I am going to let you in on a little secret. Yellow page ads still work after a business closes. If a company goes out of business and drops their phone number, the yellow page ad will still work! The ad doesn’t just disappear. I discovered this when I was building a heating and air conditioning business in Wisconsin. We picked up an old phone number that had been disconnected for more than 4 months. The very first month this phone number produced over $15,000 in revenue. We did over $40,000 in 3 months before we stopped tracking it. We eventually acquired 2 more numbers with similar results.

How did I get so much revenue from a number that was disconnected? The number came from a business that had been around for many years before it closed.  The owner retired and could not sell it. This phone number had ads in several current and past phone books. There were also stickers all over the area with their phone numbers on them. That equipment would eventually need service or replacement. We hoped they would contact us through the old number and they did.

There are many reasons to acquire disconnected phone numbers, the biggest one is the potential access to thousands of customers that were serviced by the old company. You pick up access to these customers for a fraction of what you would have to spend advertising for them. Even if the homeowners moved, the stickers on the equipment stayed with the house.  Some people kept old invoices and refrigerator magnets for years. They all had the old company’s phone number on them.

Many times we mistakenly think our customers know everything we do, but this is not usually the case. Most people will never know a business is closed until they need their services again. After you reactivate a disconnected phone number, just pick up where the old business left off. Make sure your call takers are scripted on how to handle calls that come in from old business. If handled correctly, customers won’t be too concerned about the change as long as you take care of their needs.

Finding disconnected phone numbers is easy. All it takes is a little finger exercise. Take out a phone book and call all the numbers in your category as well as any related categories. Make sure you call from an unknown or blocked number. You don’t want your competition to know you are calling them.

Use a tracking sheet to record how they answered. Think of this process not only as marketing, but as research. You want to know how professionally they answered their phone. Did it go to a machine or answering service? Do their people answer your call and take control, or do they appear not to care? Is there a busy signal, or no answering machine? You may be surprised at what you find out by doing this exercise.

When you do find a disconnected number, you want to convert that number to your business. Here are some steps to do that.

1-      Call the phone company to see if you can get that number immediately. Some phone companies won’t give you the number until after it has been disconnected for 6 months to a year. Find out the exact date that it is available and mark it on your marketing calendar. Make sure you call early on that day to get the number.

2-      If you can find the former owner, offer him some money to have the phone company release the number to you earlier. Consider offering him some money for his old customer records also.

3-      Sometimes the phone number is connected to a huge ad in the phone book that wasn’t paid for. Offer the phone company a small percentage of the cost of the ad if they give you the number (20-30%). If you don’t get results from one phone employee, talk to another. Some employees don’t have the authority to make that decision. Any money is better than no money.

4-      Train your call takers on how to properly convert the calls from the old business.

5-      Treat these new customers like gold and that should take away most of the concerns they have.

If someone already has an old number and they are not the competition, offer to buy the number from them and pay all their costs to change the numbers. Ask them how many calls they get a week looking for the old business. This information should help you know how much to pay for the number.

If they don’t want to sell the number, ask them if they would refer the calls to you. Tell them you will pay a referral fee. Your highly trained call takers should be able to keep track of all referrals.

We used to go through this exercise every 1-3 months. Acquiring a discontinued phone number reduced our overall lead cost and was worth the effort. Consider doing it yourself the first time before passing it off to an employee. Personally listening to the phone answering of your competitors may offer some insights into your own phone practices. Now, let your fingers do the walking.

Read About Steve Sorenson

I am currently working on a business plan with my client, Tony. I have permission from him to share this story. As we were working on the business plan, we started to reminisce about how we became friends. I remember it well.  I had just opened a new recording studio.  One week later, Tony moved in next door to open a new small engine repair shop. My Grammy award winning partner was less than thrilled about the idea of someone revving up lawn mowers while he was recording hit songs. Fortunately, Tony closes his business at 5:00pm, which coincidently happens to be about the same time most of my musician friends are rolling out of bed.  End of that conflict.

Tony is a great guy; he never forgets your name. The moment you meet him you feel like you’re his best friend. When you come to his shop, he drops whatever he’s doing to quickly greet you at your vehicle.  Tony loves his new business. His friendly nature quickly increased the workload. More work kept coming in. Like most optimistic business people, Tony felt he could handle anything. Bring it on. He continued to work harder and harder doing all the repairs while running the business.

As the months passed, Tony became buried in work. He started to fall behind on a lot of the different business tasks he was responsible for. He had to wear too many hats. In less than a year, his business wasn’t fun anymore.  Physically and mentally exhausted, he was ready to throw in the towel. Tony felt defeated and started to make simple mistakes. His phenomenal memory and friendly nature made it easy for people to forgive him, but he couldn’t rely on that for too long.  This is not what he thought owning a business was supposed to be like.

Being a great guy doesn’t qualify you to run a business. If Tony didn’t learn how to run his business soon, he would be in serious trouble. He recognized he needed help. One day he approached me in a panic and asked for help to figure out what to do.  

