Since 2008, The UK has found itself in the deepest recession of recent years. As such, you’d be forgiven for thinking that your potential new customers are buying purely on price alone. But even though money might be incredibly tight, more often than not, they don’t.

This doesn’t mean that they don’t factor in price – of course they do. Everyone does, but it’s value on which people will base their decisions. The benefits of dealing with you, your company and the level of service you provide, plus the quality of product or service you’re offering will create a perception of value in your potential client’s heads.

Of course, many people will want to feel they have got the best deal – but the cheapest is rarely the best, and customers are acutely aware of that.

If they believe they’re getting good value at an affordable price, they’ll buy.

Good value vs. too good to be true

Imagine you’re taking the other half away for a short break and you call up a few B&Bs to find prices.

The first place you call has several free rooms available and is willing to offer you bed, breakfast and an evening meal for just £10 per head. The second offers you the same thing, but they’re asking £40 per head, the third offers the same thing at £35 per head.

What is your immediate perception? Are you going to stay at the £10 B&B, the £40 or the £35 one?

Does the cheaper option look more attractive or worryingly suspicious?

There might be a very good reason that the first B&B is just £10, but based on immediate perception and price alone, it’s likely that you’ll be thinking that there must be something wrong!

Adding value

You wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes that were 2 sizes too small just because they were cheap, would you?

You would buy them because they fitted well, because of what they were made of, because they were stylish, because they were ideal for the job, or whatever other reason you may have before handing over your hard earned cash. You’d also want to know that what you were buying was worth the money being asked. The same applies to everything you buy.

The more someone knows about you and your product or service, the more they’re likely to buy from you and it’s the benefits of dealing with you which add that all important value. However, if you asked your customers what the benefits of your product or service are, would they know? If they don’t, then they won’t be able to add value to your proposition.

Have a quick look at this link and see if you can work out the features of your business and turn them into benefits for your customers to help them to buy from you.

Don’t be tempted to take the easy route

It’s important to make the most of every enquiry, and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to achieve this by talking on the telephone. Instead, if it’s at all possible – and no matter what your company sells – you should arrange to visit your customer in their home.

Of course, in visiting your customer you’ll be able to provide a more accurate price when you know what the job entails, but you’ll also give yourself the opportunity to build vital rapport with your customer and talk them through the benefits of dealing with you.

If the customer likes and, more importantly, trusts you, the more likely you are to win the business and less emphasis you’ll need to put on offering the cheapest quote.

Testimonials make all the difference

Whether they tell you or not, people these days will almost always want to speak to some of your existing customers, or at the very least, read what your customers have to say about you. This may be in the form of online testimonials or by them talking to your customers over the phone.

Whatever they choose, make sure you have a bank of happy customers available who are willing to act as a testimonial for you and your business. This adds massive peace of mind, which in turn adds value, which then makes your price more attractive.

The more reasons you give to buy, the more likely your prospect will become a customer and the less they will focus on price.

Try it. I think you’ll be surprised.

With so much traffic going through Google, and with SEO being such a slow, expensive option, why wouldn’t you want to try it?

So we did, and we were stunned by the results!

We chose one of our under-optimised tradesmen sites (a for a customer who runs a plastering business) and set up a Google PPC account.

With a reasonable budget of £250 per month, we committed to a 3 month program of Google’s multi-billion dollar revenue generating business - pay-per-click, or PPC as they call it.

Rather than fall into any traps and make costly errors, we went to the extent of hiring the services of a Google Adwords approved pay-per-click expert to create our adverts and manage our account. The (reduced) fee for this was £125.

In order to get one of the top positions we 'out-bid' many of our competitors, which meant our cost per click was arguably higher than it could have been (Google works on a bidding process - the person willing to pay the most per click is shown first, the one paying the least is shown as the last ad), but we wanted to get a strong position and a return quite quickly.

What we discovered

What we discovered made some interesting but also frightening reading.

It took, on average, 23 clicks to generate 1 inbound phone call, and, during the test period, 2.4 phone calls to generate 1 sale. Average sale value from the PPC campaign was just £120. This was, apparently a little lower than our customer had expected.

