Michael: Why don’t I start here? I’m going to read your email, and then I’ll just help you out the best I can. I just read over it a second ago, but let’s read it over here. You’ve been a self-employed house painter for two years with another year of experience. Your company is called Better Painting, and you’re good at what you do. You enjoy it most of the time, but you’d like to grow your business. You consider yourself more of an entrepreneur. You’re interested in real estate investing, stock market and copywriting, marketing and business consulting. You’d like to get to the point where you can run a painting business from a distance and pursue some of your other interests. Educationally, you have a BFA and an MVIV. You’ve been studying marketing for the last two years, but can’t seem to get ahead. You even find it difficult buying stamps. You’ve been reading Dan Kennedy, Michael Masterson, Bob Bligh, Clayton Mcvey, Yanik Silver, nothing seems to be coming together. You’ve got a full page ad in a magazine that’s getting some results. You’re part of two online local contractor referral networks, but they seem to be price driven, and I don’t get many of those jobs. I’m positioning myself as an upscale service provider. I was running a classified ad in a local weekly paper with no results. My current tag line is, “Best looking, longest lasting job, because it’s not just your house. It’s your home. Better service, better products, better application, better results, better painting.” I also pass out fliers in the neighborhood in which I work. The problem maybe it’s the sales presentation. You do shower and brush your teeth. You tend to be a little meticulous. Maybe it’s a spiritual thing. Maybe you’re too nice. Your goal is you’d like to be earning $100,000 a year by five years from now from painting business and online business and real estate investing. You’re single and you desperately need a new truck. What did you do before painting?

Tim: I was in school. I worked at UPS part time while going through school.

Michael: How old are you?

Tim: Forty.

Michael: How busy are you right now with the painting business? How is it going?

Tim: Not too bad. Right now, it’s kind of in between winter and spring, so I’m getting outdoor jobs, so it’s kind of hit and miss as far as the weather goes.

Michael: Are you a residential homes, outside or interior or whatever you can get?

Tim: Residential homes, pretty much whatever I can get.

Michael: Do you find yourself selling based on price mainly?

Tim: Mainly.

Michael: How much is an average painting job for you ballpark? FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Tim: Probably $1,500.

Michael: What can you keep out of that? Let’s not even include your time, just your expenses and stuff.

Tim: My expenses usually run probably 15-20%.

Michael: How long does it take you to do a $1,500 job?

Tim: Probably about a week.

Michael: So, not even including what you’re paying yourself, you may be making around a hundred bucks a day.

Tim: Right.

Michael: About ten bucks an hour.

Tim: Pretty close.

Michael: So, if you averaged everything out, your painting business, you’re making about ten bucks an hour. You’re self-employed, right?

Tim: Right.

Michael: You’ve got to pay taxes, right?

Tim: Right.

Michael: You’re a sole proprietor, or are you incorporated?

Tim: Sole proprietor.

Michael: From my experience, if you’re a sole proprietor, you’re making ten bucks an hour, probably four or five of that is going to taxes by the time it’s all said and done.

Tim: That’s about right.

Michael: You’re painting for about five dollars an hour. Now, you’re obviously looking for something better. You’re looking at real estate investing, the stock market stuff. Have you bought into all these courses, Bob Why, Clayton McVey, Yanik Silver? Have you invested in this stuff, or are you just kind of on their newsletters and stuff?

Tim: I’m just on the newsletter.

Michael: Are you studying this stuff?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: And, you’re applying it mainly to your painting business.

Tim: Right.

Michael: Are you in love with the painting business, even though there’s other things you can do? I understand the painting business pays your bills and your rent and stuff. Would that be correct to say?

Tim: Mostly.

Michael: Have you tried anything else besides painting where you’ve been able to make money?

Tim: Nothing where I’ve been able to make money. I haven’t tried much.

Michael: You say you’re a meticulous type person.

Tim: Yes.

Michael: What does that mean?

Tim: That means that I like to get things perfect before I go out and do them.

Michael: You’re good at organizing, getting everything ready. Do you think that keeps you from actually doing them?

Tim: At times.

Michael: You say you have a hard time sometimes buying postage stamps. Is that just because you have a hard time taking action on doing it, or that you’re meticulous, or are you unorganized as well? What do you think is really holding you back from getting going?

Tim: I am organized, and just knowing exactly what to do is another one. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Michael: If you knew exactly what to do step by step, would that help you?

Tim: Yes, it would.

Michael: Are you a good painter at what you do?

Tim: Yes, I am.

Michael: So, you’re meticulous, and so you do the job right.

Tim: Yes.

Michael: You probably take more time than most other painters on your jobs.

Tim: Yes, I do actually, and that’s actually one of the reasons I’m not doing so well is because I take more time and don’t move fast enough.

Michael: So, where other painters just get the job done, good enough, you’re more meticulous, and that’s why you have a better service, a better product, a better result because that’s just the way you are.

Tim: Pretty much.

Michael: Do you try to sell that and explain that to a homeowner why you’re different than all the others they probably talk to? Do you let them know that at all?

