In This Issue

Dear Friend:

April is here, and it is time for spring. Many of us have hibernated over the long winter months and are now ready to enjoy the changing weather. The earth’s renewal is a good reminder for us to renew our commitment to building our business in the upcoming year.

I have always found that my current customers are a great resource for new business. Countless times I have had the beginnings of a phone call start with something similar to "My friend John suggested that I give you a call." Our customers are referring our services — and we take pride in the fact that they liked the work that we did for them so much that they are willing to share our name with their friends. We should always be conscientious of the business that comes from referrals — and we should do everything in our power to increase the amount of business that comes from referrals. How? Read on as we dispel common referral myths and offer up 5 simple things you can do to grow your referral business.

- Mitch Lapides, HomeTech Building Business Ideas

P.S. Results are in! Thank you to everyone who answered our brief survey on this newsletter. We are thrilled that so many of you chose to respond, and we are very excited about the information you volunteered. At the end of this newsletter, we share the results of this survey.

P.P.S. Please help us out by answering three quick questions on how you currently use email for your sales and marketing efforts. Click here.

The Power of Referrals

It is human nature to want to help your fellow man. Every one of us at one point or another has probably been asked for a recommendation on a good local restaurant, a dentist or a book to read. And we are happy to offer up our suggestions and often add in advice supporting our recommendations — which entrée is the one to try, what parking is available at the dentist office or if the book is a quick read or not. We are referring our family, friends and associates on any number of things each and every day.

The same holds true in the remodeling and renovation industry. With an average of 40-45% of remodeling business coming via referrals, it is critical that you understand why people refer and what you can do to increase the referrals your own firm gets.

The Referral Myths to Overcome
Many of us think that our work speaks for itself. Not true. Just because you do a good job, don’t expect to get referred. You need to develop and maintain a referral-generating effort as you would with any marketing effort in order to reap the rewards of referral business.

Many of us also think that referrals come only from our customers. If you are one of these people, you are missing out on a whole host of referral opportunities. Referrals can come from a variety of sources including:

Business competitors. Your fellow remodeler who competes with you for some of your business, can also be a great ally for sending you business. Project scope and timeframe can both be influencing factors for why a competitor would want to give a potential customer your name to get the work done. Likewise, making a concerted effort to refer your clientele base to competitors when you are unable to complete a project only leads to building referral business amongst your competitive set.

Business suppliers. The local hardware store, plumbing supplier and home store are all suppliers to industry professionals and most likely, to homeowners and consumers as well. Building a relationship with business suppliers to refer you to homeowners and consumers can be another great source of referral business.

Part of your referral effort can be developed quite easily, all it takes is a consistent commitment to making sure you maintain the effort. Five easily implemented referral efforts include:

1. Personally thank customers for their referrals.
   This sounds so simple, yet too few businesses actually thank customers for referral business. A simple phone call, post card or hand-written letter acknowledging your customer’s efforts goes a long way.
2. Incent customers to refer you.
   The incentive does not need to be large, just ample enough to let your customers know that you appreciate them giving your contact information to someone else. A set of movie tickets or $100 off future work are both good examples.
3. Hand out business cards and ask your customers to give them out.
   For a relatively low cost, you can produce hundreds of business cards to distribute to your customers. Make it a habit to paperclip 5 business cards to your final invoice or your thank you note asking your customers to hand them out to friends and family needing similar types of work.
4. Put up signs.
   Many customers will, when asked, be happy to have you put a sign in their yard if you are doing work for them. It gives you added visibility and encourages those who see the sign to ask your customer about you.
5. Ask for an email address.
   Ask your customer for their email address and for email addresses of friends, family or associates who they think might be interested in your services. These email addresses can be added to your prospecting email communications to generate additional business.

Not sure you can try all five of these suggestions? Pick your favorite one or two and start building your referral business today!

Additional Resources

• Business Cards
• Rapid Results Referrals

Reduce the amount of time it takes to create an estimate by using the "Assembly" feature.

The "Assembly" feature is one of the most powerful timesaving features in the HomeTech ADVANTAGE software. If you are trying to reduce the amount of time it takes to create an estimate, the "Assembly" feature can help you accomplish this. You can modify or delete existing Assemblies as well as create your own. To get the most benefits from the "Assembly" feature, you will probably need to modify the existing assemblies, and create your own new assemblies. Click here for more.

This newsletter tip is a continuation of the March 2007 tip "Using the ‘Assembly’ feature to transfer data into an estimate." Read the March 2007 Tip.

Although at least one measure indicates that remodeling activity declined by more than 6% in 2006 compared to the previous year that is less than half the decline in existing home sales last year (12.7%). The total remodeling market is approaching nearly $300 billion per year and experienced a compound annual average growth rate of 7.5% between 2000 and 2005 (4.9% after inflation).

Source: Foundations for Future Growth in the Remodeling Industry, Harvard University, Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2007

March Survey Results

Last month we asked you what you think we should write about in upcoming issues of BBI. Thank you for your response! Here’s what you told us:

The topic that most of you want more of is "estimating advice". 85% percent of you would like to see more estimating advice in future issues of BBI with 39% of you indicating that you have "significant interest" in seeing more on this topic.

65% of you would also like more sales and marketing advice — with 39% indicating a "significant interest" in seeing more on this topic.

HomeTech Information Systems, Inc. - 5110 Ridgefield Road, Suite 410 - Bethesda Maryland 800-638-8292

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