Issues 12: Nothing sucks seeds NOTHING SUCKS SEEDS...…like a budgie with false teeth. Success breeds success, as they say. Just don't ask England's football team, that's all. Get the staff, especially the sales staff, feeling good and as a result everything else gets better. All it needs is a bit of success. One thing Windowbase customers note is a positive feeling in the air, and always long enough for someone to pull in at least one new customer. Margins are squeezed, so everyone needs to be much more concentrated. What sort of a future are you facing? Or daren't you look that far? On the bright side, Windowbase customers, by making good use of their data, are get out there and make it happen - targeting their activities more accurately. A better aim means they are more likely to score. Even Alan Shearer can remember that. Good marketing is about getting a match between what you do and what your best customers want - and that's not just an art. A bit of straight-forward science doesn't go amiss, and that's where computers come into their own, because they can process lots of useful data a lot quicker (and more accurately) to tell you where to find more business, your best business.
THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME...Yes, this could be the last time I write to you. Our statistics show that, starting from the bottom, names are dropping off our lists with alarming regularity. We all read, in the trade press, that the replacement window industry is “mature” but maybe we don't all know exactly what it means... nor how it affects paying the mortgage. The fact is the rich are getting richer and the poor are - well, they're just disappearing, really. These are not just businesses, of course, but people's jobs and everything else that follows. There is only so much work to go round and, as the days pass, there will be less and less of it. Each quarter we update Windowbase data, about 250 records disappear. Mostly small installers though, from time to time, a big name goes to the wall. One or two come back, with new names (and no creditors) but, in the main, small firms are going out of business - many of them for good. On the other hand, the big companies are doing better than ever. How can this be? If there's only so much work, how come it's the big companies that are taking such a big share? The answer is efficiency. Instead of trying to win market share by offering windows at bargain basement prices, they're selling quality of service - something they can afford to do because they never got involved in the Dutch auction. How many times have we all read that it's bad business selling on price alone? Tiny margins mean missing out on the details that customers want. Corners are cut and, as a result, fitters have to go back and put things right when they could be fitting new windows. While the minnows struggle, sharks are swimming around, gobbling them up. The various industry awards tell us everything we need to know. Sharks Windows turnover went from 15 million in 97/8 to 26 million in 98/9. Somehow, they managed to find an extra 11 million worth of work. One company takes the equivalent of twenty-or-so companies' work away in one year and turns it into efficiency, so that it can do exactly the same again next year. It pays to do business with sharks, rather than minnows.
HUNDREDS of SPECIFIERSThe New Year sees the release of the brand new housing specifiers data. Local authorities and housing associations, contacts, addresses, phone numbers and full coverage of their requirements for doors and windows. Always one of the most popular databases, because it does so many jobs - checking that your sales force has got it right, filling in the holes where they haven't and, most important of all, showing where the market has already dried up. No need to bother with a particular borough council if all their houses have replacement windows, or its stock has been transferred to a housing association. As you would expect, the new data comes with more fields than ever before, telling you just about everything you need to know. Order it on Monday and mailshot your brochure by Friday. NOW you're talking! The number of local authorities that are moving their housing stock into housing association ownership is growing, and you need to keep abreast of developments. Windowbase has the details, with all the addresses, phone numbers and contacts to match. Maybe you could do with a sample disk, to see how good it is. Readable in all the usual database software as well as spreadsheets like Excel, the design allows you to add as many fields as you like, so that you can record the essentials you need to know. When you made your last call, when the next one's due. How much they're desperate to spend before the end of the financial year, that sort of thing. Why not ask for a sample disk? Just call Martin Harrison on 01782 680055. To make a profit in the specifier market, you need to be efficient, and efficiency isn't letting reps drive round the country, making appointments that suit them. They need a better sense of direction, and we're not talking about knowing how to read a map here. Your company needs to know who's spending, and what they're spending it on. Sort the wheat from the chaff. Get your message accurate from the start, and get better results. GOYA Goya's the name of a painter, everyone knows that. It's also one those acronyms that crops up now and again. GOYA stands for: Get Off Your Ah . . . but that would be rude! You only have to drive round the average housing estate to know that most of the people who want replacement windows already have them. Where you see tatty old painted