Working your customer base!

You know Jed i know it was you that called me last week. You think i am stupid buddy. I knew it was you all along.

If everyone on each side of this could only see what their reaction to pointing fingers and blame reflects on themselves + everyone or anyone in earshot. A very close and great friend of mine runs a department for a very large and profitable Corp . She is now in the process of shaving personnel from the present staff . Some of these people have worked for this company over 13yrs . We had a conversation at the Pub the other night on what qualifications were needed and did length of employment matter . The major objective for her was to keep the health environment with in the company healthy . The conversation went to the infectious blaming virus . Publicly blaming someone in an organization for a problem -- even if the person is innocent -- exponentially increases the odds that blaming pointing the finger at others will spread with the tenacity of the flu . Disrupting continuity and creativity. Blame creates and atmosphere of fear . The person who constantly blames shows a real insecurity and as stated earlier narcissistic . If the shoe fits ......

OLE Willie Said: Hi, Ive been living and working in the same area for about 13 years now and every year i notice we get more and more referrals and repeat customers. We have been advertising in the yellow pages the whole time which is very expensive. They go up several hundred dollars every single year and after 13 years you can imagine the cost. While i do thank them for helping to build up our business ( we paid for that ) im also getting tired of paying the high cost and am starting to think we could make it ok without it. Referrals mean less kill time running free estimates. Higher rate of return per estimate ran. Im curious as to what kinds of ways some of you work your customer base to get more referrals. What works well and is worth the cost, time and effort and whats not. I have tried a few different methods recommended by a so called marketing expert but what i found in the end was that we were not getting any more referrals than we would of got without any additional efforts on our part. lol . Im not getting any younger if you can relate and im looking just to make a decent living of it and put a little extra up for a rainy day. Not trying to get rich. Thinking i need to slow down a bit but somewhat afraid we might not have enough work without advertising for new customers to continue growing the customer base. Whats large enough? Whats too small?

It might be slow, but those referrals keep on coming. And the web leads are starting to pass them. Just keep being present and doing quality work.

I have to call about 8 folks and tell them I still can't reach them this week. And send out about 3 more proposals I haven't finished writing. I'm tempted to send some to other competitors.

Makingroofers$$$ Said: You know Jed i know it was you that called me last week. You think i am stupid buddy. I knew it was you all along.

Keep dreaming. I have no need for the likes of you or your dubious "services" If I were to call you, you would need no verification.