In today’s economy, running a continually successful marketing strategy can be a big challenge for most. The world has evolved, and the way we reach our audience has changed. Recent studies show over 48% of small business owners say their most significant need is more customers - even beating out the need for tax cuts!

Where are these elusive potential buyers? Is there just not enough available to grow your home services company? The truth is, the customers are there - they just no longer find your business in the yellow pages or from a billboard. They have transitioned to the web.

THE essential element to attracting and converting more customers is online marketing. Sadly most companies just don’t put in the time or effort needed to see massive sales success. In fact, 56% of small businesses don’t even have a website. Of 44% that do, 50% only invest around 1% of the company budget in online marketing. It’s become clear to us here at Rizen why many small businesses have such a significant consumer drought. They don’t go to the source enough!

You have to actively engage your audience through a wide variety of online mediums. You need to create a buzz around the value you’re making in your industry. You need to show Google, first and foremost, that people are paying attention to you - that you are the closest and most relevant source for the search query you are trying to rank for. 

Online marketing is a science. It is not as elusive and unknown as some might think. The key to success is patience, research, data, and perseverance. Yes, online marketing has become more complicated, but that does not mean it is more challenging to accomplish. You just need the right roadmap. That’s where our Rev Grow program can help!

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any home services business -  large or small. An efficient brand strategy gives you a serious edge up on your competition. So what exactly does the word "branding" entail? How does quality branding impact a business like yours?

Simply put, your branding encompasses your company’s promise to the customer. It tells them what they can expect from your company’s products and services. Your branding differentiates your offering from your competitors. Your brand is who you both want to be AND what you want people to perceive you to be.

Are you the innovative company offering the latest high-tech materials and product variations in your industry? Are you the experienced, reliable business that hangs its hat on a job well done? Does your identity revolve around customer service above all else?

You could think of your home services company as all of these things - but you cannot be all things to all people. Who you are - your branding - should be based mainly on what your target customer wants you to be. What are the most critical aspects of a company they would like to hire? 

The foundation of your brand is your logo. Your website, packaging, and promotional materials--all of which should integrate your logo--communicate your brand.

Conduct research. Learn the needs, habits, and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don't rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.

Our customer psychology lessons and buyer persona tools are just among the many resources available as part of our Rev Grow program. Develop everything your company needs, from a logo to a mission statement and style guides, with our suite of tools - just for home services companies!

It’s almost impossible in today’s digitized economy to run a successful home services business without the right software tools. To meet customer expectations, increase productivity, and promote efficiency, modern tools are a must!

Luckily for today’s businesses, there is an abundance of companies creating exciting software for every industry. The issue is choosing the right fit for your particular business. With so many options to choose from, the exploration process can be intimidating! 

Make your decision process easier with the proper guidelines. Our Rev Grow program has a complete guide to selecting the right digital tools for your home services company, along with a list of existing platforms our clients already use and love. To get you started, we recommend using these guidelines when exploring new software options for your business:

1. What are the software’s core features? Core functionality can differ radically from software to software, so you need to get a firm grasp on the top three things each potential digital platform does well. If they can clearly define the user’s benefit, you can decide on what the core needs are for your own business. Trust the options that give detailed explanations, with examples, about their software’s features. 
2. How easy is it to learn and master? Any business software should be easy to understand by design. If you’re investing money into new company tools, you’ll want the option that decreases the amount of training and education you have to provide employees.
3. Which Integrations are available? Chances are your company will need a variety of different software products to meet the needs of every department. For maximum productivity, you’ll need to find a way to get them all working together. This reality is only possible through software that provides integrations with other platforms. Prioritize digital platforms that simplify integrating with others—especially ones you’re already using.

Linking your software choices together is often the most complicated part of the process! Luckily, our Rev Grow program has experienced technicians and 3rd party solutions to connect all your digital silos into one unified productivity tool. Contact us today to learn more!

There’s no shortage of “get-rich-quick” marketing strategies floating around on the Internet. While most of them are useless, some present solid advice. One thing that almost all the proposed solutions miss is telling the truth about the work you’ll need to put in - at least initially. Successful marketing is a science, not a magic trick. It takes financial investment, proper planning, thorough review and data analysis, and a growth-driven mindset. We’ve worked with numerous home services companies, and we’ve found the right approach for building a reliable, continuous revenue stream. You just need to focus on four areas:

1. The first thing is a reliable content plan. You need written, audial, and visual content that builds trust and turns people into customers. Not everyone is ready to buy when they come across your company. So you need to provide information and guidance that builds trust with people. When they’re ready to buy, you’ll be the obvious choice they go with!
   
