Creating a Sense of Urgency - the science of why it matters

I had a couple of people email me to ask about my feelings on offers and what kinds of offers we use.  I do believe in doing an offer and part of the reason why is to create a sense of urgency.  I have attached the back side of a post card we use here at My Maid Service as an example. 

In a previous article I explained that effective marketing materials have three things, including a call to action.  For a really effective call to action, you have to tell your customers what to do and to make it urgent.  There is a famous experiment at Yale by a scientist named Howard Leventhal that provides proof.  Leventhal was trying to increase the number of students getting a free tetanus shot from the on-campus clinic.  So he created two brochures which were given to seniors.  The first was very descriptive with facts and data.  The second was designed to test the theory that marketing with fear would be more effective so he included lots of graphic pictures of people with tetanus and the terribly painful way they died.  Both brochures included the statement that shots were available for free at the student clinic and the phone number for the clinic.  In a survey after reading the brochure the students that read the more graphic pamphlet were three times more likely to say they were going to be inoculated.  However when he checked later in both groups only 3% of the seniors actually got the shot.

Dr. Leventhal then added to both pamphlets a map with the clinic circled and times when the shots were going to be given. This is the only thing that was changed on the brochures.  After this change both the high-fear and regular brochures led to 28% of the students actually getting the inoculation.  This one small change more than anything caused a nearly 10 times increase in the students actually getting the shots.  Remember these are seniors, they almost certainly knew were the clinic was.  The combination of the map and the times took getting a shot from a subjective idea to clear instructions to the students on how to fit this into their lives.  In the original brochure the students were convinced a tetanus shot was something they should get, eventually.  The second brochure made a tetanus shot something a student needed to have at a specific time and a place. 

This is a lot like our customers.  The scary brochure convinced the students that the shot was something they should do, when they got around to it.  They said on the survey they were 3 times more likely to get the shot but when it came down to it, only 3% actually did it, the same as the boring flyer.  Adding the date and time gave them a sense or urgency, they knew where and when they had to go to get the shots.  We need to do the same thing.  If our offers are good but they have no clear call to action, clients will throw it into their coupon box intending to get to it some day.  Some day never comes.  The idea that they may lose out on the offer encourages them to pick up the phone right now and take action.

What this tells us is that the single most important thing on any marketing material is the call to action.  You need to clearly tell the customer what to do and when.  For example we use “Call 513-934-3254 by Friday for $100 off the first time with bi weekly or weekly service”.  Not everyone will agree with this aggressive of a discount but we did it for a reason which I will explain in a future topic but you have to admit, it creates a real sense of urgency.  Call now is not enough.  You need to say to call what and when.  More than the expensive artwork and graphic designers you need to make sure you have a clear and urgent call to action.

Video: How Surfactants Help You Clean!

Well it is Tuesday so it is time for a technical tip.  Today we had a conference call on the Home Cleaning Technician class which inspired me to shot this video in my basement.  I was going to download some fancy software and dress it up some more but I kind of like the obvious home made look :-)   This a couple of minute example of what we will be teaching in the Home Cleaning Technician Class.  I hope you learn from it.  For more details on the class go to www.isetoday.com

Three things every advertisement MUST have!

Before buying My Maid Service I spent 12 years working at Procter & Gamble in sales and marketing.  P&G is considered the world's best marketing company with over 40 Billion-dollar brands including Tide, Pampers, Gillette, and Pringles.  Grab your latest advertisement and review it as you read this article to see if it measures up.

At P&G they taught us that all effective advertisements must contain three things.  There are lots of cute things you see in ads like catch phrases and humor but if you do not do these 3 things the advertisement will fail.  Don't get lost in the cute.

