Are you an expert in your field?

While making cold calls the other day, I answered a call from an unfamiliar area code. "This is Joe, how can I help you?" I answered. "I need to cancel my advertising" the other voice responded. Before I just rolled over and died, I reverted to my time trusted technique of talking unrealistic or remorseful buyers off of the edge of advertisement cancellation by asking the question; why?

Time and time again, the answer is something to the effect of, it doesn't work or I just haven't any calls.

"I haven't had one single call from this ad..." As I looked in to the file of the disgruntled client I noticed the company, a garage door installation and repair company, had just started the advertising three months prior to the present phone call.

Usually after a brief exchange I am able to ask the question, "what were your expectations of this ad when you purchased it?" Which they usually let on that they were hoping for just 1 or 2 jobs to come from it. This generally opens the door for my answer of, "let's give it longer than a few months to work. We signed a contract for a full 12 months so why not let the ad run and try and track our results and then make a decision?"

Being in my position of managing advertising accounts after they are sold, I am responsible for the retention of those ads year after year. The companies that have successful ad campaigns for the most part follow the same set of practices of tracking, following up and prospecting. The companies that are not successful make six common mistakes.

1. They Do Not Give the Ad Time to Work. Advertising is intangible and you WILL NOT see results over night. 12 months is a good time frame to fully judge if the advertising was a success.

2. They Do Not Track Calls. No one will know better than you if the advertising works. So many times I ask the question,do you track calls?" 8 out of 10 times the answer is undoubtedly; yes. To that I follow up with, "what does your tracking system look like?" 8 out of 10 times there is silence on the other end of the call. I don't ask this question to be rude or condescending but to make the point that you can not just ask people where they got your name and consider that a tracking system. You need to track which advertising media is driving your calls, the percentage of those calls you are closing, the cost per close and what types of jobs your ads are driving, (repairs, installations, etc.) Along with that you should track names, numbers and addresses of each call, this will help you keep records of what money is coming in and out of the business and help you follow up with customers later with things like newsletters, thank yous, etc. If you spend $250.00 a month on advertising you want to make sure that at the end of a 12 month advertising campaign you have had you grossed at least $3000.00 in jobs over that same 12 month period from an advertising campaign.

3. They Look at Advertising as a Main Source of Income. While some sales people will tell you this is a good school of thought, the realist in me will tell you that word of mouth, your reputation is the best source of income for you. No amount of advertising can repair a damaged reputation.

4. They Purchase an Ad on Emotion. Make the sales person earn the money they are making by asking open ended, detailed questions. Make sure you distinguish between web hits and phone calls if you are doing web based advertising as some sales people will intentionally not go into detail when discussing the difference in the two. While there is a strong correlation between web hits and phone calls, web hits are not phone calls. Ask how many households or individuals you are potentially reaching and what the demographic of that population is.

Products like Angie's List, a network of members that pay a monthly fee to search for the best of the best contractors in their area and respective service category and rate them on that service, bost their members are in the top 15% of wage earners in the U.S. This type of statistic ensures that while you may not be reaching the entire metro area like Yellow Pages or local TV commercials, you are gaining an audience that has the money to spend and willing to spend it.

5. They Do Not Take a Pro-Active Approach to Advertising. Probably three times a month I hear, "I shouldn't have to track calls for this to work." I usually reply, with "You are correct but with out tracking how do you know it is not working?" Pro-active, is following up on that job you didn't get and asking the tough follow up questions. I have one client who has recently hit a dry patch as most companies that look for "low hanging fruit" are experiencing right now. After listening to her rant about how people are shopping around a lot in this economic climate, I asked her, "What happens when someone tells you they are choosing someone else because of price?" "What do you mean?" she replied. "Do you ask what type of materials the other companies are using?" I answered. "No, why would I do that," she asked.

Because now more than ever unsavory or unskilled contractors will use cheap products to get by, and most homeowners or customers don't know the difference between the low end products and the high end products. While you won't get everyone of those clients back by asking that question, it is safe to say some of them may rethink not using your service when they discover for themselves that they are saving on materials now, but what will happen when the material (what ever it may be) the other contractor used is exposed to a year of weathering?

6. They cut Advertising When Times are Hard. This is the best time to be advertising. You do not want to lose your presence with the base you have worked so hard to develop. Not advertising will not help you get any more jobs than you had before. Ad agencies also may be able to negotiate more now than ever, so if you have a specific budget in mind and it is realistic, throw it out there and see what happens, you may be surprised.