I don’t have time to blog!
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we have a great pool of talent to draw from here at Blogging Painters. We all have our own strengths and fields of expertise, like Heidi and customer service, Scott is the wood snob, Tommy with products and Dean is the go to guy for many of us on all things RRP. And so on. These posts can be used long after we have read them. Many of us do not have the time or the skills to create a blog, which can be a very useful tool.
Ok, how do I use them?
Recently Heidi posted about comparing estimates and suggested that you use the article to share with your customers. That was a great piece to link on your own site, or send to a customer.
In my area, we don’t have a lot of stucco homes, so when a customer asked me about Elastomeric, I usually refer to the Data sheet and my limited knowledge. But next time I can send them Gabe’s article on Elastomerics or if I want to reinforce my suggestion of the proper way to strip a log cabin, I can send them a link to Scott’s article. I can send these links to a customer, or bring them up on my IPad during and estimate.
Do customers really care?
I recently read this article where the author talked about the online education some customers gain in their quest to complete their home project.
Customers have been told for decades that they are always right. They may THINK they know it all, so we have to be careful how we approach them. This means we need to be proactive in showing them we actually do know more.
How much more proactive can we be than sending them a well written, informative, peer written article?
Ok, maybe I could write one!
Some of you may have certain reservations about sending an article that is location specific or has another contractor’s name in it. Here is a recent article I did on Choosing Color as a guest for a local blog, in this one I referenced local companies, I just took a few minutes to take out the local references and I posted this here on BP, which could be sent to your customer.
Look for local blogs and offer to write a guest post yourself.
What do I write about?
Write what you know about! Process stories can be a great way to show a potential customer how your business operates, here is a great article from Chris Johnson:
Process stories are made up of two things: procedures and anecdotes. Both are important to tell the whole story. Your procedures will appeal to people that want to know that you’ve thought of and mastered the details. The anecdotes are a little more tricky, but they help people connect emotionally and provide a form of social proof.