2. The second thing you need is speed. Not with your company vehicles - with your team’s communication. Getting the customer is a race in today’s fast-paced economy. The first to make contact is usually the first to get the sale. You can teach your sales teams specific strategies that will increase their response times without creating more work for them. We can show you how.
   
3. The third thing you need is a system that catches and amplifies the voices of satisfied customers. Social proof is everything, especially for homeowners. You need to know how to get positive reviews and what to do with them.
   
4. Paid Ads - particularly on Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. Improvements in machine learning allow home service businesses like yours to find, target, and reach your audience with ease. Easily reach individuals based on location, job title, and even personal interests. Access to these details allows you to refine advertising and get in front of more qualified leads. Doing so will lead to more sales!

If you want to be that home services owner whose company generates leads and clients like clockwork, has streamlined operations, and generates overwhelming revenue, you need to start with our three pillars. We provide all the tools and resources required in our Rev Grow program!

It sounds so simple, but the most effective way to generate quality leads is to address a crucial step in reaching people during their “buyer’s journey.” See, there’s a gap that occurs between someone being interested in your product and actually ACTING on making the purchase. We call this the “hesitation moment.” 

Why do we call it this? We’ve all been there. We do our research on a product or service and realize its potential to improve our lives. But to complete that sale, we have to talk to someone. That means dealing with scheduling an appointment around an already hectic schedule. It means dealing with a pushy salesperson and dealing with upsells. We’ve all had those unpleasant experiences - and it’s often what surfaces as we stare at a screen to book an appointment.

Your system needs to account for this moment and have a way to keep the customer going on their buying journey. 

You can do this in two ways:

• Proactive Appointment Scheduling and
• Automated Booking Services

Leaving a message to book an appointment gets you into a phone tag game over the following days and months. It’s just not a good use of your time! There’s a better way. It’s called proactive appointment booking.

The second way you can convert target audiences into actual appointments and, eventually, customers is through automated booking services.

Remember, the goal is to help customers break through their “hesitation moment.” The best way to help people overcome doubts or concerns about pushing forward is to make the appointment process as simple as possible.

If you’re using an email to book appointments - stop. You need a more straightforward approach. The way forward is through a unified, automated booking system. You need a straight line from “Point A” to “Point B.”

Automated booking systems let you establish ways to reach back to people who have shown interest in your home services. Perhaps they read some blog posts, clicked on a paid ad, or even downloaded a checklist from your website. The foundation is there - they just haven’t grasped the value of what you’re offering.

Incorporating both of these approaches can help you build an efficient system that converts target audiences into real appointments and, eventually, customers. 

It’s our “lean-mean revenue machine,” and it’s only available in our Rev Grow program.

It is essential to use the customer journey model when determining how best to approach each potential customer. If an individual is firmly in the "awareness" stage, you can provide relevant content and focus on education. If they are in the decision stage, you’ll want to focus more on why your home services company stands above the competition. Your approach should change based on the customer journey stage.

With that goal in mind, your company should develop a specific set of support resources for sales reps. Each sales member shouldn’t be using their own resources or taking their own approaches. It creates a lack of unity and doesn’t promote what’s working now to close deals. 

You need a unified playbook every sales member can use to help the customer, depending on their customer journey stage. 

An ideal customer discovery playbook should include:

• A list of questions to ask the individual(s) at that first consultation meeting.
• A handout including the unique benefits of your products and services to the customer.
• A short fact sheet on what they can expect when working with your business.

Depending on the customer’s unique journey stage, your team members will know where to go next after the initial consultation. Sometimes, potential buyers will need more resources to educate themselves further. Sometimes, they’re ready to fill an order with you. A unified playbook will lead your sales team to the correct conclusion.

Get started on building your unified, deal-closing sales playbook with our full template - only available to our Rev Grow program customers!

Countless hours are wasted each month on repetitive administrative, financial, and HR tasks. We live in a truly digital age - surely there must be a better way to automate some of these tasks! Office automation can undertake many time-consuming duties, letting you focus on the imperative aspects of your business. We recommend starting with automating your company’s customer forms.

