Win More Customers With The Help Of Your Fellow Trade And Construction Buddies.
Sir Bevis of Hampton had it right.
‘Many hands make light work.’
So how does this apply to building your Trade and Construction marketing?
Well.
To quote a group of lads perhaps a little more familiar to you…
‘Get by with a little help from my friends.’
A little tactic that gets way overlooked in my opinion.
Networking (in many forms) is a great vehicle to help your business get off the ground.
But actually, there is a lot you can do as a small group of focused, dedicated, local Trades that club together and want to help build each other’s businesses.
❌ That isn’t a huge commitment.
❌ At little or even no cost at all.
I’m going to share with you some simple ideas on how to win more customers for your Trade and Construction business with the help of your fellow Trades.
But before I go into these epic game-changers I have a few warnings for you that will help you out.
⚠️ Do this ONLY (capitalised for good reason!) with Trade and Construction businesses you align with in terms of brand and values. Don’t get into bed with any Trades you wouldn’t trust or who have a questionable reputation, no matter how ‘successful’ or ‘well connected’ they appear. You risk being tarnished with the same brush by association.
⚠️ This will work better if you collaborate with non-conflicting Trades (i.e., One builder, not two or more. One decorator, not two or more.)
⚠️ These ideas works best where you club together with Trades and Construction businesses whose ideal clients are the same or similar. (I.e. You may ALL target residential work or you ALL want the same kind of commercial work e.g. restaurants).
Ok.
Now we’ve got that out the way, let’s drill down into the ideas…
1. Create a business and referral only WhatsApp Group with other trusted, non-conflicting Trade and Construction businesses.
Pretty much all small to medium Trade and Construction business owners use WhatsApp, right?
Whether it’s for personal or business use.
It's a great way to get a quick message across to somebody in real-time.
Easy to do.
Quick to receive.
Free.
What it’s also pretty nifty for is the WhatsApp GROUPS function.
This is where you can set up a conversation thread to add more than one person to where you message is broadcast to all the people in that Group – instead of messaging them separately.
And is the perfect place to set up an informal but lucrative support group for both your Trade and Construction business as well as those Trades you want to help.
Here's what to do.
✅ Set up a WhatsApp Group.
✅ Give your Group a stand-out name.
✅ Pick an appropriate image for the conversation icon so it stands out on everyone’s phone and is easy to identify quickly.
✅ Add the consenting (check with them first before adding) trusted, non-conflicting Trades to the Group.
✅ Kick the convo off with what the Group is for and how best we’re all going to use it to help each other.
Here's the biggest thing to NOT do.
❌ Let it become ‘over friendly’.
There’s plenty of time to do that in individual WhatsApp threads or maybe you want to even set up a separate Group for all the fun stuff.
The reason you want to avoid John posting his weekly pint in there and Darren updating everyone that nobody had fed the dog etc is that it will piss people off.
If it starts getting too familiar some of the Trades will see it as annoying, time-wasting and they will leave.
Which won’t be good for the points I’m going to go onto later.
Also.
More importantly.
It means there is a higher chance of people missing important messages in there that are ACTUALLY going to help them with their Trade and Construction business.
We’re all for fun and play times.
Throw us a Pimms at the summer BBQ anytime.
But we’re also about helping build Trade and Construction businesses.
Without the stress.
Let this space be a really focused place that actually SUPPORTS Trades (including yourself) with what they need right now.
Set the tone right from the start on what is and isn’t allowed.
Doesn’t have to be heavy but at least then everyone knows the score.
Keep a banter friendly WhatsApp Group separate.
Here's some winning ideas you can use that WhatsApp Group for to help support your fellow Trades and that they can support you in turn:
🏆 REFERRALS
Let them know if you’ve just recommended them to someone so to expect a call (and some details).
🏆 QUESTIONS
Ask a business-related question i.e. ‘I’m looking to go digital with my invoicing, what’s best to use – Xero or Invoice to Go?’
🏆 WORK PHOTOS
Photos of finished work of any niche services that you’ve started offering – so everyone keeps updated on what you offer incase they can refer you.
🏆 INTRODUCTIONS
Updates if anyone has had a 121 or meeting with the likes of an Estate Agent of local Property Developer who is open to getting to know more contractors.
