By David Elenbaum
March 12, 2012 | What do you “do”? Do you “do” windows? Do you “do” stone work? Perhaps you “do” siding. I know that if you are reading this, it is likely that you “do” decks. I for one like to eliminate “do” from my verbiage in marketing. I say I build decks in conversation but my business card says that I am a “full service deck design and construction firm.” Why? Professionalism. I can go to any market in the US and it is likely that I can find a guy who “Does” something according to his advertising. He is also likely the guy who writes his quote on the back of a business card. If you are that guy, in your mark
Now for the matter of “doing” everything. Do you? How diverse is your product portfolio? If you find yourself running to leads that cover a large varied group of products and you are operating under a deck company you may want to consider a revision in your company story. Perhaps you would want to look at being a general contractor. In some cases, you may want to refine your offerings and focus on the things that make you the most profits. If your company “Dude’s Decks” is installing windows and siding, consider a branch off company called “Dude’s siding and windows”. Your prospects will be less confused about what you “do” and you will see better qualified leads from your advertising as a result. You can set up an advertising accrual on each business so you will know if window ad money is getting you window leads and deck ad money is getting you decking leads. Set up a separate phone number with a tracker to get the results you need.
You can still co-market the businesses together if you like but diversifying the advertising into the appropriate marketing is now an option for you. Deck buyers may be in a different demographic than window buyers for you, so the difference between a newspaper ad and a retirement magazine. On the administrative side, separating the entities will help with seeing profitability, crew allocations, and workers comp audits will be easier since a siding crew is charged at a different rate then a deck crew in many cases. Also, the really cool part is if your siding business grows well enough to sell, you can sell it and still be in the deck business. Good luck and thanks for reading. You can email thoughts and comments to davidelenbaum@gmail.com.