME. So let's say a person googles "computer repair Denver CO" and call someone high ranked and use them, have problems...the next time they have a problem and they google and see that computer shop ranked high again, they know that brand and will not call, but will call the next company, right? So the long term "Google effect" with marketing is strong, whether is it in the favor of that business or not (reviews help keep you good of course)...you can keep your brand alive with Google marketing (not PPC). People remember the ads.

Not sure if that made sense, I hope so!

 

[Chadhardy]

Sorry about the misunderstanding @callthatgirl in regards to PPC/SEO. I misspoke.

I wasn't trying to offend anyone when I asked the question. Maybe I used the wrong words. I was asking if anyone here had a planned out marketing plan that they follow each week or month or whatever?

Something like:
Write 3 blog posts every week.
Write 2 guest blog posts each month.
Mail out printed newsletter on the 1st of each month to clients and potential clients.
Attend BNI/Networking Group every week.
Be a guest on 1 podcast per month.
Post a tech tip every day on selected social media channels.

If you're not doing something like that does that mean you're just relying on word of mouth or are you so busy you're not worrying about growing the company?

 

[callthatgirl]

What you wrote out is pretty much my simple marketing, but executing it has been some of my struggles. If you have a good marketing campaign, you have to stick with it. Mine is like that, but includes more videos, it's just doing it all. Tough when you don't have help. Easy when I had an assistant though, wow...she really did a great job.

 

[Toshia]

I was just going to post a question similiar. What we have found in our field, a stranger just isn't going to let you in the door. We give hefty referrals for contracts signed for small businesses. But I think this is where it will become great. Becoming a full on MSP providor. Word of mouth seems to be the best advertisement. So find a way to build relationships, meet people and remind EVERYONE what your goal is. Good luck. Nothing comes easy.

 

[georgenoise]

Aside from the front counter the store items aren't expensive and much of it can be purchased at home depot.

If you don't mind me asking where exactly did you get your front counter? I'm in the process of remodeling and looking for something similar but am coming up short. Maybe they sell it at Lowe's or Home Depot and I'm just overlooking it. This is my first remodel, right now I look more like the second picture and it drives me buggy.

We service both residential and SMB. It's presentable enough to both but I believe it's about perceived perception and first impressions when someone walks through your door. To me it shouldn't matter what the back work area behind the door looks like because the customer shouldn't be back there anyway, just like a restaurant kitchen. You get the customer in from the curb appeal, you gain there trust by their perceived perception of the business area, and you gain their trust from you or your employees appearance and professionalism. At least that's how I feel about it.

Anyway, thanks for any info on the counters you can provide.

 

[ComputerPro]

If you don't mind me asking where exactly did you get your front counter? I'm in the process of remodeling and looking for something similar but am coming up short. Maybe they sell it at Lowe's or Home Depot and I'm just overlooking it. This is my first remodel, right now I look more like the second picture and it drives me buggy.

We service both residential and SMB. It's presentable enough to both but I believe it's about perceived perception and first impressions when someone walks through your door. To me it shouldn't matter what the back work area behind the door looks like because the customer shouldn't be back there anyway, just like a restaurant kitchen. You get the customer in from the curb appeal, you gain there trust by their perceived perception of the business area, and you gain their trust from you or your employees appearance and professionalism. At least that's how I feel about it.

Anyway, thanks for any info on the counters you can provide.

We bought those from another business which had them custom built then did a little customizing ourselves. They are all wired up with conduit underneath and 4 gang outlets in each section which makes it nice and handy. I haven't seen anything like that in a retail store. Building them would be best but very expensive unless you do yourself. Try finding something where companies are going out of business for the best deal by far. The counters were in 4 sections that we bolted together. The counter faces are straight but the top countertop is curved which is something I could never really do building it myself as i'm just not good with those kinds of things. You can see it better here when it was in our old shop.

The bench countertops and cabinets were mostly from Home Depot. The gridwall can be purchased anywhere online for a pretty good price. We found a store supply warehouse in a neighboring city which we got most of ours from. We are big gridwall advocates lol. We use it for mounting equipment also. It provides super great airflow and wire management. You can zip tie devices right to the grid which makes changing stuff very easy!
Here is a client who had this under their desk. We installed a small piece of gridwall under the desk to cleanup a bit.

