Starting up any new small business is a difficult task, and running a home inspection company is no exception. Far too often, people trying to get a new business off the ground end up going under. They eventually close their business, the very thing they believed was going to rescue them from a life of mediocrity. They tried their hardest, well pretty hard anyway, to drum up business, but just didn’t have any luck. They tried to hold on for as long as they could, but they had to start making money again to support their family, to pay the bills, to simply survive.
A common refrain among these down-on-their-luck business owners is that they kept asking for business but kept getting ignored. No one said yes to them. While no one actually told them “no” to their face, in essence, they were hearing an answer of “no” to their marketing advances. And “no” is quite a discouraging thing to hear. Hearing someone say “yes” is much more encouraging, isn’t it?
For a different perspective on those yes answers, let’s stop for a moment and take a look at internet marketing. In the online space, an ad (which is generally asking someone to take an action, like buying something, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a cheat sheet) is judged to be successful if it’s click through rate (someone taking the requested action) is at or greater than the average expected click through rate for their industry. While click through rates vary depending on the medium, format, and industry, an average rate of 1% is considered pretty good in many circles.
Imagine that; one out of every one hundred people answer “yes” to a sales pitch, and that’s considered a good sales campaign. While that may strike many of us as a very low number, years of research (and years of sales pitches) has led us to this reality. And while a 1% success rate could certainly be discouraging, there is a more important point here:
Did you ask 100 people to hire you?
It’s a pretty simple concept. Are we asking enough people for their business. While some new inspectors will answer in the affirmative, most of us will not.
The key to early business success, getting to the “yes” that we’re looking for, really boils down to simple one thing: volume. Are we hearing the word “no” enough for us to get to that yes?
It’s important to remember that this 1% click through rate is an average. That doesn’t mean that exactly one of every hundred people we pitch is going to say yes; especially early in our career, when we’re still trying to refine our message. It’s very likely that we’ll need to get rejected more than 100 times before we get to our first “yes.”
The important thing to remember is that we need to keep asking. It’s pretty rare that we get anything worthwhile in life without asking for it.
So, what do we do if no one ever says yes. What if all we ever get is a “no?” This is an important point, as it’s something that many new business owners fail to understand. Every new “no” answer has the potential to make us a better business owner. While that negative response may seem like outright rejection, we should be paying attention when someone declines our offer. Instead of feeling rebuffed, we should look at it as an opportunity to learn as much information as possible from that negative answer. Some business owners will even go as far as to ask the person why they rejected them. And, on occasion, we’ll get some actionable feedback from that person.
They may tell us that they’ve heard something negative about us, giving us a chance to work to correct mistakenly held beliefs. They may say that they didn’t understand what it was we were trying to sell, letting us know that we need to work harder to refine our message. They might feel put off by our persona, indicating that we’re not really projecting the image that we’re shooting for. Simply getting frustrated every time we don’t get a “yes” is wasteful, as we’re throwing away an opportunity to get better.
So, what do we do when our marketing isn’t working? On average, marketing failure boils down to one of two issues: we’re targeting the wrong market or (if we do have the right market) our messaging isn’t right for that market.
We’ve got to make sure that we’re targeting the right market. If I’m a newbie inspector, and I’m trying to go after all the top-producing agents in my area, it’s going to be a long time before I hear a “yes.” Top agents already have their “favorite inspectors list” set, and a rookie will never make it into their top ten. A more realistic goal would be to market to newer agents, who haven’t yet had a change to meet 10 inspectors, much less compile a favorites list. By aiming for a more realistic target market, we’ll have a much better chance of success, and can work toward targeting the heavy-hitters once we’ve developed our own reputation as a top-producer.
We’ve also got to make sure our message is a good fit for our target audience. If we’re a new inspector targeting low to middle-income home buyers who are likely purchasing their first home, filling up our marketing with technical, in-depth jargon explaining how an AC expansion device works is barking up the wrong tree. This amount of information is likely to overwhelm a new home buyer and cause them to move on to another inspector who, more than likely, speaks their language. Making sure our message matches what our clients want to hear is one of the most important jobs of a marketer, and something that can easily make or break a new business.
Good inspectors know that we’ve got to work hard to align our inspection clients’ expectations with reality. The less erroneous assumptions our clients have about what it is we’re doing for them, the happier they’ll be with our inspection. Having proper expectations is often the key to human happiness, and, as new business owners, we’re really no different from other people. If we know what to expect when we’re trying to get our new venture off the ground, it’s likely that we’ll be better suited to weather the inevitable rough patches that come with a start-up, giving us a better chance to make it in our new career. If we go into our business knowing that a 1% “yes rate” is what we should be expecting, it’s much less discouraging when we hear those 99 people say no.
Remember, every “no” we hear means we’re one person closer to a “yes.”
Keep promoting.
Keep banging on doors.
Keep bothering people.
Keep asking.
Running a business without letting everyone know that we’re out there is nothing but a waste of time.
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Thanks, Joe
