Garage door industry magazine for garage door dealers, garage door manufacturers, garage door distributors, garage door installers, loading docks, garage door operators and openers, gates, and tools for the door industry.
Issue link: https://idoi.epubxp.com/i/216705
Las Vegas, April 23-26, 2014 STAND OUT! ASSOCIATIONNEWS By Larry Mersereau Every potential buyer in your market is a total stranger until they discover you. They can discover you either of two ways: Either they somehow stumble across you...maybe by driving past your facility or seeing your vehicles on the street, or you go out and fnd them and make your presence known. Which do you think is preferable? In the former, they are left to formulate their own impression of your business. If your lot is littered with stacks of old door panels and hardware, or your vehicle cut them off in traffc, the impression isn't going to be a good one. In the latter, you get to help them formulate the impression that you want them to have. Through business development activity, you can educate your public (consumer and business-to-business) about what your doors are all about, why it's important to them, and why you are the only business they should consider buying them from. In my session at the IDAExpo™, I'll show you how to use your Brand Ladder to plan the process of taking people from 'total stranger' to 'customer,' all the way to 'evangelist.' Evangelists tell their friends about you, post pictures of the door you installed on their Facebook account…even log on to Angies list to tell the world how wonderful you are. I'll be talking about exactly what you can do to make sure you methodically move people up your ladder, step by step, and to develop more of those evangelists. Just getting them to recognize your name is the frst rung on your "brand ladder." Marketing experts say it takes seven exposures just to get people to recognize your name. (They call it "the rule of seven.") The next step is awareness. That means they can recall your name from memory if asked to list everyone they can think of that sells what you sell. That brings up the other rule of seven: People can only recall up to seven items in any one category. Try this: Write down the names of all of the brands of washing machines you can think of. If you came up with seven, you're excep- 74 International Door & Operator Industry™ Your Toolbox for Success April 23-26, 2014 • Las Vegas www.IDAExpo.org tional. Most people come up with two, three, maybe four. That means that if you're not one of the frst two or three names that come to mind when your prospect is ready to buy, you're not even in the game. They will call one of those frst names frst. If they do their job, they'll get the sale. So, you spend a lot of money, time and/or energy to get to the "recognition" rung on the brand ladder. You spend still more to get to the "awareness" step. If you were the one the prospect called, stopped in, or even just visited your web site when they were ready to start looking, you got them to the "acceptance" step. They've accepted you as worthy of consideration. Important note: They can jump off your brand ladder at any step, never to return again. It's important to have a plan in place to make sure their experience at every step is positive. If you get them up to the "preference" step, they have decided you are the one they are going to buy from. Look back at all of the steps, all of the money and work it took to get the prospect to that frst sale. You've made a huge investment to get that frst sale. That means that your sales people have to know exactly what their doing when they get the opportunity to talk to a prospect. Hiring and training…or developing your own sales skills…is a major segment of my presentation in Las Vegas and worth the cost of registration and travel to the IDAExpo™ all by itself! Continued on page 76