I came across this article on Construction Marketing Ideas and had to share it here. You can get the full story directly at http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2009/04/bestline-plumbing-story-advertising.html
Plumbing Marketing Success Story - Bestline Plumbing
How can a plumbing contractor, who started with $1,800 and some bad luck in 1973, grow to a $5 million business (and continue growing) during recessions?
Leonard Meglolia of Bestline Plumbing says he obtains about 90 per cent of his business through advertising flyers -- 50,000 to 100,000 per week. These flyers, hardly works of art but obviously effective, blanket his service area in the Los Angeles area, largely lower-to-middle income neighborhoods, several times a year.
He says if other plumbing contractors followed his system they would see their phone ringing immediately. At present, he says he receives about 15 to 20 service calls a day. The phone rings, in good times and hard (though he can find neither rhyme nor rhythm to the calls; some days the phone doesn't ring at all; then everything goes crazy, some seasons things work really well; others are disappointing. Megliola knows, however, that if business slows down he can step it up by sending out more flyers, which represent most of his marketing budget (about 10 per cent of sales.)
Is this the flyer story the entire picture? Not exactly. Here are the other essential pieces of the Bestline success story:
- The sales culture is deeply ingrained in the business. Crews led by a sales leader earn commissions for their work, not fixed salaries. The average employee earns about $65,000 per year. However, no one minds -- Megliola's flyers and marketing provide enough leads to keep everyone busy.
- The company has a non-scripted but highly effective relationship-building model when its sales plumbers are in homes. The Bestline representative takes pictures of the problems and provides photographic evidence. This time and care to communicate the situation builds rapport and confidence. (Before digital cameras were available, Bestline used more than $1,000 a month in Polaroid film.)
- The company avoids long term debt -- equipment is purchased at distressed auction prices -- and (with its commission based model) avoids fixed costs. This is not a business with fancy offices and state-of-the-art electronics.
- Megliola focuses on his niche: Middle-aged and older residential clients who need plumbing work done. Early in his career he was burned by a new home builder who stiffed him for thousands of dollars. He doesn't rely on the Internet for business, and generally is not successful in selling to younger clients, who often seem to know more about the work than his team.
Megliola says he will try new things, and learn from old. Early in his business career, he tried a cable television advertisement. It didn't work, but the agency he used as a secondary project developed a simple ad for the Pennysaver which, in the early going, attracted much business (this medium stopped working for him in the late 1990s.) He avoids the Yellow Pages and other directories -- the last thing he wants are clients calling several contractors for competing quotes.
Home shows sometimes work, but less than before. He is experimenting with door-to-door canvassing; he says the project is initially working, but he is not sure how sustainable his canvasser will be; but the revised advertising flyer he is using in co-ordination with the canvassing program might work well on its own.
Megliola says if he had to start from scratch, he would use his flyers. He said anyone in a smaller community, say 80,000 to 100,000 people, could quickly dominate the market with effective flyers, and the results would be fast. But few people will actually follow his model. "I had someone in here who spent several hours with me, and then said, 'this would not work for me,' and gave up before he even tried the process." If you are on a low budget, you can deliver the flyers yourself, like he did at the very beginning.
There is another aspect to Bestline's success, however, which I realized when Alex Lacek and David Callahan joined us in the interview. The two employees bantered freely and easily, they reflected equality and mutual respect with their boss and a comfort with the work standards and rules.
Callahan joked that he knows he will make a sale when he sees a Buick in the driveway -- every time he appears at a home with that model of car, he sells plumbing services. (I suggested he should become really good friends with the local Buick dealers and their sales reps.) Lacek noted that the company doesn't micromanage its employees, perhaps some plumbers take some materials from the shop without clearing this stuff with management, but in turn, the group keeps an eye on everyone.
Formal and routine staff meetings are rarely necessary; but "if you screw up and we have to go back after hours to fix things, you'll hear about it the next day," Callahan said. Everyone gets along, most of the time.
So, should you commit a few thousand dollars and have some flyers printed up? Sure, go ahead, but maybe spend a few days in Los Angeles and see if Megliola will allow you to ride along with his plumbers on sales calls. He hasn't set up a consulting business; he doesn't charge for his working manual, and relates exactly how he does business.
My sense is most people won't follow his lead because he doesn't look successful like in those get-rich-quick marketing pieces; you know, the guy standing in front of a luxury mansion and riding the coolest car. Gardenia is not Beverley Hills or Malibu. Bestline Plumbing doesn't look like anything special from the exterior.
But Leonard Megliola has indeed discovered the secret for a plumbing business success -- one which could, I think, be replicated with most residential-focused trades -- and he'll share it with anyone who is interested.
The successful plumbing marketing flyer:
Below is a image of the actual flyer used by Bestline:
I will be the first to say that this is not the "prettiest" marketing piece, but Bestline swears by it. Remember, the message is always more important than the look!
What do you think? Have you used flyers to market your plumbing business? Post your comments below:
Josh Nelson is a marketing expert that specializes in helping Plumbing Business increase their sales & grow their business by more effectively MARKETING. He is a recognized speaker, author and regularly presents at PHCC, ACCA and Plumbing Contracting Associations. His articles have been published in Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine, Contractor Magazine and HVAC Insider. He is the author of The Complete Guide To Internet Marketing for Plumbing Contractors.
Plumbing Marketing Profits – who has written 84 posts on Plumbing Marketing Tips, Ideas & Strategies for Plumbers | Plumber Marketing.
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