Tim: I do, not necessarily in those terms, but most people think as long as you get paint on the wall, that’s okay.

Michael: Yeah, most people are concerned in price. You say you’re entrepreneurial, have you had any good ideas related to the painting industry of something that there’s a need that’s not being filled, or a demand out there that’s not being exploited that you have any kind of insight on?

Tim: Yes, I have found a product that I would like to start working with that’s environmentally friendly.

Michael: What is the product?

Tim: It’s environmental paint, and does a whole bunch of other things as well.

Michael: So, it’s an environmentally friendly paint?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: It’s a line for interior or exterior, or both?

Tim: Both.

Michael: Is that more expensive or less expensive than ordinary paint?

Tim: It’s about the same.

Michael: What is environmentally friendly? What are the benefits for the home owner by having that paint?

Tim: They don’t have to worry about any sort of allergy reactions. Some people have reactions to the paint.

Michael: What kind of reactions have you heard of people having to ordinary paint?

Tim: Some people are just very sensitive to smells, and they really can’t stand being around any sort of odor.

Michael: Does that dissipate after some time?

Tim: It always does yes.

Michael: So, even ordinary paint may have an odor for a while, but it does eventually dissipate where it’s not going to bother the person.

Tim: Right.

Michael: So, this is just for the time being when you paint, the homeowner isn’t going to have an unpleasant paint smell for the next couple of weeks. Therefore, if they’re sensitive to anything and they’re allergic to anything, they won’t be affected.

Tim: Right.

Michael: Is this paint well-known? FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Tim: No, it’s not.

Michael: Is it a new company?

Tim: No, it’s been around for about fifteen years.

Michael: Have you seen people painting with this paint?

Tim: Not yet. There’s nobody in Colorado painting with it.

Michael: Is the company well established? Do they have a website that outlines all the benefits of what they have?

Tim: Yes, they do.

Michael: So, they’ve got good literature for you.

Tim: Yes.

Michael: Well, I’m thinking with your painting that may be a nice angle. You’ve got to separate yourself from everybody else. You’ve got to give people a reason why, and I know you know about my HMA stuff. How much of the audio stuff have you listened to on my site?

Tim: Some of it. I have almost all of it stored on my computer. I just haven’t had time to listen to it, yet. You’re listening to an exclusive interview found on Michael Senoff’s HardToFindSeminars.com.

Michael: Do you listen to stuff while you’re painting, while you’re working?

Tim: No, I don’t. I don’t have a CD player.

Michael: You can pick yourself up an iPod Shuffle. It’s about the size of a pack of chewing gum. You can get it for about eighty bucks, maybe even less now on eBay. It will hold up to 500 hours of audio. It comes with software, and as you download the content onto your computer, it’s real easy. You just put the little iPod Shuffle, it plugs right into your USB port, and then you can put your songs in mp3 files. You’ve got these little headphones, and you can just wear the thing around your neck. You don’t even have to hold it in your hand. That’s what’s so great about it. You can go running with it, and it just hangs around your neck because it’s so light. It frees up your hands. You don’t have to clip it to anything. It just wraps around your neck. You can stick it inside your shirt, and you have your headphones. You could be painting and learning at the same time.

Tim: It’s a good idea.

Michael: It really is a great little device, only because you don’t have to hold it. I know you’ve got your hands full with the paint brush and all that stuff, but you may like that. I would check that out if I were you. Have you listened to me talk about USP, the unique selling proposition, or what makes you unique, or any of those recordings, the HMA stuff?

Tim: Yes, I have.

Michael: You really have to come up with something that makes yourself unique. That may be a nice angle. There’s people in the carpet cleaning industry having a lot of success with this angle where they’re coming in and repositioning themselves, not just as another carpet cleaner, but as the carpet cleaner who specializes in cleaning carpets for people with allergies. I may be able to find you some stuff. There’s a guy named Joe Polish. Have you heard of him?

Tim: Vaguely.

Michael: Well, he’s a Dan Kennedy student, and he’s real successful. He markets to carpet cleaners, but he markets information products to carpet cleaners to show carpet cleaners how to differentiate themselves and how to get jobs, higher pricing jobs. You can imagine carpet cleaning business is similar to the painting business. Everyone is shopping price for the cheapest carpet cleaner. It’s just as hard for a carpet cleaner as it is for a painter, maybe even harder, but he’s been real successful in showing people how to differentiate themselves with a unique selling proposition, something that makes them unique. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. That allergy angle is a very effective angle because they’re talking about the dust mites and all the bugs and stuff in the carpet, but they’re positioning it as the carpet cleaner who specializes for people with allergies. There’s a lot of people out there with allergies. If you’ve got three or four painters, and someone is bidding on price, I know everyone may not be concerned with it, but you want to charge a higher price. You want to give them a reason why you’re more expensive. They may not know that the paint is the same price, but that may give you an angle into selling yourself. That’s just one idea. You can be different. You’ve got to be different from everyone else. If you’re taking twice as long, you may want to consider charging twice as much, but you’ve got to give someone twice as much value as every other painter. You’ve got to show them when you make your presentation, you may say, “Look, I’m sure you’ve gotten bids from five or six other painters. While most other painters are concerned, the contractor will higher illegal labor to come in and paint your house. Many of these people aren’t bonded.” You’ve got to sell it and show all the reasons why you’re the guy, and you bid it out for more money, and you may be turned down five out of six, but that one, you may get the job and be getting paid what you’re worth rather than working for five dollars an hour. Now, the other end of it is you need to start producing more leads, and that’s a whole nother issue as you know. What’s this referral network you’re involved in?