Interestingly, when we compared this to calls generated through 'organic' listings, the conversion rate was 1.8 inbound phone calls to generate a sale. This could have been due to a number of factors, but it did suggest that people who clicked on Google's 'Ads' seemed to be more intent on getting multiple quotes, or were searching out more of a bargain.

Our stats were, according to our expert, quite typical.

The statistics

The results we achieved effectively meant that each sale of £120 cost us a total of £65.68 (56 clicks at £1.19 per click average). This meant that more than 54% of our total income was spent to generate each sale averaging just £120 – and that doesn’t include the fees we were charged by the PPC expert for his time.

A chargeable ‘click’ proved, in the main, to be nothing more than someone looking at our site – similar to someone looking into a shop window, however, with Google, the shop owner gets charged each time this happens. Now these clicks may be from potential clients, but also there will have been some from competitors, some from casual browsers just looking for information, possibly people searching for work, and, of course, salespeople.

Whoever it was and whatever the reason for them visiting our site, we paid for the privilege of everyone clicking and visiting our landing page. Google charged us the same sum, whoever it was, however long they stayed and whether they called us or not.

Was it worth it?

The big question that has to be asked is "was it worth it?". Well, if you want to get to the top of Google quickly, easily and get instant traffic to your website, arguably yes. However, it's very expensive, and not every job that comes off it will be as small as the ones it generated for our customer, but when you look at the return on investment we achieved, it wasn't healthy enough for us to continue.

The most interesting aspect was the cost per call. It worked out at a scary £27.37 through Google’s PPC.

When you look at our prices and charges, we ask for just £12 for the same thing. As part of the bargain, our customers also get a fully optimised website which is personalised with their company details, a recording of all the calls and enquiries that we generate, no charge for non enquiries and no need to go through the painful and somewhat confusing set up procedure. We also ask for money AFTER we've sent enquiries over, not before.

I’ll let you decide which offers you the best value for money!

Phil Said:

Good article google ppc is a total rip off

However, not all tradesmen are rogues and most will do an honest and fair job for a fair price. There are key things you should look for when picking any tradesman to do work on your home – and a few things to be aware of.

• Look for testimonials online. The Internet is filling up with feedback – both positive and negative – from people who have had work done previously from tradesmen in your area. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yell.com are great places to root out feedback. Vigilance in this area will pay dividends down the line.
• If they have a website, then they’re probably a legitimate business. If they don’t, you may want to think about using them.
• Membership of trade associations should always be checked out. Never take their word for it that they are “Fair Trades approved”, “Gas Safe registered” or “A member of the FMB”. A quick call to any of these organisations will tell you if this is the case.
• If they don’t have a website, look for proof of the business through the thousands of online directories which are available and free to use. Try and avoid dealing with people who don’t have a landline and rely purely on a mobile phone.
• Paying cash might lower your bill a little – and it’s an attractive proposition given the cost of things these days, but paying cash to avoid paying VAT also often removes the need for the tradesman to hand you a receipt - your proof that the job was done should anything go wrong.
• If someone knocks on your door, suggesting they are working in your area and has some ‘stuff left over which will sort your drive out nicely”, be very aware. It’s unlikely that these will be genuine skilled chaps who offer a quality job or any guarantees.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for references or to see if you can visit the homes of former customers – certainly if you’re going to be forking out thousands of pounds for a loft conversion or a new roof.
• Good tradesmen, specifically those doing bigger jobs, such as roofing or building work, are generally quite busy. If someone comes to see you the day you call and suggests he can start work tomorrow, beware! It doesn’t mean he’s not credible, but it does mean he’s not busy. You may want to understand why.
• Guarantees are something to be extra wary of, certainly if they are just verbal. If a guarantee of work is offered, which it should be, then get that guarantee in writing. Always!
• It’s common practice to pay a deposit for work to be done, certainly for large works, but make sure you get a receipt for the money you pay and be clear as to what needs to be done before any other money is handed over.
• Never pay for a job in full before it is completed to your satisfaction.

No matter what we buy, we always want to feel we have made the right decision; one which will give us value for money, quality, reliability and, of course, no problems once we've made the purchase.

