A  contractor attended a seminar where the leader urged attendees to write down their goals and wishes. He came back from the seminar, wrote down what he wanted to do, threw the piece of paper in a drawer, and forgot about it.
    Years later he was cleaning that drawer, found that piece of paper, and was amazed that he had accomplished all the goals that were on his list.
    When he recounted this story to me, he was shocked that he had accomplished the goals. I reminded him that writing down what you want is the first step toward achieving it. He was living proof that it could be done.
    Here are three things to write down to be successful in 2008:  

1. Your marketing plan.
Estimate your sales. Don’t automatically increase last year’s sales by a certain percentage. Take a hard look at your employees, your competition, and what you could accomplish if everyone was productive at least 80 percent of the time. Assuming that you could keep everyone productive 80 percent of the time, do you have enough leads and potential work for them to do? If not, what marketing activities will you do to increase the number of potential leads?
    What advertising activities did you do in 2007? What public relations activities did you do? Did they produce the leads that you expected and will you continue those activities? Why or why not?
    Plan to increase your service agreements. However, don’t just throw a number on a piece of paper. Figure out how you plan to achieve that number. For example, if your goal is to sell an additional 360 service agreements, the likelihood that you will sell 30 per month is slim.  There will be months that you’ll sell more and months you’ll sell less.  Plan the seasonality into your numbers.  

2.  Your advertising results.
Tracking results is so simple to do yet many contractors don’t take the time to do it. If you don’t know where your leads are coming from, you can’t know which advertising activities to continue and which ones weren’t worth the money you spent on them. The hard part is that it takes discipline to track the leads. Your dispatcher just needs to ask new customers how they found out about your company and record that information on a form. The key is that he or she has to ask. Your sales people have to ask the same question unless the client volunteers how they found out about your company.
    Everyone who answers the telephone, visits a client, or has client contact must know about your advertisements. What happens if a client calls, saying that she saw your ad in the newspaper, and the person answering the telephone says, “What ad?” You’ve just lost a client.
    Everyone should see a copy of newspaper ads, listen to radio ads, or watch television ads. In addition, everyone should be totally familiar with your Web site and what it says. This way, anyone who answers the telephone can easily answer a client’s question competently.  

3.  Your follow up activities.
One of the most memorable thank-you gifts I’ve ever seen is ceramic cookie jars. The contractor has the client’s name painted on the jar and it is then glazed and completed in the oven. The contractor’s name and telephone number are embedded in the cookie jar cover. It is filled with cookies and presented to the homeowner. After the surprise, the homeowner puts it in the kitchen where everyone can see it. When friends, neighbors, and colleagues come to visit, a discussion often follows about the customized cookie jar. The question invariably comes up, “Where did you get it?” The client says, “My plumbing company gave it to me.” Over the years, many contractors have spent the money to get these cookie jars done and it always pays back in referrals.
    Always write a thank-you note.  If you can’t write legibly, print. Put a short message inside the note. If you need thank-you notes that stand out, check out www.profitsinpregress.com. These are great note cards that come with potential thoughts to include inside.
    Contact the client 30 days after the job is done. They don’t expect a telephone call then and will be pleasantly surprised. This will make a positive, lasting impression. Ask for referral at the 30-day mark. It only takes five minutes to write a thank-you note or make a telephone call, but it takes discipline. Such follow up activities often get forgotten when you get busy.
    From a service perspective, ensure that your service tickets and business cards have a referral statement on them. Call all clients who were taken care of by a new service technician or a new installer. Otherwise, you can only guess how that person is doing in the field. Your clients will tell you when you ask.  

    Writing down these activities and tracking the results will help you reach your marketing goals in 2008…even if you throw the list in a drawer and don’t look at it until 2009!