Tim: It’s called Service Magic.

Michael: Is it online?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: Do you have to pay for it?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: What has worked for you in getting jobs, fliers?

Tim: Usually personal referrals has worked the best.

Michael: Do they come automatically or are you actively asking for them?

Tim: I normally ask for them.

Michael: Have you exhausted your referral network? Are there clients you can go back to? Do you keep all your clients’ names and numbers in a database?

Tim: I do keep all their names and numbers in a database.

Michael: How many people do you have in the database?

Tim: About fifty.

Michael: What if you went back to all those fifty people and called them on the phone and just said, “Things are kind of slow right now, and remember I did a job for you. Is there anyone that you can think of at this time, I know when I asked you last time you didn’t know anyone, anyone who has just moved in, or anyone that may need some painting or anything like that? Do you think if you went through all fifty and spent four or five hours on the phone asking for that, you can bring up some new jobs?

Tim: I don’t know. I might be able to. I sent out a letter asking that very thing a couple of months ago.

Michael: Did you get any referrals?

Tim: One, I think.

Michael: Sometimes, the letter is really easy to turn down. If you pick up the phone, it’s less expensive. I know it takes a little time, even if you paid someone to do it, you might come out a little bit better on the phone. Fifty calls, it’s not a lot of calls. If you did ten a day, I’d bet you come out with three or four jobs right there, and not only that, you might have reminded one of your old customers that they need some additional painting. So, while you’re on the phone, you can try and sell them on additional painting in their home, or a new service. When you’re in the house and you’re doing painting, do you have the clients ask you to do other stuff that you never even considered or that they never considered, but while you were there they discovered something that they needed done?

Tim: Occasionally, not very often. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Michael: Can you think of any other service that you could sell? When someone paints their house, what else do they need done that you can think of while you’re there?

Tim: They usually or sometimes need wall repairs done. I can do that.

Michael: Like a drywall repair?

Tim: Right.

Michael: Is that something you offer?

Tim: Yes, it is.

Michael: Have they ever inquired about if you do remodeling?

Tim: No.

Michael: Drywall repair, what else? Handyman stuff around the house, installing ceiling fans, anything like that, does that ever come up?

Tim: No, it doesn’t come up really.

Michael: Can you do all that stuff?

Tim: I can do most of that stuff.

Michael: You’re working for five bucks an hour painting, and the handyman stuff, I can see you calling all your customers back and reintroducing yourself as a handyman because with painting, you’re limited. You’re just a painter. You can only do one thing. If you’re a handyman, and you can do multiple things, ceiling fan installation, painting, drywall repair, door locks, door viewers, go search handyman on the websites, on Google, and find out all the services that they provide. Just ask yourself, “Which services could I do?” The handymen are getting paid ten times what you’re making. They’re making at least eighty bucks an hour in the home, ten times, and in some cases, it’s easier work and more pleasant work. Are you married to painting, or are you open to doing something else?

Tim: I’m keeping my options open.

