Jim Armstrong—In the first two installments in this series, I covered why building and maintaining trust is more important than ever and strategies for making this happen. In this final installment I’ll continue to add advanced trust-building strategies for any dealer who wants to become an advisor marketer.
Free reports
Flooring prospects are looking for information. They don’t want to make a $5,000-$10,000 mistake by choosing the wrong floor or by choosing a dealer who does shoddy workmanship. By writing free reports, guides or white papers, you not only give her the information she’s looking for but you’ll simultaneously position yourself as an authority in your field and build trust. Many of my flooring coaching clients make use of free reports in their marketing—resulting in more closed sales and the ability to command higher prices. You should do the same. Here are some topic ideas:
- 5 critical questions to ask a flooring dealer before buying
- 3 steps for choosing the right flooring
- 7 costly floor-buying mistakes and how to avoid them
Offer visitors to your website a download of your report in exchange for their name and email address. Hand out printed copies to all walk-ins.
Write a book
Becoming an author gives you instant authority and creates massive trust. It’s like a business card on steroids. I’ve written and published several books, and they’ve been very good for my business. It’s a lot of work but totally worth it. Here are some tips:
- Your book can be very short. A 50-page book is fine—more people will read the whole thing as compared to a 300-page book. One way to accomplish this is to make your free report longer and more detailed. One of my coaching clients turned his free report into a book. He’s getting great results.
- Hire a ghost writer.
- Include customer/client testimonials.
- Self-publish. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s publishing arm, makes this incredibly easy. There are lots of online courses and tutorials on how to do it. It’s cheap. For a 50-page book, KDP will charge around $2 apiece for author copies, with no minimum order.
Host a podcast
Podcasting is a massive industry. As a result, there are lots of courses, tutorials and tools available to make this process fairly easy—from recording to editing to hosting your podcast on the most popular platforms. Here are some tips:
- Be consistent. A weekly podcast released on the same day each week works fine.
- It can be short. Even a weekly, five-minute podcast on home repairs or interviews with local business owners can work.
- Record them in batches. Set aside one morning a month to record the following month’s episodes.
- Promote your podcast and the fact that you are a podcast host. E.g., “Bob Smith, host of the XYZ podcast.” Include links to your podcast on your website, email signature, email marketing, social media posts, etc.
Jim is the founder and president of Flooring Success Systems, a company that provides floor dealers with marketing services and coaching to help them attract quality customers, close more sales, get higher margins and work the hours they choose. For information visit FlooringSuccessSystems.com.
