An emerging school of thought has remodelers shaking off their lone-wolf instincts and cross-marketing with complementary local businesses, from excavators to interior designers, who serve the same type of clientele. The result is far greater visibility and more referrals from trusted sources for a fraction of what a go-it-alone campaign might cost.
In New Hampshire, for instance, a remodeling company called Cedar Mill Group formed NH Contractors after brainstorming ways to “better cross-pollinate with other high-quality businesses,” says Brett Cusick, director of operations.
With upward of 90% of clients who are repeats or direct referrals, “we understand the importance of our existing customer base and believed this to hold true with other companies, too,” Cusick says. He and president Geoff Martin created a “best of the best” list of contractors in 11 complementary trade categories, hand-picking those who scored high on “the IQS [integrity, quality, service] meter.” An initial meeting was held, and ideas began flowing about how each could help bring good clients to the others.
The website launched in February, and 20,000 brochures (shown) were quickly created and produced, with the costs split 11 ways. “We believe we have started something powerful,” Cusick says. “We want participation and passion. We want the group to be viewed as an elite, highly referable group of professionals.” In Huntington, N.Y., The Go-To Group has 10 core members (and more “second-tier” members) who include a real estate agent and a moving company. “It’s like adding outside sales reps for each of our firms,” says Bob Kocis of LI Remodel, who got the idea from Martin of Cedar Mill Group.
The Go-To Group shares circle-of-influence lists and meets monthly, with the hosting company educating guests about its products and services. Besides each company doing its fair share of cross-marketing, Kocis says that members are held to high standards for customer satisfaction.
In the group’s first month, based on word-of-mouth referrals only, members had cross-generated $300,000 worth of business, he says.