Yesterday afternoon, I enjoyed a rewarding conversation with Adams Hudson on a range of themes relating to construction marketing. Hudson’s business (http://www.hudsoninc.com) focuses on the retail-oriented contractors, especially in the mechanical trades (HVAC and plumbing). His early strength: Developing better and more effective Yellow Pages ads. He described in hos conversation how he won points with contractors fed up with Yellow Pages reps, the one-sided contract, and the painful problems of paying for a year’s advertising (which you can’t change) and with no assurance of success.
Of course, these days the Yellow Pages role is diminishing rapidly. It still has a place in certain older demographics and for emergency circumstances when Internet service may be difficult. But who in their right mind starting a business these days would spend thousands of dollars on an unchangeable directory listing in a book that many people discard the minute it arrives on their doorstep?
Hudson, of course, has built a marketing services base beyond the Yellow Pages ads, and here his service — with a strong weight on print materials — still has significant value. Mailers, follow-through communications systems, advocacy of maintenance agreements, and effective, thoughtful and response-provoking advertising templates in a variety of media provides real value for his contractor clients.
He enjoys the power of leverage because he can serve the needs of many local contractors in diverse locations from his home base in Alabama. He attends major relevant national conventions and speaks to contractor associations, sharing his insights and observations. (He also is an excellent writer. I have to admit he puts words together far better than I can.)
At one point in the conversation, after I offered to give him some publicity in this space, he asked: “Is there anything I can do for you?” and I responded, “No, I’m happy to share your ideas with my readers.” We could, I suppose, try to commercialize the relationship, but readers here know that I don’t believe that you get far by forcing everything you do into a profit-making or “sales” model. Sometimes just being yourself and being generous in spirit and outlook produces the best long-term results. You can’t always tell where these achievements turn into dollars, but the calls, indeed, come out the blue with real opportunities and business opportunities.
I can assure you that you will want to sign up for Adams Hudson’s free e-letter (you can find a sign-up link on his website) and his collateral marketing materials and resources will be truly helpful for your business. We both agreed that the contractors most likely to use his services will have the least ‘need’ for them — they are aware of the value of well-thought marketing resources and materials and are ready to pay for useful consulting and ideas. The others, unfortunately the great mass in our industry, think that they should either chase open bids or rely on referrals/word-of-mouth, and I use the word “rely” here deliberately. Great marketers see solid word-of-mouth and referral business as a sign of a healthy brand. If you have this successful base, you can then market effectively to achieve predictable and reliable sales/profits, rather than simply hope for your phone to ring or e-mail to ping. Adams Hudson will help you get there if you let him show you the way.