I jumped right in. I talked to him about business planning and the positive effects it would have on his business. He would have to start seriously thinking about things like sales, marketing, budgets, and schedules. He would need systems and procedures put in place to operate his business more effectively. I promised him that if he did these things, his life would get better and his business would soon be profitable. Tony stopped me there and moaned, “that all sounds great, but could you show me how I can pay my rent next month?” It was then I realized Tony didn’t need a business plan, he needed a survival plan!

Tony wasn’t worried about the future; he was worried about the present. If he couldn’t improve his present situation, there wouldn’t be any future. His problem wasn’t caused by dwindling sales in an ongoing recession, but by not having a plan in place to handle the business he already had. For the survival plan to work, we would have to do a massive amount of triage.

Merriam-Webster defines triage as (paraphrased): the sorting and allocation of treatment to patients of battle or disaster according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors.

Tony’s business was going to need triage and I was going to be chief medical officer. We had to look at all the problems in the business operation. Triage requires quick decisions, and time is critical. To reduce the risks of causalities, we had to rank all the problems in order of their importance and worth. All available resources would have to be allocated correctly. This was a battle for the health of his business.

Business owners like Tony can easily work themselves into a box. The more ineffective the busy work he did, the smaller the box got. He started to feel trapped as the walls closed in on every side. The weight of the box itself was taking him down and his view became so dark that he could see no way out. He became blinded to doing simple tasks that would have relieved a lot of the pressure.

I have a friend who works in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. I asked him to tell me the secret to helping his clients. He told me that he has to get inside his patient’s mind and see the world the way they see it. Once he understands the world from their perspective, he could lead them out into present day reality.

For me to help Tony, I needed to see his perspective on the business. If I correctly understood his world view, I could safely lead him in the right direction; this would save a lot of critical time. I believe a lot of times we prescribe a cure for someone before we understand their view of the problem. We will tell people what they need to do to run a marathon, but if they don’t know how to take their next step, running even a block would seem impossible.

For you to do effective triage:

1-Recognize you are in over your head and cannot solve the problems by yourself.

2-Ask for help from someone who can solve problems.

3-Take time to accurately assess each problem.

4-Prioritize all the tasks to be done.

5-Use all of your available resources to speed up the process.

6-Have faith that your problems can be fixed.

7-Start to fix the problems one at a time.

8-Put systems and procedures in place to make sure you don’t have these same problems in the future.

Times up. In the next article, I will explain the steps we took to gain some sanity in Tony’s life. Tune in next time to….As The Business World Turns. Episode 2, Tony sees the light!

Read About Steve Sorenson

I was talking with my teenage children the other day. The discussion came to money-it always does with children. They wanted more! More than their mother or I was going to give them. It was time for them to find a job. If they could not find a job, then they would have to make one. Everyone can do this, not just teenagers.

I remember looking for work when I was young. The work may have not been romantic or prestigious, but it gave me money. Money allowed me freedom at an early age. Freedom to do the things I wanted to and buy the things my parents wouldn’t get me. I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, worked on farms, shoveled snow, painted, and many other things. I did whatever I could do to have cash in my pocket.  When someone said they needed something done, I said I could do it. If I didn’t know how to do the job, I found someone to teach me. Some of these jobs turned into full time companies with employees.

How did I get these jobs? I went out knocking on doors. I made phone calls. I talked with whoever would listen. I never gave up. I wanted money, and I was going to find a way to get it. I simply found a need and filled it. There will always be people who need things done for them.  To find out what they need, ask some questions: What chores or service do they need done?  Are you willing to pay me to do them? When would they like them done? Ask these 3 questions long enough and you will be busy.

There are many types of services you could provide at little or no start up costs. Babysitting, pet walking, house sitting, and cleaning are some services. Maybe start a shopping service for people that do not have the time to shop or are unable to do it themselves. Help people sell things on Ebay or Craigslist. Look at doing lawn care, maintenance, message delivery, or vehicle detailing. Any one of these part time activities could easily become a full time business. These full time businesses can provide you with greater security and more enjoyment than you might get working somewhere else.

There are many ways to market your service for little money. Don’t give in to conventional thinking.  You could email your friends and relatives. Tell them what you are doing. Ask if they know of anyone who could use your services. Put an ad in Craigslist. Do not write the ordinary ad, write a great ad! Print cards and fliers on your computer. Hand them out or paste them on bulletin boards around town. Knock on doors. The main thing is to be committed to getting the word out and doing whatever it takes to succeed.

Consider providing these services to businesses as well as homeowners. People are hungry for great service. Providing exceptional service is a key ingredient that will get you repeat customers as well as referrals. There is a lot of competition in giving lousy service, but little or no competition in giving great service.

I have been helping businesses and individuals find work for years. The process is not really that hard.  If you have never done anything like this before, start on a part time basis and see if it is something you want to do. Get creative and get going.
Action steps.
-Find a service people want and are willing to pay for.
-Make an action plan and commit to it.
-Acquire the tools necessary to complete the service.
-Market your service to acquire customers.
-Deliver the service.
-Collect the money.
-Ask for referrals.
-Repeat the process.

If you are willing to do the hard things that most people are unwilling to do, you will be successful. I wish you well. Now if I can only get my teenagers off the computer long enough to do it.

