First Choice Heating & Cooling Launches FirstChoiceHeat.com as Michigan’s Heating and Air Conditioning Resource

Fenton, MI, November 21, 2006 – First Choice Heating & Cooling today announced the launch of www.FirstChoiceHeat.com as an information portal for Michigan home owners to find information about heating and air conditioning solutions and educational information in regards to keeping their home energy efficient. With articles being added almost every day and an online monthly newsletter of home improvement tips the website is anticipated to quickly become Michigan’s primary resource web site for air conditioning and heating.

Future plans include educational awareness guides on heating and air conditioning in your home, professional advice from expert contractors, and a question and answer forum for Michigan homeowners.

The web site will be an invaluable resource for Michigan homeowners in finding accessible information to address their HVAC needs for their home. Not only will the website be addressing home safety, but also new energy efficient solutions, that will benefit homeowners in the duration of owning their home.

Bryan McIntyre, president and owner of First Choice Heating & Cooling stated, “Our goal is to offer the most educational information for Michigan homeowners by providing them with informative and professional articles and resources, which will make FirstChoiceHeat.com a portal worth visiting and using to better make homes safe and energy efficient.

About First Choice Heating & Cooling: First Choice Heating and Cooling Services, Inc. is a full service Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning company, specializing in the maintenance and installation of energy efficient HVAC systems. They have been servicing home owners in Michigan since 2001. For more information visit www.FirstChoiceHeat.com

Henry County HVAC Contractor

We are pleased to announce the launch of ComfortMaxx, a Henry County HVAC contractor who provides total comfort solutions including heating, air conditioning, electrical service, indoor air quality and emergency plumbing.

The 21 Secrets Of Superstar Contractors: Secret #1 Marketing Comes First

Article from ContractorSelling.com<

What is a superstar company? You probably have seen them in places like trade magazines and the like, but mostly they operate under the radar and cannot be easily seen by the untrained eye. I am a student of what makes an service contractor an icon or superstar in their market.

In my travels and in the course of my work, I have been fortunate enough to see and learn from many of these companies that truly march to the “best practices” beat. The bottom line is that they walk the walk and make above average double digit profits to boot. The biggest common denominator to the “superstar’s” is that they all enjoy a great freedom, both financially and figuratively, while still running their businesses with great profitably. At any rate, here is secret #1

Have you ever wondered why some contractors have all the customers they could ever want, while others struggle to get new and existing customers to do business with them? This question holds the key to secret #1 of superstar companies.

A superstar company realizes that the primary business objective, is to market and promote the company before all else. Superstar companies realize that without clients no revenues are generated. Therefore, this means that the marketing and sales sides of the business are a higher priority than the operational side of the business. This is especially true, since the marketing side of the business actually drives the quality of the company to operate better.

How could this be? Let’s face it, marketing just boils down to the company promising to potential customers that they operate better and can be trusted for a higher quality, faster delivery or better service than the competition. Well, if the marketing side of the company stops making these “higher quality” promises to their clients the operation side stops trying to improve the quality, speed and service because there has been no urgency set by the marketing department.

Think of it this way. Most of us will be sure to get things done when given a deadline. The marketing promises that your company makes and the uniqueness of those promises is what serves as this deadline. The operation side, thus being notified of such promises goes into, “How are we going to do that?” mode. Then the creativity of your operation team will flourish and supply the answers to get better and deliver the improvements promised.

Do you want to be a “superstar” company? Just ask yourself, “How much time and priority do I place on marketing, promoting and selling in my company. If you find yourself bogged down by operational “emergencies” for most of your day, then you need to delegate those operational solutions to someone else in the company and get back to the marketing, promoting and sales side of your business.

Joe Crisara is the CEO of www.contractorselling.com and author of the Contractor Selling.Com weekly Sales Tip E-Zine. You can sign up for Joe’s E-Zine FREE by going to their website at www.contractorselling.com Joe can be reached at Joe@bigtimebusiness.com or by calling him toll free at 877-764-6304. You may reprint this article as long as this tag line stays in tact.

The Best Plumber I Ever Had

We are pleased to announce the launch of The Best Plumber I Ever had, a Beverly Hills plumber, who tailors services to meet your specific needs. With swift and courteous and very personable service they are attentive to detail in plumbing remodels, larger repairs, or simple emergency work like a water heater going out. They have a knack for solving “unsolvable problems” and ensuring you are satisfied with the solution as the company is owned and operated by a second generation plumber with many years of experience. This company is well geared to meet the needs of the high-end residential home owner. They are entirely red-carpet-service oriented.

