Have Wrench, Will Travel: Places You Might Not Have Thought to Look for Work
The world is full of tubes, pipes, and drains, so you’d think that plumbing work would constantly be falling from the sky and dripping out of leaky bathtubs, but the hard truth is that not every pipe burst and even when they do, there can be a lot of competition for the repair job.
So where does a plumber go when they need to find work? You could try the regular places, like advertising in the newspaper or the yellow pages, but that’s only the beginning. How about some places you might not have considered?
Where to Find Your Customers
One of the most important tenets of advertising is that you have to go where your customer base is. If your old advertising grounds are drying up, it may pay to figure out just who your best customers are so you can find them again. Are they first time home buyers with children? Or retired homeowners trying to age in place? This first step is a doozy, but it’ll make everything else easier.
Some New Rocks to Turn Over
Armed with the information you have about your audience, you can start looking for them high and low. Here are a few resources we suggest connecting with:
Your local Board of Realtors. Very often, the Board of Realtors will allow you to leave fliers or hold promotional (and educational) classes for the membership. This gives you an opportunity to meet lots of Realtors that will, in turn, potentially introduce you to lots of their clients. Building rapport with Realtors takes time, but if you have it to invest it’s a cheap lead generation machine.Being a wrench-for-hire can be a long, meandering quest for new work unless you develop a tight referral network that you can rely on to send quality customers your way. Of course, it’s a two-way street, so don’t forget your regulars when your customers ask about referrals for other specialties.
Review and recommendation sites. Sites like Angie’s List and HomeKeepr make it easy to put yourself out there and wait for customers to find you. Many also offer lead generation tools that turn up homeowners and property managers who need a plumber on a regular basis to help keep the drains draining. Although just about anyone can get a listing on Angie’s List, HomeKeepr requires that another professional recommend you as a vendor, even to get started with a free account on the service. Still, the leads are high quality, so it can be worth the extra effort.
Social media. It is absolutely the best if you’re looking for a political fight, but, as it turns out, social media can also be used for advertising. Facebook has targeting tools that help you really dial in ads to show them just to people who have been searching for plumbing-related topics, helping you tap into a homeowner base that you might be struggling to reach now. Other sites, like LinkedIn can help you connect to professionals like builders, property managers and plumbing companies that might need an extra hand. Because the targeting is so precise, you can send a big message across social media and spend a good deal less doing it.
Trade shows. Go to a trade show and either be an exhibitor or make the effort to stop and visit those who are. You never know when a builder is looking to trade in their current plumber or add to an existing pool they use to mass produce homes. The same goes for other plumbing companies and even building goods suppliers. After all, they probably get asked five times a day for plumbing recommendations! Networking within your profession is rarely a mistake, even if you walk away with your hands empty.
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