Nov 13, 2017
On this episode of Pond Marketing Secrets, Laura chats with Jay
McCormick of McCormick Landscaping
about how getting your water features displayed in Garden Centers
or retail stores can help boost your referral business!
Tip of the Week: Take time to be with your
kids/family. You’ll be happier in business if you’re happy overall
with your life.
Pond Marketing Group Action - What Laura Did This
Week: Made a list of 35 names (old customers, regular
customers, potential customers) to spend time reaching out to.
Laura and her husband each set a goal to call 10 per week from this
list to build and develop that customer
relationship.
Garden Centers
Finding a garden center or landscaping center to build a
referral partnership with for your pond business can be a great way
to find new customers! With any referral partner, building this
type of relationship takes time and effort, but the rewards for
both businesses make it well worth the effort. Jay has many water
features on display throughout garden centers and retail spaces in
his area, giving him great business referrals. Listen in as Jay
walks you through how he worked with these different retail spaces
to get his water features displayed there.
- Walk through the retail space, take pictures and make notes of
the dead retail space you see. Show these garden centers that
you can bring them big retail and sales value by adding a feature
in those spaces for them. See where you can install a water feature
that will not only help their business, but help you too.
- Talk to employees/supervisors. Get a feel for what their system
is like in that garden center. You’ll have to build and foster a
referral partner relationship with them. Look for a place that has
high traffic (higher value for your business). Map out where you’d
suggest the feature to go and propose it as a business plan. You
have to have a plan to talk with the owners, be prepared show them
how it’ll benefit them, and make it a business proposition. If you
go in unprepared the management and owners will not take your
proposition seriously, so do your homework.
- The Garden Centers Jay works with brings in about 20% of his
business. He’s also worked out a good deal with the garden center
because they get a cut of each sale he makes from their referral.
These stores will need to know that they’re a good fit for this
referral partnership too. So do your research about the company,
you can’t just walk in and say you want to put a feature in and
have them bend over backwards for you. You need to have a plan and
show how that plan benefits them and their customers. Show them how
the current space isn’t being utilized and give them a better way
to make that retail space profitable for both businesses.
- Once installed you can’t just leave a water fixture and expect
it to sell itself or take care of itself. Make an effort to stop in
at these stores and check on how things are going. Offer trainings
about the water features to the store employees, be available to
answer questions there from customers about the features. You want
the features to always look their best for your sake and for the
impression of the customers and the retail store.
- Make it easy for interested customers to find you. Leave
business cards near each feature that they can take, have a stack
of business cards handy for the store’s employees to share. For
Jay, each feature gets a little sign with his company's name, the
name of the water feature on display right there, the components of
that particular water feature, and what the ballpark pricing
is.
- Don’t limit yourself to just garden centers. Other high traffic
stores also have space for water features, including restaurants.
You don’t have to be in the same industry as a retail space for one
of your water features to bring value and benefit to for you both.
Jay is working with Texas Roadhouse to install his next water
feature display, getting his name out there even more and offering
a beautiful waiting space for the customers at Texas
Roadhouse.
Find out more about Jay by visiting The McCormick Landscaping
Website, finding him on Facebook or even
giving him a call with more questions, at (803) 215-1672
Let Laura help your company achieve marketing goals and stay top
of mind with your customers! For a full list of services offered
through Pondtent, visit Pond
Marketing Group today!
Podcast Editing and Show Notes via Podcast Buddy