1. Make a Claim. - You have to tell your consumer why your product is going to make their lives better. For examples right now Pampers makes the claim “Helps maintain the natural healthy look of your baby's skin.”  In our industry we may claim things like “We will give you back your weekend.” Or to quote The Maids Home Services “Nobody outcleans the Maids.”  That is a great claim.  I really wish they did not have it trademarked.  
2. Provide a reason to believe - You just told the consumer how great you are.  Now back it up. This is why right after the claim on a TV advertisement there is almost always a demo, some cool technology explained, or some back up piece of data.  For example Pampers will often say “Pampers Swaddlers with absorb away liners are the #1 choice of hospitals.”  In My Maid Service advertisements I always include the phrase “Voted the best in Cincinnati for 3 years in a row.” If you cannot use a third party endorsement you can talk about the cleaning products you use, the 39 item check list, or the experience of your employees.  Use whatever explains how you will deliver on the claim you made above.
3. Call to Action – You told them what your are going to do and why they should trust you.  Now close the deal.  Tell the consumer what to do.  For example, “Call 513-934-3254 for $20 off your first cleaning” or “Join our email list to receive great deals.”

Look at all your advertisements and make sure they have all three of these.  Even the professionals make serious mistakes.  Just last month I paid thousands of dollars to be in one of those direct mail coupon envelopes like Val Pak.  When they sent me my advertisement it looked great and I showed it to all the people in my office.  No one noticed the error, including me.  Then I sat down and made a quick check for my 3 key elements.  There was no phone number or web address.  I had this great ad that the designer, my entire office staff, and even a 12 year marketing veteran did not notice had no way for the consumer to contact us.

So does this technique work?   Well it did for this article.  I convinced you to give me your valuable time to read my article.  Read the first paragraph again.  Claim  - I will teach you how to grow you business.  Reason to believe – I worked for 12 years in marketing for the world's best marketing company.   Call to Action -  Read this article and apply it to your latest marketing piece.

Measuring the pulse of my business

I have built my business around reoccurring customers. I will not turn away a one time job if we can fit it on the schedule but they are hard to predict and even a large one time clean is normally only $500. For the ease of the math, assume your average bi weekly (every other week) client is billed $100 a visit, they will spend $2,600 a year on for as long as you do business with them. Because they are so important to me, I have created a simply point system to track my business. Basically a client is assigned a value for the number of times per month we would clean them. Weekly clients are 4 points, bi weekly are 2 points, and monthly clients are 1 point. We then keep a running tally. If we gain a new client we add the points. If we lose them we subtract the points. I have a big board in my office that we reset every month that looks like below.


Name               Gain or Loss               Frequency         Value             Total
Smith, Jane       Gain                            Monthly            +1                 +1
Moore, David   Gain                            Weekly            +4                 +5
Burns, Linda      Loss                           Bi Weekly        -2                  +3


I like my system because it is a quick and easy to way to keep track of my business. Some people disagree with my system and say that some clients are worth more than others. Say for example a large home I charge $150 a visit is counted the same in my model as a small apartment we clean for $85 per visit. This is true, but I find over time it all seems to average out and you can drive yourself crazy trying to track your business down to the dollar on the fly. My software will give me the actual $ gained and lost each month when I run the report at month end but I like this system because it is easy to understand for all my employees. I think of it this way.  This system is about making sure I have my finger on the pulse of my company.  Just like there are fancier ways to measure health with extra equipment, there are much more detailed ways to keep track of your business.  But much like taking the pulse of a person, this method lets me quickly know if I have a problem or not without all the fuss and it is easy for everyone to understand.

I have this on a huge white board so everyone can see it. We take it a step further and write wins in Green and Losses in red. This keeps everyone in my office aligned on what really matters to me, adding more on-going clients than we lose. They know when there is a lot of green on the board I am giving extra hours and hiring. They also know if the board has too much red on it, I will have to start cutting back on hours.

In the example above we are plus 3 for the month.  This means we have booked 3 more on-going appointments per month than we have lost.  If we take the average cleaning charge of $100 from the example above, this means we have booked $300 a month in on-going revenue.  That is $3,600 a year.  I can tell all that in 30 seconds with no software or fancy reports.  That is how I keep my finger on the pulse of my business. 

Lessons learned: No man can serve two masters

My blog on Groupon from Thursday made me think of another more general lesson I have learned and unfortunately it took several times of learning it for the lesson to really stick.  That lesson is no man, or cleaning business, can serve two masters.  Let me explain what I mean.  Most of you have learned that managing the expectations of one customer is hard enough.  What makes it even harder is managing the expectations of two people.  Let me give you a few examples. 

