A couple of weeks ago we explored how important psychographics (make into a link) are to unveiling potential profit in your business. This week we will continue our study about Bob's business by investigating his second branch. The HES office in Bend, OR is located in the 97756 zip code. It takes a little over three hours to get there from Portland, and he checks in about once a month. His son, Tommy, has run it with his wife, Tammy, for over 3 years. HES-Bend employs 3 people, including Tommy and Tammy. The third person is Joey, their integrator. It made $200K gross profit in 2014. Tommy needs more customers who will spend larger amounts of money, but he doesn't know where to find them.
One month after Bob implements his strategy at HES-Portland, he visits Tommy to make a strategy for HES-Bend. They discover through the Zip Code Lookup that the median income within their zip code is $44K. They rarely get any customers that live in their district. The closest higher end area code is 97712, which encompasses Brothers and Hampton. They calculate that 53% of their clients have come from those towns. The psychographics from this zip code are similar to the results in the 97034 zip code in the (link)first blog. It will be easy enough to implement them across their business plan. Bob and Tommy know they have to do more than just that for HES-Bend to dramatically increase their sales. In order to get more sales, they need to start building relationships with builders of homes, and possibly look in surrounding states for lucrative jobs.
Should Bob and Tommy hire a marketer/salesmen to complete all of this for them?
Bob and Tommy generally work 50-60 hours a week. Bob is 63, and Tommy is 35. Bob rarely uses social media. Tommy uses it more, but tends to just check his Facebook and Reddit feed. Both of them have sold their services to customers, but often give unasked for discounts and sometimes don't even bill for a service or product at all. They don't have any sales program in place for selling service and maintenance plans. They are much more of a technician and coding mindset than a business mindset, even though they're the one's in the leadership roles.
Bob and Tommy decide that they will do the work by themselves for a month. If it falls to the wayside with their other duties, they will need to hire someone who specializes in both marketing and sales since they don't have enough money (yet) to support two different salaries.
Where's the best place to find someone?
- The best person is probably a recent college grad who majored in Business, English, or Psychology. You'll be able to get them for a lower salary than someone much older. Check in with the Career Department's at your local colleges and tell them what you're looking for.
- Ask your LinkedIn connections if they can recommend anyone.
- Going on Indeed, CraigsList, or Monster is a crab shoot that will most likely garner hundreds of applicants, but it can be successful.
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