We’ve found many home services businesses still haven’t automated the forms on their website. What do we mean when we say automated forms?

Consider this common office event: A website visitor fills out a contact form on your site, requesting more information about a specific product or service.

With a human-first system, someone in your company receives an email with the form’s information. Then, that person must manually enter that data into a spreadsheet or other database. Then, they’ll send the information to a member of your sales team to follow up with the prospect. This system wastes time all around!

With an automated web form system, collecting, organizing, and forwarding customer information happens quickly, accurately, and instantly! That same submitted form will send the data to a customer relationship management system (CRM), which will, in turn, add the individual to your contact database. Then the contextual data automatically heads to designated members of your sales team for follow-up. 

Additionally, automating web forms opens up other important feedback options, such as sending automated email follow-ups with relevant content or links to help answer general questions.

The difference is clear! As a whole, automated processes eliminate redundant manual tasks and improve your office’s productivity.

Our Rev Grow system has all the guidance you’ll need to set up and begin automating several daily office tasks. Sign up today to get started!

It’s nearly impossible to gather your business's many data points manually. You’d need dedicated staff, an abundance of office hours, and thousands of dollars potentially spent better elsewhere. 

The right productivity tools will make or break your business in today’s economy. At the top of the list is having the right digital platform to organize all your marketing and sales data.

At Rizen, we recommend a software suite known as Hubspot for this purpose. The largest tech marketplace in the world, G2, recently announced that HubSpot had been named the #1 Best Sales & Marketing Platform in 2020. 

Hubspot provides a comprehensive suite for collecting and organizing your sales and marketing data. Their data points help you understand how well your business is doing. Just some data points you’ll see aggregated and organized include:

• Keywords: All of your target keywords track automatically so you can see where your business stands in organic search rankings.
• Sources: Easily track where your site visitors are coming from. Does your audience find you by clicking on a social media link? A paid digital ad? A search engine? Hubspot will show you how many contacts you're receiving from each source.
• Page Performance: To improve page optimization, HubSpot's page performance tool analyzes your on-page SEO to show you what needs to be adjusted (e.g., add H1s, meta descriptions, etc.) to rank higher on Google and other search engines.
• Campaign performance
• Automation
• Review Management

Not only does Hubspot offer extensive marketing features like content management, in-depth analytics, and automation, but it brings them all together cohesively in one user-friendly platform. 

We’ve helped companies like yours successfully migrate to Hubspot with our Rev Grow program. Start tracking your company’s data today by partnering with us - the proven option for home services companies!

Remote work, flexible office hours, and hybrid offices are the future of business. Some form of online workspaces expands your ability to hire and manage the best talent out there. 

When you decide to hire remote staff, it's easy to get overwhelmed with how to proceed. The process just isn’t the same as hiring in-person talent. Remote work requires a specific set of skills compared to working in an office. Additionally, not having staff in person means new employees will need a different way to learn about and absorb your company’s culture and values. 

Where should you begin looking for remote talent? Our Rev Grow program contains a complete list of vetted, trustworthy platforms for finding remote talent. If you’re looking for an excellent place to start, we recommend Fiverr. This site provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide. Their discovery, communication, payment, and customer service tools make it a reliable starting point for home services companies looking to add remote staff. 

When it comes to vetting and hiring remote staff, you’ll need to adjust your approach. Again, our Rev Grow program contains interview questions, onboarding documents, and many more templates to simplify the process. To get you started, though, we recommend these two tips when you begin the interview and hiring process for remote employees:

1) Check for a Correct Understanding of Remote Work

As a general rule, candidates with a history of remote work will be best qualified to fill a fully remote position. During the initial communication and interview process, make sure to get a detailed picture of the candidate’s remote work history. Ask them about their home office set-up, the daily productivity tools they utilize, and how they’ve handled working with a team remotely in the past. These details matter! 

Be wary of applicants who only focus on the remote portion of the job description and not the work itself. Many job seekers are looking for remote positions as a way to avoid direct supervision. Separating these applicants from the serious candidates will be easier, knowing this is a red flag to look for.