At some point, most cleaning service owners decide they want to work with real estate agents.  After all, agents know when people are moving into and out of town and clients often ask for recommendations.  However, more often than not, these relationships end in disaster.  Why?  The answer is simple, there are two masters.  Let me give you a few examples.  A realtor has a client trying to sell his house.  The agent recommends they hire cleaning service and recommends you.  You talk to the client listing the home and decide on a budget and scope of work.  You do a walk through and the client is happy.  The next day, you get a furious call from the realtor.  She has a standard of clean and we have not met it.  She expects a professionally cleaned house to look like X, Y, and Z and we did not do it.  We try to explain that her client did not want for and refused to pay for those services but she is having none of it.  She cannot show the house like this.  She has a reputation to defend and she will not refer us any more business unless we reclean the house to her standards. 

Lets look at another version of this I have seen.  You get a call from a landlord.  His renter is moving in and the house is basically clean, he already had it cleaned once and it met his standards.  His new tenant is not happy and wants a few things touched up.  The landlord agrees to pay for up to 4 hours of touch up work but not a penny more.  You get there and the landlord is right but this is a VERY picky tenant.  She wants every black mark off the baseboards, the fridge to look like brand new, and all the windows and tracks spotless.   You call the landlord and explain that it will take more time but he is having none of it.  4 hours is enough he says.  The place was already clean, make the renter prioritize.  The renter is furious, she wants her house spotlessly clean and it is our fault because we are refusing to do the work.  Everyone is unhappy and you are stuck in an impossible situation.

It has taken far too many times to learn this lesson but more often than not, if there are two parties to a cleaning service, it is going to end badly.  You are almost always better off to just walk away from these kinds of jobs.  They create far too much heart ache for the amount of money involved because they are almost always one time jobs.

Why groupon will kill you part 1

I am going to write an entire series on why not to run Groupon.  Part one, it is bad for your reputation.  All of these sites are designed to encourage impulse buying.  There is a time limit ticking down and a deal they will lose if they not act now.  People are busy and they DO NOT READ THE OFFER!  No matter how clear you think you may be in the offer, they are not going to read it.  They are going to skim it an make assumptions then press buy and their credit card gets charged.  Then they call you to schedule the serve. 

Compare this to how we normally sell our services.  Someone calls us and we talk to them either in person or over the phone.  Some people have crazy expectations.  Some people are outside our area.  Some people call the day before a major holiday and want to be scheduled before the holiday.  In each of these cases we explain what we can and cannot do and let them know we cannot help them.  They then move on to another service.   Bullet dodged.

Let me explain what happens with Groupon.  They skim the offer and read “house cleaning $75”.  They go great, my mother in law is coming this weekend and I really need more 6,000 square foot house 30 miles away from town cleaned and they press buy.  They almost never call BEFORE they buy.  I know people that sold 1,400 coupons and 12 people called before they bought.  Now you are thinking, but Derek, my offer was very clear.  When they call I will just explain I cannot give them what they want and they can get a refund from Groupon or give it to a friend.  Well yes, that is what would happen if we were dealing with a rational person but lets be clear, this is NOT a rational customer we are talking about.  This is the person that calls you for a quote and you decline their business and suggest they call your worst enemy to cuase them pain and torment.  This is evil impossible to please customer has already bought and paid for your service.  No one screaned this impossible to please customer out of your system.  These people will tear you to pieces on line because you did not deliver on their EXPECTATIONS. 

I did a small test with a Groupon like deal.  I am thankful every day I did a small test and only sold 54 of these.   I had one man that I sold a coupon just like I described above.  I kindly explained that I could not do what he needed done and to call Groupon and get a refund.  We did not even try to clean this guy.  I even pointed out that the offer said on it we could not guarantee days, we only services these areas, and the offer was for only 4 hours.  It did not matter.  This man was FURIOUS.  He had company coming.  He bought a coupon to get his house cleaned and we were letting him down.  He needed his 6,000 square foot (plus basement) house cleaned tomorrow on Friday and it was 20 miles outside our service area.  I very calmly pointed out the details of the offer but it did not matter.  I even told him how to get a full refund.

