If you were shrewd enough to read my Hiring a Contractor article, you will have gained some little insight into how to market your service to your customers right from the start. Oh there’s that magic word, I said it “Marketing”. It can mean almost anything, but for your sake it means getting the customers you want and the jobs priced well enough so you can pay yourself and your employees wages, and have a profit left over.
So most floor contractors believe that marketing begins and ends with advertising. The truth is the ad is only the start of marketing yourself to the world. So if you have the patience I’ll tell you all my secrets of how to get all the jobs you need for the money you want. And that’s the main thing you’ve got to accomplish, it’s your job to become the ideal tradesman, you’ve got a lot to learn.
The first thing to do is to promptly return any incoming calls yourself. Not the secretary and not your spouse. You are the expert, and you need to present yourself up front right away. I make most of my return calls in the evening after 7 pm. And also I stop work about 11:30 and call the people who left work numbers the day before or that morning. Of course I try to check my answering machine several times a day.
The first thing I say over the phone is always my name and the company name, and right away I say, HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY?. No matter what mood I am in or how tired I am I always listen to everything the potential client asks and tells me. I usually have to ask them a series of questions to clarify their situation. I am interested in what type of wood floor they have, and I am genuinely interested in how old the floor is. They may have already been to a showroom, and have already decided the brand of new floor they now want you to install. Here is where you can stand above the others calls they may have made.
You should ask them about the subfloor, and help them try to determine if a prefinished floor is really suitable to their situation. They may know little about what is under their carpet, and it will be up to you to do an estimate that includes doing any needed repairs, shimming or beefing up of the subfloor in order to make sure the installation will go well. They may need quarter round, and this you can provide for a reasonable price, and material that will match the floor. You might want to include moving furniture in and out of the job, so that they can just sit back and enjoy the process.