Issues 20: When you're good... WHEN YOU'RE GOOD…OUT OF THE TOP 30 trade fabricators in the country, 21 use Windowbase data. Does that tell you anything? It’s nice to know the best-performing companies come to us, obviously, but the point is they wouldn’t come to us without a very good reason.Whatever that reason is, it has to be more than coincidence that they’re all regular users of data about the window industry. They wouldn’t pay for it if it produced no visible benefit, so why do they do it?... We asked. When you’re as busy as a big trade fabricator, you haven’t got time to be constantly validating all your data. It pays to have professionals do it. They spend their time USING those records, to:
When their telesales girls are quite active, they also need to know whether one loose call is going to cost them five grand. Those who register with the TPS do so for a reason, and the reason is to hit people hard. What’s TPS? If you don’t know that one, you could be in trouble . . . read on!
WHEN YOU’RE GOOD . . .ONE MAJOR FABRICATOR rang us to compare notes, and to report that no less than 66 of their mailshot letters had been returned. It was made to sound as if their data was inaccurate.They’d mailshotted over 6,300 businesses, and 66 letters came back. Not a bad percentage that, surely? Given that data cannot be accurate because it has to decay, we were able to show them what an excellent result it was. To put it another way, can you think of any other way to mailshot 6,300 addresses and get less than 66 letters back? For anyone who imagines the likes of Yellow Pages might get a result, how many contact names and postcodes would you get that way? (And that’s assuming the base data to be up-to-date.) The answer is bugger all. So yes, we’re good, and now we have proof. It’s nice, too, when customers also know it. All of which brings us full circle - the reason the Top Performers come to us is that they’re doing things the right way, and we help them.
MEMORY LANETRADE FABRICATORS KNOW WHAT WORKS. It’s quite possible that you’re quite happy with the way things are going but, every now and again, you need to invest in new equipment, and it’s usually about that time when someone says: we’re going to need more orders to pay for this.And those orders aren’t going to come out of the blue. Worse, if they’re going to come at all, it’s going to take time - and the clock’s ticking, as those costs are not being recouped quickly enough. Getting your hands on quality data isn’t enough. You have to have the system in place, up-and-running, to know your targets, know what you need to tell them, how to get your message over, and get those enquiries coming in. After that, all you need is a good sales team to convert the enquiries. How do these people get their feet on the bottom of the ladder, and start climbing up the charts? We took a look at that, too... Two companies came to us over a year ago, requesting mailing labels with follow-up lists. In both instances, they chose to focus on their own area. Obvious, that. In both cases, the companies already had what they reckoned was a “mailing list” but, when they had checked it, there were enough concerns about its quality for it to be worth trying a new approach. Specifically, one so-called mailing list was given to them as a complete list of every installer in the West Midlands. It turned out to be a historical document - a walk down Memory Lane. It’s interesting, one lunchtime, to swap anecdotes about this company and that, and wonder what happened to someone, but it doesn’t pay the bills. The other was their own database, built up over four years. Better than ours, obviously, as it had far more names on it. (Except - surprise, surprise -over a third of them had gone!) By all means, take up the offer of free data when it’s a list of everyone who went to this exhibition or that in 1999, or who signed up for a trade mag but, if you do, is a walk down Memory Lane the right way to go?
TPSWHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW which installers are limited companies? If you don’t think it’s important, you’ve got another think coming! If your records aren’t too accurate on this matter, you might give them a ring to drum up some business. Not exactly cold calling but close.If it’s a Limited Company, you can do this BUT, if it’s a Sole Trader or a “Trading As”, you could be in Big Trouble. Five grand’s worth. TPS isn’t something British Telecom go out of their way to tell us about. Why should they? It’s a service that discourages using the phone. TPS is the Telephone Preference Service, and it’s to help (mostly domestic) customers who have become sick and tired of cold calling. They register with the TPS and, a month later, anyone whose telesales girls ring them could be racking up fines at five grand a time. Some lass, in need of cash to pay this quarter’s electricity bill, can seriously hurt your cashflow. Limited Companies can’t register. They can’t be protected from cold calling. Sole traders can. So ask yourself, before making any more calls: do I really know whether it’s Warmhouse UK Ltd or actually Joe Bloggs t/a Warmhouse UK. What’s the difference? Five grand. For each and every mistake you make!
A SMALL PRICE TO PAY?THE FAX PREFERENCE SERVICE is the same principle, except it applies to absolutely everyone. It’s all very well believing you’ve just found a great new way to make contact cheaply - by using fax software to call hundreds of businesses in the middle of the night - but, if one of those numbers is also the domestic line for a One Man Band with a phone by the bed, he’s not going to thank you for the wonderful news, at two in the morning, of your bargain offer.
He’s more likely to register with FPS and hit you with his own offer that you (literally) won’t be able to refuse. So, what does five grand buy you, these days? It can either be a single fine or it can be a huge amount of Top Quality data, accurate data, at a time when you really do need to know what’s what. There’s all sorts of ways of finding out what was what but, to see the way forward, all you have to do is log on to our website: www.winbase.co.uk for a walk round your options. Anything from a couple of hundred quid’s worth of labels to a full-blown, up-and-running database. We can’t guarantee you’ll be in the Top Twenty this time next year, but at least you’ll be heading in the right direction. Others have already done it, so they’re already making inroads into their competitors’ market share. If you don’t take a test drive, how can you know how good it is? Go on - take a look at the website, or call Mike Davis on 01706 644308 for more information. |