Michael: There are so many people who need a good handyman, someone reliable and meticulous and honest, and who does a good job. I’ll tell you, a good handyman, they’ll keep calling you back and back, and you have more things to sell rather than painting. Once you get in a home, there’s always something that needs to be done. I’m just thinking of my home right here. There are a hundred things, if I had a reliable handyman who charged a far price, I could keep him here for a month from repair to painting to staining to outside doors. You name it. You may want to consider being somewhat of a Jack of all trades, and the stuff you can’t do when you’re in the house and someone has a job for you, what you do is you find someone else who could do it for you. You set up a deal where they pay you a percentage for referring. So, if you’re in the home, and they need yard work or shrub work or whatever, find someone local who does that kind of work, a gardener and work out a deal. Explain to the gardener that you’re in front of people all the time. You’re a handyman. People ask you all the time that you need yard work and shrub work, and I don’t do yard work and shrub work, but if you want to work a deal, anyone asks me, I’ll referring them over to you for a percentage of whatever you do for them as long as you’re working for them. It’s new business that that gardener would never have if it weren’t for you. Does that make sense?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: So, there’s nothing you can’t sell, even if you don’t do it yourself, if you let the customer know you can do it, and you just set up the alliances with your other service providers, like a gardener. If they have a pool, anything that you see that needs to be done, you tell them that you can handle, and then you start brokering it out. Now, you talked about you’d love to have a painting business that you control without actually being in it. I’ll tell you a way you can do this. Let’s say you go into a house. You get in as a handyman, and what you do before you go in is you do a home evaluation. You walk around with the homeowner, and you have a clipboard. You have all the FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. different things that a handyman could do, that a painter could do, that a gardener could do, that a pool service guy could do, a fencing specialist could do, and you have your clipboard, all the different things that could be done. You have little boxes where you check it, and so you do an evaluation of the home. You write the name of the home, the customer’s name, the number. You have these on sheets, and as you walk around the home, you look at the windows. You look at the locks. You’re asking the home owner, “Is this something you may be interested in?” You look at all the opportunities in the home where things could be done. I’m sure every home has at least fifteen or twenty of them, and you say to the homeowner that not only do you do handyman work, but your team of experts can handle anything that needs to be done in this home. You let them know that you are the go-to guy to handle this. So, let’s say you walk around and you check twenty categories for five different service providers. Now, let’s just imagine that you’re not even the handyman. Let’s just imagine that you are the service providers who hooks the homeowner up with all the experts. So, let’s just imagine you have five different sections of things that be done around the homes. So, let’s say you have five best friends or five alliances or five business partners that you trust in the local area where you are. You’ve got a gardener. You’ve got a handyman. You’ve got a painter. You’ve got a roofing guy. You’ve got a tile guy. You’ve got a fence guy, whatever category. You’ve got six or seven different people that you could set these deals up with. So, you’re the guy going in selling the service. Now, let’s say a homeowner needs three of the different experts. He needs a new roof, or he needs painting, or he needs handyman stuff. Then, you have your three service providers who you’ve set up this relationship with, and you’ve made an arrangement where they’re going to pay you a percentage of whatever’s done. It may take a while to get these providers that you trust, but believe me, there’s plenty of them. You’ve just got to find the ones you trust, and you’ve just got to approach them and let them know what you’re doing and say, “I can be a constant source of new business for you, but here’s how I work.” You let them know that you’re in front of homes all day, and you evaluate homes and you evaluate all the services and the things that they need done for the home. You’re setting up a team where you will get them the business, and you will refer over to them the business, but you want a piece of the action. You may want thirty percent or twenty-five percent of the gross of whatever they bill. So, if they bill a homeowner $700 for doing home repair or handyman work, you’re going to get 25% of that. You don’t have to do any of the work, but going into the home and doing the evaluation. That’s a lot of work than doing actual painting. Would you agree?

Tim: Yes, I would.

Michael: Now, here’s how you control it. You’re probably saying, “Well, how do I make sure that I’m going to get paid?” I’m going to give you a real easy sophisticated way where you can control everything. Let’s say you call me and I’m the handyman. You say, “Mike, I’m Tim. Here’s what I’m doing. I’m going around the homes. I’ve got people who need a handyman. Would you like to do business with me? Everyone I refer over to you, all the jobs are in the area. Most of them are in the nicer homes where they could be a good source of new business for you. All I ask is for 25% of whatever you bill. I’ll have the contact contact you directly.” Let’s say you go see a homeowner, and this homeowner needs handyman work. Well, you tell the homeowner, “Here’s your expert who does handyman work,” and you give them a phone number. It’s a phone number that you control. It’s your phone number. You’re on the internet, right?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: There’s a website called Kall8.com. It’s a fantastic phone forwarding number service where in two minutes, you can get as many as you want. Let’s say you got seven different 800-numbers all different. Each number is for each one of your experts – one for the handyman, one for the painter, one for the roofing, one for the tile guy, one for the fence guy, one for the gardener. So, each one is assigned a number. You have your clipboard of all your experts and all their phone numbers. So, you tell the homeowner, “Call John. Here’s his number.” You give the homeowner the number, and then the homeowner calls John, but it’s your phone number, and you program in this Kall8.com FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. service. You have the number forwarded to John’s cell phone or wherever he answers his phone. Now, what happens is when your customer calls him, that phone call is recorded. So, that recording of the phone call is emailed to you. Your customer calling knows that it’s recording because it says, “This call may be recorded for quality assurance.” So, it also lets the customer know that, “Hey, this sounds like a professional business.” John knows that in doing business with you all the phone calls will be recorded so we could track that lead came from me. You’ll have evidence and proof that your customer called your handyman guy. It keeps your handyman guy honest, and it keeps you in control. So, if he ever tries to screw you or take your customer away that you’ve referred, if let’s say you want to create some automatic referral systems. Let’s say that you put out fliers all over the neighborhood, and you had each one of the phone numbers represented for each one of your experts, all you’ve got to do is stop forwarding the number to him. His calls will just stop coming in. It’s just a great way to keep control of your referrals to hear how your expert is handling your customers. You’ll know instantly whether they’re treating them with respect, and whether they’re the type of service provider you even want to represent you because you only want the best. You want the ones who pick up the phone, and don’t have voice mail. You want the ones that may be have an office, a front end office that treats the customers right, that gets back to them because what’s the point of referring good customers that you’ve work hard in getting over to someone who doesn’t get back or doesn’t do a good job? So, you only want the best. What if you could find six or seven service providers representative in all those areas, but only the best in your area who really want to work with you? That’s going to take some work setting up, but if you can get that set up, then all you do is become the marketing guy for farming out these jobs. You’re just the broker. You take a piece of the action on everything you produced. You don’t have to do any of the physical work. That’s probably better than even doing the handyman work. I know you need to pay your bills and pay your rent and everything. You can certainly start doing handyman work. You could get at least ten times your money. You can at least get fifty bucks an hour doing handyman work. That’s a low end. If you look at all the franchises doing handyman work, they’re charging between $70 and $120 an hour. The real difference in the price is just good marketing and the homeowner wants to feel good about them. There’s a great chance that if you go in and do a good job, that homeowner’s going to have you back and refer you over. There’s such a demand for this type of work. We’re redoing our bathroom, a shower, and it was just a hell of a hard time finding someone to do this work. How’s house construction and stuff going right now in your area? Is it going gangbusters? What’s the nature of the economy there?