We've always done the repairs in the main area separated by a big counter instead of a back tech room for a few main reasons. It looks kind of cool for the customers to see ( as long as it's tidy ) and you can ask/answer questions as you are right there near them without disappearing into a back room. The big counter makes a natural barrier and customers naturally just don't walk past it unless we ask them back there for some reason. I know most shops have the rooms separated though. Good luck on your remodel and have a happy new year!

 

[fencepost]

It's not as pretty as the grid, but I have to admit that there are many times where we'll attach things with Velcro a non-branded hook-and-loop tape that we can get in 0.75-1" width on what to me seem like fairly huge rolls. Afraid I don't have a link handy, Monoprice has something comparable in 5-yard rolls, I think what we've been getting is at least 3x that length but only in black. An appropriate length of that, with a screw or two through a washer then through the tape, and you have something that's a very convenient way to fasten a small switch, cable bundle, power brick, etc. to a wall or the underside of a desk.

If doing it to the underside of a desk, get the goggles. Really. You'll thank me so much for making you spend that $3-5 after the first time you forget and get particleboard countertop sawdust in your eye.

 

[ChipsPC]

How would you rate our store, we try the best we can with the small shop we have (keeping an eye out for a bigger store) we have improved it a bit since the pictures, we are on a back street but have out own instore PC builder as well as stock a range of items all the way upto razer and madcatz peripherals

 

[ComputerPro]

How would you rate our store, we try the best we can with the small shop we have (keeping an eye out for a bigger store) we have improved it a bit since the pictures, we are on a back street but have out own instore PC builder as well as stock a range of items all the way upto razer and madcatz peripherals

It's a nice setup. Our store theory is just a little opposite as we try to have the customer area devoid of any merchandise, products etc. That way we keep theft to just about zero. We have them come back behind the counter so say show them something on their system on a case by case basis.

You've made great use of the space though. It looks colorful and things are spaced out nice and even. I like the use of the slatwall and I saw the piece of grid with cables on it which is cool too. For a smaller shop you guys stock a pretty decent amount of products too. It's almost like being in a candy store

 

[ChipsPC]

lol thanks. believe it or not in 3 years we have not had a issue with theft. mainly because customers have to come to us(detestation shop on a back street) rather than been on a high street.

Ps love your store and website. our website needs a little tlc. got alot on their but needs cleaning up a bit. something to do on my days off lol.

www.WeFixanyComputer.com.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

We bought those from another business which had them custom built then did a little customizing ourselves. They are all wired up with conduit underneath and 4 gang outlets in each section which makes it nice and handy. I haven't seen anything like that in a retail store. Building them would be best but very expensive unless you do yourself. Try finding something where companies are going out of business for the best deal by far. The counters were in 4 sections that we bolted together. The counter faces are straight but the top countertop is curved which is something I could never really do building it myself as i'm just not good with those kinds of things. You can see it better here when it was in our old shop.

The bench countertops and cabinets were mostly from Home Depot. The gridwall can be purchased anywhere online for a pretty good price. We found a store supply warehouse in a neighboring city which we got most of ours from. We are big gridwall advocates lol. We use it for mounting equipment also. It provides super great airflow and wire management. You can zip tie devices right to the grid which makes changing stuff very easy!
Here is a client who had this under their desk. We installed a small piece of gridwall under the desk to cleanup a bit.

We've always done the repairs in the main area separated by a big counter instead of a back tech room for a few main reasons. It looks kind of cool for the customers to see ( as long as it's tidy ) and you can ask/answer questions as you are right there near them without disappearing into a back room. The big counter makes a natural barrier and customers naturally just don't walk past it unless we ask them back there for some reason. I know most shops have the rooms separated though. Good luck on your remodel and have a happy new year!

I always love seeing pics of your shop, both new and old, so inspiring!

 

[ComputerPro]

I always love seeing pics of your shop, both new and old, so inspiring!

Lol, thanks man. Thanks for the N-Able tips and info by the way. I'm starting to grasp this monster finally. I can feel it's power under the hood but it has a much bigger learning curve than Continuum did. We will need them to accept our counter offer to come aboard I think which if they agree to then we'll sign on the dotted line right away. I just have to feel comfortable rolling this bad boy out at clients without it blowing up or backfiring on us. That is the one positive thing I can say about Continuum, fairly easy on the initial setup and super easy to deploy and understand after that. I'm just getting addicted to the extra power and tools that N-Able has.