Chicago Painters

We are please to annouce the Chicago Painters, Inc. has just recently launched their new site. Chicago Painters, Inc is a chicago painting company that offers interior and exterior painting solutions for homeowners in the Chicagoland area.

Client Written In The News

Home Visions West, an Oregon Energy Consultant, was written up in this article

Humble Abode Painting Revamps Website As It Celebrates It’s 3rd Anniversary

Milwaukee, WI November 14, 2006 – Humble Abode Painting, LLC, a Milwaukee painting company, today announced the relaunch of HumbleAbodePainting.com as the premiere resource on home improvement and painting in Milwaukee. Celebrating its third anniversary, the redesigned website provides visitors with articles, and educational information on house painting, wood finishing and selecting and hiring painting contractors.

The web site will be an invaluable resource for Milwaukee area homeowners in finding accessible information to address their painting needs. Information will be efficiently categorized for easy navigation.

In honor of the third anniversary, Humble Abode Painting, will be offering a 10% discount on all services until the end of the year.

Joseph Hill, president of Humble Abode Painting stated, “Since this is our 3rd year in business, we believe that education is important for homeowners when it to taking care of their home,” “Our goal for the website is to be the best home and family resource guide for assisting all homeowners in the Milwaukee area,” “The depth of knowledge and resources www.HumbleAbodePainting.com offers is unparalleled.”

About Humble Abode Painting, LLC — Humble Abode, LLC is an experienced painting contractor servicing the Greater Milwaukee Metro area and surrounding communities. Our company offers a wide range of remodeling and restoration services, and we approach every project with quality and craftsmanship. For more information visit www.HumbleAbodePainting.com

Roofing Directory

We are now taking online submissions for a free listing into our roofing contractors directory

Right now all links are free. We are looking for roofing contractors who provide residential roofing systems in the United States.

Los Angeles Plumber

We are pleased to announce the launch of Rooter Man, a Los Angeles plumber, who provides emergency plumbing services, drain cleaning and water heaters.

Marketing Design/Build Services

Article provided by Remodelers Advantage

Marketing design/build services presents the special challenge of marketing a two-tiered service. You are selling prospects first on why they should choose the design/build approach for their project, and then on why they should choose you versus the other design/build companies in town.

That first step has gotten easier over the past 10 years as more and more prospects (but not all) have become aware that design/build exists and that it might well be the best way for them to get their remodeling project done. To capitalize on that interest in design/build, your company name-or at least a tag line-should state that yours is a design/build company. Every marketing piece should clearly indicate that design/build is the special operating style you have chosen.

Design every marketing message as though it were a radio beam that’s sending a specialized message to attract the right buyers. Your marketing pieces should exhibit exceptional design because part of what you sell is design. Develop them and place them so as to attract the most likely candidates for your company’s services. Make sure your marketing pieces stress the benefits that design/build-and your design/build system in particular-offers your clients.

What is marketing?
Every outreach, every contact with potential clients is a form of marketing. Your mission is to make these contacts as numerous and positive as possible. Because day-to-day construction operations are public, virtually no aspect of your work escapes view. That means that marketing ranges from advertising to trash management, publicity to personnel behavior, participation in home shows to the company sign in your clients’ front yard.

For a design/build company, visual image takes on special potency. The design of those job signs as well as your brochures, company shirts, business cards, truck graphics-everything that represents your company graphically-is a demonstration of your design professionalism.

Your job is to present a polished image targeted to your market of choice. The goal is to convince prospects not only that you are a good builder but also that you can design one-of-akind, beautiful and functional living spaces. Prospects ask, “Will this company understand my lifestyle?” or “Can they design a kitchen for me that’s the most beautiful and ‘with it’ in my neighborhood?” Your marketing needs to assure them that the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

Marketing basics
Set the stage for success by defining your market and calculating the amount of business your marketing program needs to generate.

Your market
Step one in shaping a marketing plan is to decide what you want to sell and who your preferred buyers are. Targeting the prime jobs your company wants and the prime buyers of those jobs lets you narrow your marketing focus. That saves money and boosts the efficiency of marketing dollars spent.

The leads you need
At the beginning of the business year, assess how many leads you need to achieve your dollar volume goal for the year. The calculation is simple. Here are the facts you need: Your company’s average job size (”Our average job is $200,000.”) Your company’s close ratio (”For every 10 calls from new prospects we sell two jobs. Our close ratio is l out of 5.”) The volume you want to sell this year (”Our projected volume this year is $3 million.”) The number of leads you will need to sell that volume (”To sell $3 million, we will need to attract 75 leads.”) The higher the quality of the leads you attract, the fewer you will need to make your desired volume.

