Tips from the Top: Allen Kent- Kent Heating & Air

In this week's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, hosts Justin Jacobs brings on Allen Kent to discuss what's working and not working in North Indiana and Kent Heating and Air. Main Questions Asked: What is your story? What are some things you did to establish yourself in the area? What changes have you seen over time? What does 2019 look like for you company? Key Lessons Learned: Kent Heating and Air Kent has been in business for 65 years and regard themselves as a marketing company. They specialize in the design and service of HVAC. They have a targeted customer acquisition program thanks to Hudsons Ink. Allen's father started the company in 1954 and Allen purchased it in 1991. After four years of effort, the company moved into a brand new 7700 sq ft facility and set a sales record last year with a 14% in sales. Despite the big move Allen still found the time to make sure that everyone that worked there still had fun and got things done. Just because you've been around a long time, that doesn't necessarily lead naturally to success. No matter what size your business is, if your employees are enjoying their work and feel appreciated, it will show in what their doing. To pull off substantial growth you have to stay focused on your core business. Your core business drives it all. Do your employees have the same pride and ownership as you do? Let your employees take ownership of what they do. When Allen took over the business didn't really have a brand identity so one of the first things they did was develop a marketing plan and line up the brand image across the company. In a lot of ways Hudson Adams became Allen's mentor and helped them rework their yellow pages ad that increased its effectiveness by 245%. Allen believes the economy is going to slow down a little bit so he's aiming for 5%-6% growth. His plans include getting ready to transition the business to the next owner and to be more timely on his Tuesday night thank you calls. Every Tuesday afternoon Allen calls his recent installation customers and personally thanks them. That's one of the things Allen believes has really helped build his business and generate referrals. It's a great way to find out about your business and shows that you really care. People will give you feedback if you make it easy for them. Marketing The yellow pages used to be the go to resource for contractors. It wasn't a question of whether you were going to run yellow pages ads, it was how much money are you going to spend? The great shift in marketing is going from offline to online, but that also means there is an opportunity in the direct mail channel. The mailbox is less crowded now, and that means your message is more easily seen by your customers. Social media and websites have been one of the biggest changes in marketing in the last several years. You have to sell to a potential customer in the way that they want to be sold. Email used to be the easiest and cheapest way to reach people but then email became crowded as everyone jumped on the bandwagon. The pendulum has swung back to direct mail. The secret is a consistent marketing message. Referrals and direct mail and Allen's best sources of new customers. There is nothing quite as powerful having someone refer your business. Everything has to work together to turn your customers into raving fans. Don't give people a reason not to refer you. Cheesy offers deliver cheesy results. Don't do gimmicks. Try to enter into the conversation that your customer is having their own mind and when that battle. Any media you choose, the standard will be the same. Some portion of people will respond and some won't, the ones that won't might respond the next time. You make specific offers to different areas, the important point is to ensure the message is consistent with everything else you do. Making the transition from talking about yourself to talking about your customer is one of the biggest hurdles for new marketers. Your customers don't care about how long you've been in business, they want to know you can fix their problem. You have to build and earn your customer's trust, they've probably been burned by some bad contractors before. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes! Links to Resources Mentioned [email protected]