Tim: New home construction is going gangbusters.

Michael: Construction stuff, there’s probably a big waiting list right now.

Tim: Yeah, everybody’s buying new houses right now.

Michael: That should tell you right now that there’s lots of work to be done. Doing remodels and stuff may put people on a lot of waiting lists, but at the same time, there’s probably a lot of small things or your service can provide and go in there and do for these people. Does this give you some ideas?

Tim: Yes, it does.

Michael: You’ve got to stop working for five dollars an hour. It’s just not worth it. You can go get a job at McDonald’s and make more money than that. You’ve just got to look at your bottom line here. I know you want to do a good, meticulous job. Maybe direct that meticulousness and organization over to something that’s just going to make you more money. You’ve got fifty past customers that have probably been really pleased with your service, and you can go make up that sheet with all the different services that we’ve talked about and act as if you’ve already got this company going, and you’d like to come back and visit them and do an entire home audit for all the different things that they need done. You explain to them that you represent only the best of the best in your area from tiling to roofing to fencing to gardening, handyman to FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. painting to any category you can come up with. You’re organized. You can come up with every category. Can’t you?

Tim: Yes, I can.

Michael: Just do a search on handyman service. You’ll find the big franchises. You can call or go into their website, and call one of the big ones and see how they operate when they come out. They’ve got a big checklist. You can say, “Yeah, can you fax me all the different things you do?” They’ll send all the different things, all categorized, all the main things that need to be done. They know. They’ve invested money in doing this. If you want a good list, go on Amazon.com, type in “handyman service.” Look for books that tell you how to do handyman service, or do it yourself repair. Do it yourself repair will have all your major categories because they’ll have a chapter for each category. It’ll be plumbing and heating. You’ll have it all categorized it out. Don’t try to brain it up. It’s already been done before. Amazon.com will let you look into the table of contents already. Did you know that?

Tim: No, I didn’t know that.

Michael: If you click on a book, type in “handyman repair,” or “home repair,” and you find a book that will show people how to do their own home repair. Look in the table of contents. They’ll have it all broken down for you. You can look inside the table of contents and read the preface and stuff. They won’t let you print it out. If you try to print it out, your page will come out blank, but there’s software called Snag It. Have you ever heard of Snag It?

Tim: Yes, I have.

Michael: You can Snag It. You can take an image of the page, and you can print that out. So, you’ll have it, or you’ll have to retype it when you make your master list. Do you think that’s something you can do?

Tim: Yes, it is. My biggest problem with that is finding new customers.

Michael: Let’s look at the asset you have. You’ve got fifty past customers. Each new customer should be your main driving force for new customers. You can even explain to them when you talk to your customers that the only way you get business is through personal referrals. It may be a benefit to you to establish your business that way. Your service is in such demand, the only way you operate is by referral only. Can you imagine if your business is only referral only referred by happy customers, how welcoming and easy the sale would be? It’s such a huge difference when you’re referred by someone compared to a cold lead. Have you found that to be true in your painting business, when you’re referred?

Tim: Yeah, when you’re trying to set them up.