frames, the odds are you'll also see an X-reg Fiesta on the drive. Times have changed. If you haven't changed by now, the heat is on. How do the Big Boys do it? One thing's for sure, they aren't spending all their profits on advertising because it's too hit-and-miss. Spending thousands on advertising means waiting for the phone to ring, or for the reply-paid cards to be delivered. And waiting isn't the same as doing. To cut it in today's shark-infested waters, be pro-active. Instead of waiting for them to get in touch with you, get in touch with them. With the right data, you have all the leads you could ever want. If you're selling to the window industry, Windowbase already knows the name of your next customer. All you have to do is ask. It can cost less than 200. Unless you're selling direct to the public, data seems to come, as often as not, from used phone books. A company's life-blood, its actual market, is reduced to scratching around in old directories. Hardly surprising it doesn't produce the right results. What a waste of time and resources. Instead of making all those calls, trying to find out who does what, it still hasn't occurred to everyone that they can buy the data and be using it the same week. It costs thousands, right? Would Windowbase be writing to you if the data it was offering costs less than 200? Oh yes, indeed! Surely 200 isn't going to break the bank . . . ? Think about it for a moment - everything you need to know, and we're talking about precise and accurate mailing labels here, for less than the cost of just one small order. Exactly the same information as Windowbase supplies to all the biggest names in the industry can be at your disposal for less than 200. Not as much as the profile systems people get, obviously, but then not everyone needs computer data on nearly 9,000 fabricators and installers the length and breadth of Britain. If you can't afford 200, then you ARE in trouble!
PAY PEANUTS...Data, if it's to earn its keep, has to be manageable. How can you manage it otherwise? Take a look at what's on offer. If you fancy taking a pop at one area in the country, to hit it hard and get results, you only need a good strategy and the right people to try it on. That's the catch, isn't it? The RIGHT people. It's all very well getting one of the junior clerical staff to copy out names and addresses from directories. Can Sharon type accurately? Did she get an A-Level in Geography? Would your potential customer, if he worked in, say, Wotton-under-Edge, be impressed by his address saying Wotton Underbridge? (They got the street number wrong too, incidentally and, to make matters worse, they claim to be the next big service to hit the trade! These people proudly state that their mailing list is sourced from accurate and researched customer records . . . God help us!) And who's going to check if Sharon's data entry is any good? Do YOU have the time? Pay peanuts and get monkeys, as they say. Or, just as easily, pay peanuts and get top-notch quality. Your choice. HOW GOOD IS GOOD? Lots of companies run their own databases and they are all as near to perfect as makes no different - apparently. The best way to check is to put your address on the back of the envelopes in your next mailshot, and see how many are returned as undelivered. One new Windowbase customer decided to call in the professionals after they got 300 of their letters back. That's 300 letters, 300 envelopes, 300 stamps and 300 brochures - and all the time and effort that went into it. They realised that the size of their database was less important than its accuracy. They didn't have the time to clean data every three months, or even to check for accuracy and so on. They decided to start again. This time, they said, they were going to do it RIGHT. They didn't want data from a mailing house but from the window industry specialists. And they threw their old phone books out. Phone books don't tell you whether the listing is for a fabricator or an installer. Display ads mean that someone paid a lot of money for their listing - but that's all. Postcodes would be nice, and the name of a contact. Yours, all yours, for less than 200. You save yourself a lot of grief and time and, if you're doing it half right, you pick up at least one new order to pay for it all. Then, you just do it again and again, getting better at it all the time. It is as simple as that. If you want to know how well it's going, maybe mailing labels (and you can have follow-up lists with the phone numbers, too) won't be suitable for checking progress. That's when you turn to data on disk. Costs a fortune, right? Go on. Have a guess! Or, instead, you might like to ask for price lists . . . and be amazed that what you need costs a lot less than you feared. Phone Mike Davis now and ask him for some information. His number is 01706 644308 and he'll offer you a range of options.
THE QUALITY INDEXCompanies in the window industry with Quality Assurance (whether it be Kitemark, ISO 9000 or BBA) will soon be featured on the country's first specialist website, called The Quality Index. Freely accessible to specifiers or anyone who wants to know who actually has certification, The Quality Index will, at last, say who's actually got what they claim. In the New Year, the housing specifiers database will be released, showing who needs what in the way of windows and doors. Whether they be housing associations or local authorities, the details will be at your fingertips. If they want quality assurance, they'll be hitting the website for detais of who's got what. Will your company's name appear? For more information, phone Martin Harrison on 01691 829201. |