National Clothesline

About a month ago I received a call from cleaner in Florida asking if I would critique her mailing piece since it wasn’t getting the results she expected. Instead of having it e-mailed, I asked if she would send the actual card so I could see it, feel it and thereby get the full effect… the same way a prospect would.

It was a full-color mailer with a first class indicia, which had been carrier route coded to a name list.

Everything looked good, but one thing was missing. There was no offer, no sense of urgency for someone to respond, and no reason to bring to the store or slip into a pick-up bag.

The card did, however, mention that the cleaner offered a full menu of services, had been in business for more than 20 years and was capable of delivering the best service one could ever imagine.

A little more than five years ago I began feeding wild birds in my back yard. It was a lot of fun. I quickly learned about birds and also discovered that many of the same principles which bring birds to a backyard feeder can also be used attract customers to a business (see Lessons from a Backyard Birdfeeder, National Clothesline, September 2004 at web.newsguy.com/natclo/0409/bishop.htm)

In my article, I pointed out the importance of food in the attraction process. In short, if you don’t put food out for the birds they won’t come. And if you let the feeders run out of seed the birds won’t show up, either.

If the cleaner in Florida had made her services more attractive, she may have gotten some feeders.

As it was, nobody was biting on what she was offering. Right now, the question that faces every cleaner is, “What does the prospect or customer want?”

More specifically, if you make an offer, what sort of customer will you attract.

After five years of practice, I’ve discovered how to attract various species of birds. It all hinges on the quality and type of wild birdseed I choose since different birds are attracted by different kinds of seed.

For example, black oil sunflower seeds appeal to the greatest variety of songbirds such as cardinals, chickadees as well as gold and purple finches. Black oil sunflower seeds are high in oil-rich matter, which is an excellent source of energy for wild birds during the colder months. The shell is thin and easy for even the smallest birds to open.

Peanuts, both whole and crushed, attract woodpeckers, bluejays, chickadees, nut-hatches and wrens. They are best served up in tube-shaped metal mesh feeders.

Fruit and berry specialists such as robins, waxwings, bluebirds, and mockingbirds rarely eat birdseed. To attract these birds, you need to soak raisins and currants in water overnight, then place them on a table feeder, or purchase blends with a dried fruit mixture.

The list goes on and on, but the point I’m trying to make is simply this: Attracting a wide variety of birds requires a varied assortment of food since not all food attracts all birds.

The same is true in business, especially your cleaning business. Very rarely will a single offer attract all prospects or customers. In fact, most often you will attract fewer responses than you anticipated.

I know of many cleaners who tailor their offers to exclude certain types of customers. This is especially true in the route business.

For example, a cleaner in New Jersey asked me to design an offer for him that would only attract big spenders. He wasn’t interested in customers with fewer than 12 pieces of cleaning, which required a special type of “birdseed” and a very special feeder.

I’ve just completed an ad campaign for another cleaner that uses a mix of “seeds,” “fruits,” “berries” and “nuts” in an effort to attract the widest variety of feeders at one time. The offer has a broad appeal and hinges on the total number of pieces cleaned.

Mixing your offers has another advantage. Changing the menu can bring unexpected newcomers to the table.

During the third year with my backyard birds, I began experimenting with a variety of nuts as a means of attracting more woodpeckers. Suddenly I began seeing birds I had never seen before. I never knew what a northern flicker was, but now a number of flickers have become regular visitors all because I decided to change the menu a bit.

My backyard bird sanctuary has given me a deeper appreciation for cleaners who have been around for many years. Some things require time. One of those things is trust.

Trust doesn’t just happen over night. In some cases it requires years of effort and consistent service. Last winter, for the first time in five years, one of my little visitors trusted me enough to land on my out-stretched arm to eat out of my hand. At that moment, I remembered why it is that I’m in business… it’s to make friends.