Qualify Those Leads

Gotta have a plan - Marketing is underused by so many remodeling companies that you probably can outshine your competitors with a well-designed yet relatively inexpensive program. The key is planning. With smart spending choices and careful budgeting, you can bring in a consistent flow of quality leads. The alternative is to wing it. When leads are low, you make a spot decision to advertise. When lead flow is brisk, you cut the ads. This start-stop approach leaves you with few marketing options other than advertising because that’s the only lead generation “faucet” you can turn on and off so quickly. Planning is far better, if for no other reason than that advertising leads are expensive and generally lower in quality than leads from more targeted marketing.

Try This!
The basic idea is the same as for almost everything else in life: time spent planning up front is time well spent. The more effort you spend in analyzing your business and your marketing efforts, the more effective your final plan will be!

Qualify those Leads
A good job of qualifying leads lets you identify early on-before you invest a lot of time and money-which prospects are most likely to buy from your company. What makes a high-quality lead? Most design/build remodelers agree that these 10 characteristics are important factors.

1. The referral comes from a current or past client.
2. The referral comes from referral by a friend of the company, such as a supplier or subcontractor.
3. The prospects need the services or products that fit your niche.
4. The prospects live in your target geographical area.
5. They fit the socioeconomic mold of your target market.
6. They have sufficient home equity, if borrowing is going to be necessary.
7. They want to launch the project within the year.
8. They have not contacted other contractors.
9. They have a realistic budget range in mind.
10. They do not have plans or blueprints yet-or they have plans that did not fit their budget and need revision.

Try This!
Planning your marketing is a straightforward process. It’s best done on an annual basis, with regular reviews and tweaks as needed. Here is how to design a marketing plan that fits your company’s goals and needs.

Step 1. Determine your average job size. You can do that by dividing the company’s annual volume by the number of jobs you do in a given year. If you do lots of small repairs or had an unusually large job last year, you may want to take these jobs out of your averaging so that you get a realistic figure representing your “sweet spot” of job size. Track this average job size number from year to year to form a reliable estimate of the number of jobs you need to produce a target volume.

Step 2. Assess your lead generation needs . How many leads will it take to produce the sales you require to reach your target volume? Here again, refer to the previous year.

Step 3. Develop a line item budget. Your marketing expenditures should appear as a line item in your projected annual budget. Design/build remodelers typically spend 1 to 4 percent of their anticipated volume on marketing. Plan to fund your marketing activities on a steady basis . When the money comes from a designated fund it’s less painful to spend than when it has to be squeezed out of daily cash flow.

Step 4. Plan your expenditures. Set up a year-round program aimed at obtaining as many high-quality, referral leads as possible. Study the success of past or current marketing activities. Keep the winners and drop the losers from your program. Include at least one innovative project in your program so you can test out new tactics.

Step 5. Prepare a flow chart or schedule showing when each marketing activity should be started. Schedule the marketing so that expenditures as well as initiatives are spread throughout the year.

Step 6. Keep simple lead generation records by source. Numbers in hand, you will be able to compare actual performance against projections. Do this analysis on a quarterly basis, adjusting your marketing plan accordingly.

Your Market
1. The job: What kinds of jobs do you want? What kinds of jobs do you do most profitably? Most enjoy? Do best? Consider dollar volume and complexity as well as job type. Most design/build projects fall in the $25,000 and up dollar range.

2.The clients: Your client base needs to jibe with your job profile. What is the demographic profile of your target clients? Where do they live? What do they spend on remodeling? What remodeling jobs do they request?

3. Distinguishing features of the job package: Build a marketing program that, for these buyers, makes your company stand out in a crowd. What “bells and whistles” can you offer that will grab your prospects’ attention? Should your contracts include interior design help? Should you pledge to leave every job broom clean? Should you provide maid service at project completion? Once you define your target job type and client profile, direct your marketing toward that business segment. Publicity, photos in brochures, written materials, ads in magazines and newspapers, all should speak to your prime buyers and feature the jobs you want to do. Your staff should share the vision of the prime job and work as a team to deliver on the promises you make to produce top-of-the-line projects in your market niche.

Whether you’re just beginning to delve into this profitable business system or want to come up to speed quickly on the innovative techniques being used successfully around the country, Mastering the Business of Design-Build Remodeling, written by Remodeling magazine columnist, Linda Case, Victoria Downing and Wendy Jordan, is a must-read book!

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