Steve Sorenson is a Wizard of Ads partner living in Hawaii. You may contact him at stevesorenson@wizardofads.com

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 United Airlines just found out that the internet can deliver the truth at lightning speed and in many different ways.  A guy named Dave Carroll got upset at United Airlines because they wouldn’t pay for a guitar they broke. Dave decided to do something about it. He wrote a song about United breaking his guitar, and put the video on YouTube. In less than 7 days, the video has been viewed by 2 ½ million people!

Read About Steve Sorenson

Craigslist can be a great place to promote your business. It doesn’t take too much time to place a simple, effective ad and the results can be phenomenal.  This is a low key way of letting people know you that your business exists.  The reason people fall in love with Craigslist is because it is the equivalent of newspaper classified ads in real time. There is no charge for the ad In most cities. The ad can be for the product or service you offer, or to post a job looking for new employees.
 

Recently a client and I started an experiment with a Craigslist employment ad. We wanted to measure the response of the ad placed in Craigslist compared to Career Builder or Jobs.com. We wanted to measure not only the amount of responses, but also the quality of candidates.  I don’t have the total results in yet, but just about every other day my client calls to tell me how excited he is with the quality of candidates he is getting from Craigslist. He says he is already so happy with the results that he doesn’t feel a need to use paid job posting sites in the future.

Most of your ads for your business should go under the Services category. People that go to these categories are looking for a specific business. Though they may not be looking for your business at this time, it is a great opportunity to let them know that you are out there.
 

Here are some important things to keep in mind when you run your ad.
 

THE POSTING TITLE HEADING IS THE KEY. The heading may be all the advertizing you need. People do not need to click to the body of your ad for it to be effective. If you are a bigger business, a headline like 25% OFF ON ALL COMPUTERS THIS JULY 4th WEEKEND AT JOE'S ELECTRONICS is usually enough information for those interested to either click for more information, or stop in your store. You also need to use specific dates to make this type of ad effective. You may also run this ad under For Sale-Electronics, but it would need a different headline as Craigslist doesn’t let you run the same ad under different categories

Give people what they want.  Most people who read your heading are not interested in your product or service at this time. Let them know what you are about and who you are in the heading. Spare them the time of having to click on the heading to find out more if they don’t need to. People don’t want to waste time clicking on the heading just to find out it is something they are not interested in, or worse, that it is just a scam.
 

Make the most of availabe space.  If you want more words in your headline, don’t use all upper case letters. You can get another 20-30 extra letters in your heading if you use lower case.

Post every 5-10 days. Don’t post too often. Some people discover what Craigslist can do for them, and flood the category with ads one right after another. If viewers notice this, they will skip you altogether, or red flag you as a scammer.  

Use a picture. People love pictures. Pictures bring validity to your offer. If you are just doing PR type of advertizing, put in a picture of your office or warehouse staff.  Maybe put a picture of your product being used in a unique situation.

Put in your real email address.  You have the option of using the private Craigslist email or your own email. Don’t use the private Craigslist email unless there is a specific reason to do so.  It’s more personal and gives legitimacy to your business.  If you want to drive traffic to you or your website, why would you use a blind box e-mail?

Make sure you put in specific city or location. If you are a bigger city, identify where you are in the city.  Put a link to Google maps. The scammers put in things like west side, or downtown. If there are a lot of scam ads in there, you will need to be more specific.

Help Craigslist. If your category has a lot of scam ads, do your part and red flag them: this will help keep your category clean and more relevant.

If you don’t feel comfortable writing your own ads, you may want to consider hiring the two guys who wrote the Craigslist ad that is working so well for our experiment above, Peter Nevland and Jeff Sexton. These guys know how to write great ads and have demonstrated that they can get results.

Peter’s next writing course will be the Young Writers Workshop held at Wizard Academy, August 4-5 in Austin.

Jeff Sexton teaches an online ad writing course, How to Write Powerfully and Clearly. He tells me that he will be offering this course again in the fall.  

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I saw this headline above a few months back when I was searching the Business listing on Craigslist. Usually this category is filled with “scam” ads wanting to involve you in multi-level marketing or selling you advice on starting your own internet business - but this ad caught my eye.

Vacancy rates of commercial properties are increasing and rents are lowering. Renters can get a better location for less money and it is even possible to lock in the lower rental price for the amount of years that fit their business needs. Because of the changing market conditions, landlords need to find different ways to find renters besides just lowering their rental prices until they go broke.

Property owners are business people also. They have bills to pay, just like you and me. The landlord that ran this ad wanted to keep her properties rented and came up with a unique way of marketing them. I am not going to speculate on which way she was going to “invest” in your business; there are a lot of ways to work that out. The key point is that she came up with a way of marketing her business that set her apart from the rest.

When you consider different options for marketing your business, be sure to look at ways that make you stand out from the rest of the clutter. People will notice you. I noticed this ad. I also noticed that she isn’t running it on Craigslist anymore.

If done right, Craigslist can be a great advertising and marketing source. In a future article, I will give you some quick tips on how to use Craigslist effectively to promote your business.

Read About Steve Sorenson