Don’t we all want to work with professionals?
By Aaron Montgomery on Jan 06, 2010 with Comments 3
Commentary by Aaron Montgomery……I continue to be surprised by how some people stay in business. I do my darnedest to make sure that my company image is one of a professional and maybe even a company that is bigger than we are. But some people just don’t seem to get it. You never have more than one chance to make a first impression.
Here is a great example. One of my customers just had his site redesigned and I thought it looked pretty good. I told him that and that I might be redesigning my site soon. That customer referred me to his website guy. Here is the email I got from the website company soliciting my business:
From: XXXXX Studio [mailto:chad.n@XXXXX]
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 6:51 PM
To: info@garmentdecoratingsupply.com
Subject:
May we help you with web design? XXXXX is one of clients
chad
Needless to say, my first inclination is to run away. Chad seems to be less than educated and tells me nothing about his company, pricing or the work that they do. He doesn’t even bother to take the time to add a subject line. I just happened to skim my spam folder and found it.
Here is how I would have written that solicitation email:
Subject: Website Help Referral from XXXXX
To Whom It May Concern;
We received your information from XXXXX who is one of our valued clients. They indicated that you might be interested in discussion some help redesigning your website.
We have X years experience in the website design field and have expertise with all sorts of website and applications including (list expertise here). Besides XXX whose site you have already seem you can also see some of our other sites at XXX. We have several very affordable packages to help you get started, but we would love to discuss your specific needs at your convenience.
Please let us know a time that would be convenient for you to discuss this further. We understand that everyone is busy, so if we do not hear from you we will follow-up with you in a couple of weeks.
Thank you in advance for the opportunity!
Sincerely,
Chad XXXXX
(Title)
(Company Name)
(Phone)
(Tag line)
I would love to hear your thoughts. – Aaron
Filed Under: Articles • General Business • Industry Bloggers
About the Author: I have been in the garment decorating industry for over 10 years, and have worked with many small businesses to help them make money and improve their marketing. I love helping small businesses as I have been involved with or had my own small business since I was a teenager. In my free time, I enjoy volleyball, bowling and spending time with my 11 year old son. I have recently moved to St. Louis by way of Boston, Colorado Springs and most major cities in Arizona.
Hey Aaron, your right about 1st impressions. The look of your company is more important than most people realize. This web design company might do awesome work but they are probably loosing a ton of business because of their half hearted marketing approach.
When I first started in screen printing, I spent all my money on equipment and didn’t leave any for the marketing and packaging of my business and I realized I was getting way to many doors closed in my face because of how my company came across and my approach. Also not to mention that when people did give me a chance, it was like they saw fresh meat and wanted to just see if I would do the jobs for next to nothing.
So I decided to order Scott’s “Business and Marketing dvds and I learned a ton. Mainly on what to do and what not to do and how to make my company look much bigger than it really is. It really isn’t that expensive it just takes some time to get it there.
Anyways I just spent the last 8 mths totally re-vamping my whole marketing package and I am getting ready to launch my company next week, with a whole new direct mail out marketing campaign. This time things will be much different, and the companies that I am going after are ones that have money and spend a lot of it on imprinted sportswear and promo items. And when they get my marketing materials they won’t know that I am a one man show, so my follow ups will be a lot more successful.
I will let you know how things go, thanks for the article. Glen W.
Glen,
I’m excited to see how it goes for you. Checked out your website and it looked great. Good luck and if you ever need anything, let me know. I’m happy to help!
Aaron
Thanks Aaron, I will for sure.