 Now the coupon was very clear.  If this went to court I would win in 45 seconds.  But in this case I get tried in a new court called on line and social media.  This gentleman, and I use the term very loosely, then went online to Yelp, Google, City Search, and anywhere else he could find and posted terrible reviews on how he had scheduled a cleaning service with our company and we refused to deliver what he was promised causing his big family reunion to be a disaster.   Yes I responded on line but it lowered my star rating and a lot of people do not read the comments and now my average is lower.

Some people I have shared this story with said I should have cleaned him just to keep him happy.  I disagree.  This man was impossible to please and basically an evil human.  If I had managed to get the 10 hours of labor clear on 24 hours notice to clean his home for $37.50, this is the kind of person that does not treat people well.  He would have mistreated my employees maybe causing me to lose some employees.  I would have had to bump other good full price paying clients.   I would have lost hundreds of dollars and he probably would still write a bad review.  I was *&%$ the second he pressed that buy button.  All I could do is minimize the damage.  For this reason Groupon, Living Social, and any other web platform that sells my service without having the client first talk to me, is doomed to fail.  We must always talk to the client first to make sure they have realistic expectations before they buy because no matter what disclaimers you have, if you cannot meet their expectations after the purchase they will not be happy.

Executive Leadership Training for Residential Cleaning Companies

this picture was taken right around the corner from the hotel!

I am still in Orlando today.  I am on the board of the Association of Residential Cleanings Services International and we meet three times a year in person and this the big annual planning meeting.  We have a great plan for the year.  However I what I am really excited about right now is the ARCSI Executive Leadership Conference.  ARCSI has two big events a year.  The Convention is a 4 – 5 day event with lots of training tracks specific to our industry, big speakers like Annie Duke and Tom Peters, and a trade show with thousands of vendors of cleaning products and supplies.  The ELC is a much smaller and more intimate event.  It is a two day event and it is focused on business issues, not cleaning business, but any business.  This year is no different.

This year is no different.  This year the speakers are on sales, employee law, disaster planning, and pricing for profit.  Disaster planning hit especially close to home this year because two ARCSI members were hit by disasters.  One had her business and many of her customers flood out and another had her office building catch on fire.  Could your business survive this?  This is what one of our speakers will be covering.

I personally am excited about the sales training.  This is not one of those 1 hour previews then they ask you for more money for more details.  This is an all day long sales training starting at 8:30 AM and ending at 5:00 PM.  But we are not done yet.  After a break for dinner we get back together for two hours to break into teams to develop sales plans to take back to our businesses.  We want you to leave with a real actionable plan to take home.  Some people think they do not need sales because we are residential cleaners and not making sales calls on businesses.  I would strongly disagree.  Every in person estimate and networking event is sales.  To be clear, this is not a sleazy style of sales.  Real successful sales is understanding the pain points of your customer and bringing them solutions customized to their needs.  Sales is effective communication.    Here is the link to the official event page.

http://www.2012elc.org/
The board learned the hard way a few years ago to always try out of hotel before we have a meeting somewhere so for this meeting the board stayed in the hotel for ELC.  It is a fantastic hotel.  It is on the Disney campus and it is right across the street from downtown Disney which is full of restaurants and entertainment including Cirque de Soliel. 

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/destinations/downtown-disney/

The ELC room rate is $99.00 a night and includes parking, high speed internet, and resort fees which is quite a deal.  The rooms are very nice and they include a refrigerator which saves a ton of money because you can keep breakfast and drinks in your room.  There are great pools and free children’s activities on the weekends.

Finally, this is one of the best weeks of the year to visit Disney. This is a great chance to mix some business and some pleasure.   In my opinion it is the best week.  Some weeks like right after Thanksgiving are a little less crowded but it can be cold.  (yes it dies get cold in this part of Florida).  April is a great time because the weather is warm enough to enjoy the heated pools at the hotel if you want but not hot at all.  And because it is right after Spring break ends, the park is largely empty.  You don’t have to take my word for it.  Here is a list of the top 10 weeks to visit Disney and this week is in the top 10.

http://yourfirstvisit.net/2010/10/20/2012-weeks-to-visit-walt-disney-world-ranked-in-order/

I am going and I hope to see a lot of you there too.  You do not need to be a member of ARCSI to attend.  Also don’t worry if you do not know anyone.  Shot me an email to let me know you are coming and I will meet you the first night to make some introductions and make sure you have someone to hang out with and get some meals.  email derek