2) Don’t Skip Checking References

The decision process for remote workers may (and should) take longer than for in-person candidates. Why? Remote workers tend to have longer work histories. For the distance employee, experience often comes via contract jobs for a set amount of time instead of the more traditional long-term stint with one company. 

That means you’ll have to do a bit more work to contact references and get valuable feedback from previous employers. Don’t skimp on this step, though! You’ll gain a true sense of how the applicant deals with customers, manages tasks, and manages time remotely. 

Have you ever been to a restaurant based on their excellent Yelp reviews? As a general rule, those are the establishments people tend to frequent more often. If a restaurant has bad Yelp reviews, people typically won’t go unless there’s no other food option. 

Reviews are so critical! Why? They help the consumer know if they should trust the business. Most businesses have a few bad reviews - it’s inevitable. Perhaps it was because an installer was rude or inattentive, or a product had some long-term durability issues. Don’t get caught up in not having a perfect customer feedback score. Instead, focus on gaining an abundance of detailed, positive reviews.

It is no secret that Google uses reviews as a ranking factor. Google does not want to rank bad businesses high in its search engines. Google wants to promote the company with the best reviews! 

So how do you ensure you get quality feedback both to identify and improve with each review?

The first tool is what’s known as a CSAT. CSAT stands for “Customer Satisfaction Score.” How does this system work? Let’s say a member of your sales team shows up for an in-home consultation. After the meeting concludes, your office sends a follow-up email asking how the talk went, with the customer choosing between clicking a happy or sad face. Depending on the option the user clicks, some follow-up questions will populate to gain more feedback on what went right - or wrong. 

The goal of a CSAT is to gauge how many of your customers are happy and how many aren’t. Most of all, though, why do they feel that way? Using a CSAT approach allows your company to spot trends BEFORE they turn into negative reviews on Google or Yelp. Maybe several homeowners say you have a pushy salesperson. Maybe they love a particular sales resource they receive at each consultation. That preemptive feedback will help you learn and adapt. Customers love being asked how they feel too! 

Another excellent way to gauge customer sentiment proactively is to use a net promoter score or NPS. An NPS is embodied best as one of those surveys that offer feedback on a scale of 0 - 10. These feedback opportunities usually go out after a project.  

How happy are they with the job your company completed? As a general rule, people who rate you 0-6 are detractors. They will not talk positively about your company. Those with an NPS of 7-8 are neutral. They are neither happy nor unhappy. Don’t expect repeat business from these people. The ones who rated you as a 9-10 are the ones you want public reviews from! Those are your biggest fans, your target promoters. 

Using a proactive approach to customer feedback helps you spot trends and weed out those you don’t want hopping on Yelp to leave a review. They’ve had their opportunity to share their qualms with you internally - and often, that’s enough for them. Those who want to evangelize their experience are the ones you send a link to for public reviews!

As an added bonus, this entire process can be automated! Our Rev Grow program can show you how.

An established employee training and development program, when thoroughly implemented, are the cornerstone of any home services company’s success.

Setting up a training system to meet the needs of both new and current employees may seem daunting. It’s not - if you have the right blueprint! To start, you’ll need to explore and answer the following questions about any program you plan to establish:

1. A successful training program needs the active involvement of you, the owner(s). You need to demonstrate the need for continual growth by both helping develop and taking part in this new venture. Gaining your employees’ buy-in is one of the critical elements that determine the success of any program. Building a collaborative culture of learning starts at the top. Ensure that as you plan out what your outline includes, it will contain input from the company’s leadership positions.
   
   
2. Keep Your Program Adult-Focused. Your employees are adults, and adults have different learning needs than those used in the classrooms we all grew up in. There is a tendency to develop a mirror environment to our traditional education system - don’t do it. If your training recognizes and respects the participants as adult professionals, it will be more effective. 

What are some of the cornerstones of successful adult learning environments? They are:

1. Self-directed
2. Goals-focused
3. Specific to their daily responsibilities
4. Task-oriented
5. Respectful of participants as professionals with existing knowledge and experience.

By following these cornerstones, you can begin building a successful employee training and development program. Just remember - the details matter. 

The entire effort’s effectiveness will depend on the amount of time your team spends on the design, content, and implementation.  

Our Rev Grow program contains a complete walkthrough on how to design, roll out, and track the success of your program. Make training and development simpler for your home services business by signing up today!