Think about your own business. What do you do or what kinds of things are you able to offer which sets you apart from your competition? What unique selling points do you and your company have? Is it your level of skill, expertise, or maybe your years of experience? Do you provide something that others in the same geographical location don’t? Maybe you are able to offer guarantees or a fit and finish which can’t be matched. Whatever it is, don't be afraid to meet and show or explain this to your potential new customer in order to try and win the business. Remember, you'll make more money if you try and sell yourself a little more and rely on people buying from you a little less! Be proud of what you do and the way you do it - get out there and tell people!

Try and put yourself in the shoes of your potential new customer. Can you rely on them to fully imagine what you are selling, or perhaps what you are capable of, or can you, in some way, show them? Perhaps you have some good quality photographs to show customers of the work you've done in the past or better still, a list of existing customers who are prepared to act as testimonials for the quality of your work and your overall reliability. Whatever it is, you need to make sure your prospective customer is aware of the reasons they should buy from you.

Be aware also, that people buy from people so, unless you're selling a tangible product and someone is after an exact comparison price on a like-for-like item, giving a quick price over the phone will almost always fail. OK, it might be quicker and cheaper to offer your price over the phone and driving out to see someone in their home does come at a cost, but the customer is always much more likely to buy from you if they are able to look you in the eye, so take the plunge and always try to arrange to go and visit your prospective customer in their home. After all, they need to be able to trust you to do the right thing and improve their home and lifestyle. Without eye contact, rapport building and the subconscious feedback gleaned from body language, people are unlikely to feel as comfortable when it comes to buying something from you.

Finally, don't feel that, in order to make more sales, you have to drop your prices. You don't. Of course, it's important to offer a product, solution or a service which is both affordable and competitively priced, but it's rare, certainly when it comes to tradesmen services in and around the home, that people actually want to buy the very cheapest of something. Instead, they'll buy whichever they feel is the one which offers the best value for money or the one which is most suited to doing the job the best - more of that to come in a future blog post, so watch this space.

Thomson Directories was a direct competitor to the Yellow Pages – who changed their name to Yell before, for some bizarre reason, becoming Hibu. With a massive drop in share prices, the writing is on the wall for this once massive publication. http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1193051/big-yellow-book-closes-hibu-handed-creditors/

1. Sign-write your van and buy an A board
   For tradesmen, sign-writing your vehicle is a must. If you’re working on someone’s house, make sure you park your van in such a way that it can be seen side-on when people pass by and better still, get a sign-written A board so that everyone can see the services you provide. You’ll be surprised at how many people will see this when passing and, of course, if you’re working on the property for a couple of days or more, it’s there even when you’re not.
2. Leaflet drop 5 doors each way
   This takes hardly any time to do, but can make all the difference. Get an inexpensive leaflet or business card created and post one through the letter box of the 5 houses to the left and the right of the house you’re working on. Make sure you write the number of the house you’re working on somewhere on the leaflet, so people can see and potentially ask the homeowner what they think to your workmanship.
3. Ask to be recommended
   Recommendation is the best form of advertising – it’s without doubt the cheapest and the one which will convert most. However, being recommended is not something you can easily control. That shouldn't stop you asking your customers to let their friends, families or neighbours know about you and your full range of services. You might want to offer a bit of an incentive (something of high value to them but low cost to you) to help loosen their tongues!
4. Gather email addresses and send a reminder
   If the service you provide is one that customers buy infrequently, make sure you keep in touch. Don’t be fooled into thinking your customers will remember you forever – they won’t. Even if they've been delighted with the work you've done, the first thing they’ll forget is your phone number, followed very quickly by your company name. When they you’re your service again, how can you make sure they call you? Most people have an email address these days so why not keep in touch with them via email, monthly, quarterly or just annually. It’s free and easy to use.
5. Don’t forget to tell people of your full range of services!
   Existing customers make the best prospects if you want to increase sales, but do all your existing customers know of all the services you provide? How many of your satisfied customers will look elsewhere when they want a job doing because they “didn't know you did that”? You may want to tell them during a quick ‘satisfaction survey’ follow-up call to your customer (doing this will really set you apart from your competition). Alternatively, a simple, pre-written “Thank you for your custom” email once you have completed the job, which lists the other services you provide, can often lead to additional work.