Promote yourself

Recently I had the pleasure to act as representative of the NSI and attend an exhibition in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, staged by McElwaine Security to celebrate gaining NSI Gold (NACOSS) recognition and ISO 9001-2000 compliance that is an essential part of the process.

It was also a top class piece of publicity work and a lot of us could learn a lesson from it.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am not trying to sing the praises of the NSI or boost the fortunes of McElwaine Security, but the facts are simple and it's the first rule of selling: No tell – no sell
How many of us fall at the first fence and fail to tell the public we are here and in business and then sit there and complain when the phone fails to ring? Yet there are telephone sales companies out there ringing round, selling security systems over the phone and pulling in 100 systems a month. There is all the work in the world out there to be had – you just need to find the right way of telling the people you are there and making your company look like the best company for them.

The other factor is to get your sales wagon rolling at the right speed. Too slow and you are short of work, too fast and you have more than you can cope with, and make no mistake this is not an easy situation to be in.

In this corner McElwaine have a big advantage. They are a big company. Under the McElwaine banner are electrical goods shops, a large electrical installation company, a big factory on the edge of town (I never did discover what they made) a musical instrument shop and various other enterprises including a small laundrette.

Throw your cap at it!
McElwaine have been fitting security for years and MD John McElwaine decided it was time to go for gold. He then made a shrewd move and employed Mavis Munn. Mavis has been around the industry for some time and knew the NACOSS requirements so she went to work in her usual no-nonsense way and got the job done.

They hired the largest room in the largest and best hotel in the area. They invited a lot of suppliers to support them and invited as many customers, insurance companies and police offices as they could and put on a show that was almost as big as the Installer Roadshows.

Well, let's face it; if you are going to do a job (as we say in Yorkshire) you may as well throw your cap at it. In other words, go flat out and give it all you've got. Gaining NSI and ISO recognition is not easy. It is hard work and a company has every right to feel proud when they have got it, so why do so many companies do nothing to tell the world of their achievements? OK, so McElwaine is a large organisation and can put their money where their mouth is, but the small one-man business can now get recognition to both NSI and SSAIB so what can he do to tell the world he is up and running?

The first thing is to inform the local press, they are always on the lookout for good news as well as bad so they will often run a feature on a company that has had some sort of recognition or achievement and include a photo of the owner being presented with his medal or certificate. Don't expect a rush of business after this but it does get your name known and you have more chance of the public remembering you.

Perhaps to follow up your newspaper feature you could have a load of copies of the article printed and have a leaflet company deliver them round the area, If you do, please make sure that you are not breaching the copyright laws by "lifting" the article from the local paper without their permission.

If you were to employ a professional publicity agent to promote your company he would tell you of the need to keep your name cropping up in front of the public to keep it fresh in their minds so any excuse for publicity should be grabbed.

You could always opt for Yellow Pages and for regular adverts in the local press but the problem is that the only time anyone looks in it is when they want something and, at that stage, you need your name to be already known or familiar because people in an emergency will always lean towards the name they know.

The local newspaper is a different problem; a regular advert will get your name known but usually only in the long run. The advert needs to be eye-catching and different and it needs to be consistent. It needs to be there week in – week out for some time before the public gets used to remembering it. You have to play the waiting game. Think in terms of years rather than months.

The real trick with advertising in both these media is not to spend more than you can afford to throw away each week. Don't spend more each week than you can afford to write off as a dead loss. In the long run if you get your advert right you will get business.

Leaflet drops drum up business
The best way is to take your business to the public rather than waiting for the public to come to you. The telephone sales companies are living proof of that – if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it.

In your leaflet drop tell the truth: that cheap is not best ... you only get what you pay for

OK, we cannot spend the time on the telephone AND fit the systems so let's look at alternatives, like leaflets. Leafleting is a cheap and effective way of getting your name about but there are advantages to be gained from how you go about it and where you place the leaflets. Don't fall into the trap of telling the public all about yourself, they don't want to know. Tell them instead how they can get the best protection for their property, and how to find the right company and explain that you only get what you pay for. It's a fact of life that whatever you buy, if you go for the cheapest you get a product that is inferior to the rest and nobody wants second best if they can avoid it.

Placing your leaflet in the right corner is important. The best time to give someone a leaflet on securing his or her property is just after a local break-in. This information is usually found in the local press but I have known some of the more enterprising installers joining the neighbourhood watch to get this info.

One character even bought one of those multi-band radios and tuned into the police to listen to where the calls to break-ins were – but you have to realise that this is acting illegally and the police take a very dim view of this sort of caper. On top of that, if you keep turning up with your p.15 leaflets within hours of the law getting the call, someone is going to put two and two together and come up with you. You have to admire the ingenuity of our radio listener, but is it worth the risk? If you have achieved something worth shouting about, use it to your advantage. Don't sit and let the moment pass whilst crying into our beer that there is no work to be had.

Now, what about keeping the business when you have got it? Good customer relations and good customer service is an essential part of any industry, not just ours.

As regular readers know, I am not in the habit of using my column for rants about my personal life but the following example I have had with a service provider is a good general example of how to loose goodwill and upset customers.

It concerns dealings with my local branch of Telewest, the cable TV and telephone service providers. I decided to change to Telewest when they offered free telephone calls if I subscribed to their 40-odd channel TV service. Forgetting my own advice that you only get what you pay for, I jumped in with both feet.

The installation team came in and laid the cable – across my lawn! They drilled a hole out through the wall and knocked off a huge lump of nice red brick and filled it with a yellow mix of sand and cement. They were all set to run the wires along the top of the skirting board until I put my foot down and made them hide them … and I had to show them how.

Then came the bill and I paid it. Then came the second month's bill and a reminder that I hadn't paid the first and I would be cut off, so I paid again and cancelled the first cheque. Telewest then tried to cash BOTH cheques and sent me the third bill saying there was nothing to pay as I was £90 in credit.

I took no notice and paid the amount listed for the month. Sure enough the cancelled check bounced and I received a letter asking for a replacement cheque. This was followed up by a phone call from the debt collection department and it took me a long time to persuade them that the account was in fact straight.

Then came the crash ...
All was then quiet on the Telewest front until I decided to "go Broadband". A representative was sent to connect up and after two changes of modem he crashed my computer. A complaint call resulted in the statement that the Telewest system was working fine and the computer was my problem not theirs. It cost me around a hundred pounds to get all the programmes re-installed and the computer back up and running but I had lost all the family files and photos that were stored there, (I should have backed-up more).

Shortly afterwards we had block paving fitted in the front garden and the pavers dug up the Telewest cable … which was only two inches below the surface of the lawn. Telewest couldn't get there for several days so I repaired it myself.

Six months later the cable went again and the Telewest engineer located the fault. It had been damaged not where I had repaired it, but where it went into the box in the street.

Then we had a power cut and all three services went bang. After a lot of fuss we got the services back but the voicemail service (at the exchange) wouldn't work. It was not taking messages but was telling me there were messages waiting.