Michael: So, can you go back to these people and ask for a referral by phone, not by letter, by phone? Would you be willing to do that? Call fifty of them, or what you can do is you can let them know about your service, and you can offer them a gift certificate for $25 worth of any kind of handyman repairs for their home, but they only way they can get is if you come in. All they have to do is go through a home evaluation. So, you’re going to give them a $25 gift certificate that they can use for any kind of repair or anything for their home, or it could be anything within all of the services that you provide. I’ll go over a couple of ways that you can really increase your conversion rate when you’re visiting them. One, that free gift is very valuable. People like stuff for free. You can give them $25 worth of stuff for any kind of repair in their home. Don’t you think some homeowner is going to come up with something that they can do, and you can give them an example? You’ll replace the door viewer, redo the address number on the curb, or you’ll change one of their flood lights. You’ll do some small repair absolutely free. Either you’ll do it yourself, or if they don’t want to use it on a home repair, you let them know that they can use it on fencing. They can use it in their garden. They can use it for tile work, for drywall work, for anything, but they have to go through a short evaluation of their home, and you have your list and you go through it. That would be worth it. That would be a nice way to get yourself back into the home to potentially offer some services. When you’re in that home, you want to make sure that you can increase that conversion rate. You want to close as many people as FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. you see, and you can offer a unique guarantee that if you’re ever unhappy with any of our products or services, we’ll come back and do it again until it’s right to your satisfaction. Then, you also want to set up something that’s really unique about your service. You can explain that you’re the only service provider that represents all eight sub-categories of home improvement within the industry. You’re the only one that represents this. You could explain like we talked about for example, you’re different like your painters carry an exclusive line of paint which is non-allergy. That separates your painters. So, if you can come up with something out of each one of your service providers that’s unique, why they want to use you, why you’ve only picked the best service providers that stand out within the industry of your local area. For example, our painter, we’re the only ones that offer painters that have non-allergy reaction paints. That’s something unique about your painter. You find something unique about your gardener, and you find something unique about your handyman, whether it’s his expertise or the tools he uses. Everyone of your service providers will have their own unique thing, and you want to highlight that. You want to ask them when you’re talking to them. You can say, “Each one of my people have something very unique about them.” Can you tell me what’s really unique? Why do people do business with you? Just like I asked you. Your meticulousness and detail can be a unique selling proposition, but you don’t want you to be the guy because it takes you longer. You’d rather have another painter who is meticulous because he’s doing the work. Time is money. I’d rather have him be meticulous owning five dollars an hour, or earning a certain amount than you. Does that make sense?

Tim: Yes, it does.

Michael: Your offer of greater variety, where it’s one stop shopping for the service is a very, nice unique selling proposition, kind of like the Home Depot of service providers. You can let them know that each one of your service providers that you represent have gone through a certain test that allows them to be affiliated with you, just like the Better Business Bureau. They position themselves as all our businesses our members of the Better Business Bureau. This means they’re honest. They have quality, and they’ve been around, and you’re not going to get ripped off. You can do your own version of your Better Business Bureau. You can call it Tim’s Quality Seal or whatever you want. You just make it exclusive. There’s a lot of different things you can do, but I’m trying to give you an idea of a unique business that you can go back to your existing customers and start today. Just get that clipboard, make them an offer, are you skilled on the computer somewhat?

Tim: Yes, I am.

Michael: Do you have Microsoft Publisher?

Tim: Yes, I do.

Michael: Microsoft Publisher, they have some great templates for their certificates, their gift certificates. I do this for my Hard To Find Seminars stuff. You can print out $25 gift certificates, and you can print an expiration date on them. They’re already formatted. Just print some out, cut them out. They look really nice in black and white. Make some calls, and kind of get exactly what you’re offering, and start seeing some people. Start selling other service providers. You should be able to get lined up your main service providers to do business with you. It shouldn’t take but a week or two to get seven different service providers that you can represent. You can instantly go to Kall8.com, and within an hour, you can have seven 800-numbers. They’re very inexpensive. Don’t let it fool you that it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Each service provider will have their own 800-number. You’ll be able to control all the calls, and as you see people, you will know if they’re calling your guys. If they are, you’ll have a recording of it. It will all come to your email. It’ll take you a little bit to get set up and learn how to do a Kall8, but it’s a wonderful way to control your leads if you set something up like this.

Tim: Yes, I have a friend who is a really good service provider, too.

Michael: You do? All across the board? FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Tim: Pretty much.

Michael: What does he do?

Tim: A real estate person.

Michael: Is he doing this already?

Tim: Yes, the people in his office have developed a list of service providers for people that are moving into town.

Michael: Does that real estate guy take a piece of the action?

Tim: I don’t know.

Michael: You may want to ask him. Get the list. That’s the main thing. Get the list. That would be great. Any sane service provider isn’t going to turn you down on your offer. You can explain to them that you’re a high end service and that if they need to bump up the price 25% for your referrals, tell them to do so. Now, if you 25% of the total bill, that’s what you get paid, if they balk at that or if they feel that’s too much, you’ve got to explain to them that you have already presold them on them as being a very high quality service, and that already it’s a referral. You have referred them over to you as their distinguished business partner or alliance or whatever. So, explain to them that the people calling are already very qualified. Now, if you want to take this a step further, this would really increase the value of what you’re doing, and what I would tell you to do is you either get someone to interview each one of your service providers. So, let’s say you hired me. Let’s say you started making some money and you wanted to hire me to do intensive audio interviews with each one of your service providers. You have me call your painter partner and do an intensive interview with the painter partner about why he’s special, what makes him good, his credibility, his experience, his quality, the types of paints he uses, the things to consider when getting your house painted, consumer report for first time painting jobs, and then you do the same thing with your roofing guy. You have me or you interview him, and interview the hell out of him about how long he’s been in business, what makes his roofing better, what kind of materials he uses. Each one an entire sales presentation different. Let’s say you have seven or eight of them, for each one of the respective service providers you represent. Then, you can have those burned on to a CD, very inexpensive. You can do them yourself. Once you have a recording, you can burn them for about thirty cents each. So, what does it cost you? Seven CDs at thirty cents a piece, about $2.10, and you can leave those audio CDs with each one of your clients about all your service providers. So, you’ve really differentiated yourself. You haven’t said that you’re just going to refer you over to these guys. I’m going to prove to you why my guys are the absolute best, and here are seven different audio recordings with the owners of these companies explaining and offering you the reasons why they’re number one and offering you valuable tips when looking for a painter, valuable tips when you’re looking for a gardener, and offering some real valuable information in the audio recordings alone which are already preselling and qualifying them before they even call. On the actual CD, you can have each one of their 800-number that you control. If they need that service, they’ve got a 45 minute recording or a thirty minute recording of everything they need to know just as if they had called that person to ask them all the questions, but I would do it or you would do it and ask them everything you can think of. You’d position that call as just a prequalifying sales presentation. Wouldn’t that be powerful? Wouldn’t that be something different? You can not only go in with a gift of $25, you can go in with a gift of six and a half hours of free content on all the major home improvement subjects that you need from the best experts in the local area. Then, you can control those audio recordings, and if you wanted, you could tell that service provider that they’re welcome to use your audio recording to give out to their customers as long as they keep your 800- number on it. Any audio recording that sells a job for them, if someone calls that 800- number, that’s your job and you make the 25% on it. Now, you’ve developed an audio message that can sell, that you’ll have your service providers sending out to their prospects to sell them because it’s your sales message that sells the prospect. Does that make sense?

