My Wife hired an exterminator today to get rid of some scary bugs hanging around our garage. She found him by calling a neighborhood friend to ask for a recommendation. She could have just as easily called Terminix, or one of the other big brands, or simply ran a local search in google to find a good exterminator… But, her go to reaction was to start by asking friends for recommendations .This exterminator did a handful of things that were quite smart, and I always enjoy watching a small local business owner really taking initiative and capitalizing on the biggest asset he has, “Happy Customers.”
For starters, he gave us a discount because the person who referred us, refers lots of clients to him. This of course made us feel grateful for the recommendation, and much more likely to recommend him to our friends because he demonstrated that he will not only treat our referrals with respect, but will give them benefits and discounts, which will of course paint us in a good light.
He than went on to ask us if he can put a magnet on our fridge, which we of course agreed to because we might need his contact info. handy in the future, especially because he guarantees his work for 1 year. Of course, this means we have his contact info handy if any friends ask us for a referral.
Such simple steps to take that can create an endless chain of referrals. He probably didn’t realize how effective his efforts were, because he didn’t take it a step further. Personally, he should have asked for the contact info. of our immediate neighbors, or asked us to write him a recommendation letter to send to them along with a magnet. Maybe a referral coupon he could have given us which actually lets us tell our friends he will give them 15% off just because they are friends with us cool folks.
He went on to inform us that he has 4 employees who usually do the work, but when he gets a new client he tries to meet them the first time to make sure they get to know him, and know who they are talking to when they call in.
What I find even more interesting is he told me he tried to do SEO, but no matter what he does he can’t outrank the nationwide brands like Terminix. In reality he is probably missing out on lots of long tail local opportunity, and he probably could get plenty of search traffic if he could afford a top notch SEO professional, but in personal opinion, small business is all about personal relationships, and I would bet he would get much more bang for his buck doubling down on nurturing better relationships with his customers, and making it easy and enjoyable for them to refer him to others. Well Done. Mr. Exterminator Guy. More importantly, if he gets to us before we even look at google, he has the opportunity to engage us when his competitors are not just a click away. As much as I am a Search Marketer, and believe search marketing is a home run, no one can deny the fact that your job is harder when your competitors are so close by. You are always better off finding ways to find customers before they ever hit the Google Machine.
Regardless, his simple actions were truly inspiring, because it is such a shame when small business owners don’t realize that the best media is their customers, and asking for referrals and making it easier and beneficial to give out referrals is a no brainer easy way to grow your business.
P.S. his website is https://www.njbugguy.com
About David Melamed
Click Images To Verify
