“Is Marketing Evil?”
February 23, 2009 – 9:34 amDo you have to feel guilty working your marketing wiles on your WC clients or prospects?
I recently read a blog post by Seth Godin on this topic of whether or not marketing was evil, and it reminded me of a presentation I made to a small business association about this topic, in relation to your Window Cleaning business, on Jan 7, 2009, here in the Toronto area.
First of all, what exactly is “Marketing”, when it comes to your window cleaning business?
Here’s the Window Cleaning Business Coach definition:
Anything you wittingly do to motivate people to separate themselves from as much of their money, as quickly and as often as possible, in exchange for your WC & related services.
Should you feel bad doing that?
No – as long as you also subscribe to these important additional precepts, in conjunction with your marketing:
- You don’t deceive people as to the performance of your services/products (like gutter protection).
- You guarantee that unless they are completely satisfied, they won’t have to pay.
- You leave them pleased with the entire service and transaction experience.
As long as you’re keeping your word by delivering on your promises, you’re standing behind your services and workmanship, and you are not tricking people into investing in something that they really don’t need, then you don’t have to feel guilty about playing the “marketing card”.
In fact, you can feel good about it.
The truth is, a home or business does feel like a million bucks when it’s windows are sparkling clean, and when the sunlight comes pouring through its glass. It probably has more to do with the psychologically soothing nature of sunlight, but I’m not gonna attempt to connect that dot with this post (maybe soon, though).
The bottom line is, cleaning someone’s windows to give their home or business a boost, to make them feel special, and to help them increase sales are all pretty solid reasons to provide your WC services. It’s not like your getting them to buy horrible food that’s harmful to their health, or buying cigarettes that cause lung cancer.
And providing them with gutter protection products that can protect their most valuable personal investment (their home), by eliminating or reducing the likelihood of expensive water damage in the future, is also nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, you are truly doing something good for them, with genuine, tangible benefits.
So, is marketing “evil”? Well, sometimes. But certainly not when it comes to your professional window & eaves cleaning services, as long as you follow the 3 additional precepts I outlined above.
So, keep at it, and start dialing it up, Spring is on the way!
Kevin
P.S. With Spring 2009 almost here, make sure you don’t miss any more of the informative blog posts and free downloads that are coming your way.
If you’d like to know why it’s been so long since I last posted on this blog, check out the small mountain of brand-new Window Cleaning Marketing resources here (including an explanation as to how you can download the fully-editable source files for these tools and templates for FREE).
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