Tim: Yes. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more.

Michael: Wouldn’t that be neat having your own service providers making you money because they’re using your audio interview to sell your service?

Tim: That’d be nice.

Michael: That would be nice. It would be totally unique, and it would take you out from being a laborer for five dollars an hour to a marketer who is controlling a flow of leads, and really controlling multiple services, and you can do very well for yourself. The hardest thing is going to be finding the service providers who you feel real good about. The audio recording, that may take some effort. You may not have the money to do it now, but if you can get someone who is good at interviewing, if you’re uncomfortable with it. Find someone who is good at talking, who can interview a service provider about all the different thing, maybe your real estate guy.

Tim: I’ll probably have a woman do it.

Michael: Yeah, you can find a woman to do it. You have to start charging more. You can’t be working for five bucks an hour.

Tim: No, I can’t.

Michael: I would start with what you have. You have fifty potential clients, fifty past customers that you can go to, that you can pick up the phone and call and introduce this new service. You’re going to make mistakes at first, but I think there’s an exciting possibility with that, if it’s something you want to follow through with.

Tim: Yes, I think it could be good.

Michael: Has this been helpful for you?

Tim: Yes, it has.

Michael: If you need any additional help on that, let me know. I’ll be glad to expand on it anymore, if you’d like. If you actually do do it and go through with it, I’d love to hear the results if you have some success with it.

Tim: I will let you know. I’ll let you know what the results are.

Michael: All right, that sounds good. Is there anything else I can do for you while you’ve got me on the phone?

Tim: Inexpensive ways to get new leads.

Michael: Inexpensive ways to get new leads, I’ll go over about twenty or thirty ideas that you can get new leads. Some of them will cost money, but some of them don’t have to cost a ton of money. I’ll just run through a little list that I have. One is using bumper stickers. I know they’re not as popular, but bumper stickers have been used very popular for schools and stuff. That’s one idea. School advertising, there’s a lot of schools for instance my kid who goes to kindergarten, there’s always a foundation. The schools are always very tight for money, and who do you have there? You have young children. You have kindergarten kids, many of them are first time home buyers, families that have homes, and you can do promotions and things with the schools. They’re always looking for ways to raise money. So, for instance, in October, there was a Halloween school carnival, and for only fifty bucks, you could come out and have an entire booth there. You have the whole school, all the parents, all the kids there, during a school event, and it’s a great way to get new business. We sponsored our local dentist who we go to, and he had a booth there, and he got tons of new business. He gave out t-shirts, not that you have to give out t-shirts, but you have to be there. A preschool is a great way to be around the local families that would need all your services that you’re talking about. So, find out some of the preschool events that are happening, if you know any moms with kids in the preschool. Talk to the moms. Tell them what you want to do, ask them what kind of events are coming up. There’s always events. Last weekend, there was the preschool dance. There’s Halloween stuff, all the major holidays, they usually have an event for all the kids during Christmas. Schools are a great way to get noticed and to be automatically almost like referred into the community. Also, church bulletins are a great way. You said you’ve done classified advertising. I don’t know what kind of classified advertising you’ve done, inexpensive classified advertising is another way to get leads. Maybe with your new service, you can position the ad differently. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. Door hangers, you’ve done fliers, right? Do you pass and distribute your own fliers out?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: You do it yourself. Another very effective way, I’ve used this and I did this actually for my gardener just as a test. You have your flier, which outlines in the best way possible about your new service, your painting service or whatever, and you fold it into a number ten envelope, a blank white number ten envelope, and instead of the flier going on the door, instead of you doing it yourself, you find a flier distribution service. They’re already out there putting the fliers on the door. If you look on the back of the flier, you’ll be able to find a flier distribution service, the company name and number. You can have them do a test. They’ll take your flier, put it in a number ten envelope, a blank one. You seal them. You can prepare the envelopes for you. So, it’s just a blank white envelope, and you drop it in front of the door. So, what happens? When someone comes home, a flier gets pulled off and dumped and thrown in the garbage, but a blank envelope sitting in front of the door, what do you think is going to happen?

