As we all know, the life of a pool guy isn't always the easiest these days. Between the economy, the election uncertainties, and the housing market, I'm sure most of us are having a rough time selling the number of pools we need to in order to experience success. Where I'm located in Virginia, leads for new pool construction have dropped drastically in the past couple of months. This lack of leads has also forced our company to look at this winter and ask ourselves a variety of questions, with the main one being something along the lines of, "How do we not lose our tails over the next 4-5 months?"......I'm sure many of you are asking similar questions and looking for ways to combat this difficult slow-down. I feel Pool Genius is a perfect way for all of us to bounce such ideas off of each other and find strength, ideas, and even prosperity through the potential synergy that such a site can provide. Because most of my time is spent on the 'Sales/Marketing' side of the pool business, I plan on contributing occasional thoughts to my fellow 'Geniuses' ;-) on this subject.About a week ago I was contemplating my lack of sales appts. and what I could do about it. Not wanting to drop a bunch of money on advertising, my thoughts were turned to the 500 leads I've recieved this year who had ordered our free DVD online. In order to recieve this DVD, the customer must give us their address and email information. So armed with about 500 names and emails, I decided to send an email to each one of these perspective clients explaining to them why they should purchase a pool now versus waiting until next year. I also explained that our company was offering the 'River Pools and Spas Economic Stimulus Package', and it would be well worth their financial bottom line to take advantage of such an opportunity.(Keep in mind that these emails went out the week the government bailed out the banks and the DOW was dropping like a rock)...Each email was addressed individually to the customer with their name to add a personal touch. It took some time to do it this way but I didn't want customers to feel as if they had recieved a 'mass' email.So what have been the results? Well, my goal was to go on at least 5 qualified appts before I sent out the emails. Thus far, I have set up 6 appts and have recieved many comments from others expressing their desire to purchase a pool from our company in the Spring. From these 6 appts, I'll likely sell 3 or 4 pools, which will mean the effort was a great success considering I didn't spend a dime on advertising.My point here is that more than ever we must all take the time to be creative and persistent with our sales and marketing efforts. When it comes down to it, we've just got to do what it takes, and we can't allow economic conditions to deter our efforts. This time period can be one of tremendous growth for all of us on a personal and business level if we diligently take the time each day to contemplate what we CAN do versus what we CAN'T do.I hope this little blog may help each of you in some way and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on sales and maketing (and every other subject for that matter) in the future.
Read more…