Tim: They’re going to be curious.

Michael: It’s going to get opened, absolutely. So, you’re going to have a higher percentage rate. It’s like mailing a letter, but you don’t have to pay for the postage. Your flier distribution service should be able to deliver those for about fifty bucks a thousand. It’s fifty to a hundred dollars per thousand. Envelope cost is nothing, but you’ll have a much better response than a flier on the door that’s already visible. Try that, that can be very effective at delivering it into different neighborhoods. A lot of restaurants sell advertising on their paper placemats. You’ve got electronic bulletin boards. Have you ever heard of Craig’s List?

Tim: No.

Michael: Craig’s List is amazing. CraigsList.com, you can post instant classified ads from painting to handyman work to anything right in your local area. They have it for all areas of the country. Check CraigsList.com. You could take your gift certificate, print them out in multiples with your Publisher, and you can do joint ventures where if you have non- competing business that’s mailing out invoices. Let’s say you worked with the cable company and they’re mailing out all their invoices to all the cable customers. You could do a ride along where you could include your gift certificate in with the bill without paying the full postage. You could take that gift certificate and have that as a Val-Pak mailing, something that goes out to all the homes real inexpensively. Your special reports is a great way, as I said, but we would do it through the audio interviews. If you did the audio interviews, and you got them transcribed, you’d have actual transcripts of your audio interviews and turn them into special reports. You have a special report that can help presell your prospect whether it’s on your painting service or any of the service providers that you offer. Personal letters, direct letters is a great way to get new business. It’s got to be done right though. You can take the copy from the audio interviews that you do or that you have someone do, and turn those into real powerful letters as long as you put a good headline on it, and you have the benefits and you have been able to uniquely position yourself. Handyman signs, maybe you can have homes in the neighborhood, the corner lots, allow you to put signs in their yard. If you say, “You put my handyman sign in your yard, any kind of business that I get, just for you letting me place the sign in front of your house, I’ll pay you a percentage.” What if you got all the major corner lots in all the good neighborhoods? You have that sign that’s there all the time. Neighborhood Handyman, call, and you have your 800-number. Gift baskets, find out all the local people who are doing gift baskets in your area, and tell them you’d like to provide some real value for their gift baskets that are going out to buyers of the gift baskets, and include a beautiful gift card for $25 worth of handyman services. What does it cost you to print them out? The gift basket gets include. They get to increase the value of their gift basket. You get someone calling you to get into the house to do an audit on their house. So what if you do $25 worth of stuff. Most of them, you’re going to get them as a return customer. FREE REPORT reveals in detail how you can take your own ordinary $28 book, e-book or even a concept you have and turn it into a information product you can sell of up to $3,900 or more. Your voice mail, you get set up with this Kall8 service, you can use your voice mail when the people are on hold to have separate numbers that provide a consumer report for home painting, for fence and yard, for any of the people that you provide services for, and you can read into the voice mail, an audio voice mail that presents an audio, a consumer report of the benefits of using your provide. The same idea using audio recordings doing interviews, but you use the voice mail to deliver them. So, it’s free delivery. So, let’s say you’re doing the fliers, the door drops. You can have a separate voice mail number for free, 24 hour consumer report on how to choose a home painter, on how to choose a gardener, on how to choose a roofer, on how to choose a driveway sealing company, and each one of those consumer reports on a different number. So, you allow the prospect to call it up and listen to reasons why, selling them on your guy. At the end of the recording, you have them call and you put the 800- number that you have assigned each one of those providers at the very end, and then that’s another way to get business automatically. The gift certificate is a great one. You can offer that to so many different people. You can go to Welcome Wagon. Welcome Wagon is kind of like a gift basket. You can go to realtors. You can print those out by the thousand, and if you do it really nice, if you print them out on hard plastic like all the nice gift cards you find in the stores. Do a real nice high end gift card, whether it’s on a hard piece of cardboard or on plastic with a nice logo. You can print those up by the thousand and just distribute them everywhere, to real estate people, to plumbers, to anyone who wants to give a nice gift to their client as a thank you. If you just do that one, it costs you nothing, very inexpensive to print them up. Even if you start with paper, go to a printer and have them done on a nice hard card stock, black and white, very nice done. You’ll see some great templates on that Publisher. That could get you a lot of business right there, and just go distribute them. Go print them up in stacks, and put them rubber bands around them, and put them in the Mailbox Etc place. Go walk around businesses. They don’t even have to know. Just stick them on the counters there where there’s people, where the car wash is, because many times there’s employees. They don’t know if you go stick a stack of them there. They don’t know if the manager authorized it. Just do it. Go walk around town and distribute 5,000 of them where people can just pick one up. That can work great, and there’s so many other things, but it’s eleven o’clock. I’ve got another client I’ve got to do another call with. We’re going to have to end it right here.

Tim: Thank you. I greatly appreciate your time.