🏆 SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS (In moderation)
If a new and POWERFUL post has gone up on your Facebook page for example, a link to the Group where everyone can then jump on and comment and share for added exposure.
*THIS IS IN MODERATION…
Make it clear this is not a space for individuals to just share their links every day. You might like to give everyone a set day they can do it if this idea gets out of hand.
🏆 SOCIAL MEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS
If someone has seen a post in a Facebook Group whereby, they are asking for recommendations for a specific Trade i.e. A Decorator, then share the link to the Group and ask if everyone can jump on and recommend the Trade who offers that in the Group.
⭐️ The power in this idea is where the Group spots requests for OTHER trades in the WhatsApp Group – not just for themselves. Imagine if everyone did that for everyone else… you’d certainly feel everyone is looking out for each other and there would be a lot more opportunities for work for one another.
If the WhatsApp Group has rules set from the start, this can be an INCREDIBLE sales tool to help your trusted Trades, and yourself, increase your visibility and build your brand so much faster.
And costs you nothing.
🥇 Massive win.
2. Join the same Social Media Groups as your fellow trusted Trade and Construction businesses.
A spin off from the WhatsApp tip above.
Facebook - Groups particularly - is EXCELLENT for finding referrals for each other.
Especially if you are a domestic Trade and Construction business.
Why?
Because local Facebook Groups are built on community and people helping one another.
So, in the right Facebook Group, you potentially have hundreds of people literally ASKING for recommendations for the Trades that your collective offers.
🔥 But the power in getting the most from the Facebook Groups in your WhatsApp Group (if you’re going to take on the idea of sharing posts where someone has asked for one of your Trades) is that you all need to be in those SAME Facebook Groups to start with.
Because when someone posts asking for a builder, and you have Ryan who does that in your Trades WhatsApp Group, you want everyone to be able to jump on the group and recommend him PLUS you want Ryan to be able to jump on the post himself.
Some of these Facebook Groups are private.
And before they allow you entry you have to answer some questions.
This might be to do with your location, or your intention for joining the group.
Granting you permission can sometimes take days (depending on the admin) and you don’t want to miss the boat.
No one wants to wait 7 days for a recommendation.
So, use your Trade WhatsApp Group to identify which Facebook Groups are best for you all to be members of and then share the links of them so you can all join.
Here's a few pointers for deciding on Facebook Groups to join:
➡️ SIZE
Look at the amount of people in a Group before joining.
Bigger isn’t necessarily always better, but if you can join a Facebook Group with 1000 ideal clients in there versus 7 people, I think I know which I might be more interested in.
➡️ ENGAGEMENT
Look at the interaction levels.
Are Facebook Group members posting in there?
Are they commenting?
Even if there are 20,000 members in a Group, if nobody has posted in there for 6 months it is highly likely it is not going to do you any favours being in there.
➡️ LOCATION
There’s no point all of you joining a lively Facebook Group of 5,000 people if it’s in Leeds and your Trades WhatsApp members are all based in London.
Try to join Facebook Groups where most of the community are based in locations your Trade WhatsApp Group members can and want to work in.
➡️ PAID DIRECTORIES
Some Facebook Groups are part of a paid membership.
Unless you are a paying member, they won’t allow you to post or recommend non-paying businesses in the comments.
Save yourself and your Trade WhatsApp Group members time by finding out if this is the case from the start.
HOWEVER.
Some of your Trade WhatsApp Group members may well in fact be paying members of one of these Facebook Groups.
Even if you’re not, try to join that Facebook Group as it still means you can get behind them and recommend them when people are asking for their service without being deleted.
Do your bit for them and they are far more likely to try their best for you in the other Groups.
➡️ QUANTITY.
Don’t forget.
Every Facebook Group that you or any of your Trade WhatsApp Group members join, means that there is going to be more noise filling up your Facebook feed.
So as not to overwhelm everyone – especially those who might not be as great at Facebook as you - start by choosing a few Facebook Groups (that have decent numbers, great engagement and are local) for your Trade WhatsApp Group members to join and get the hang of.
Let everyone get into the swing of looking out for requests for other Trades and posting the links in the Group and then add other Facebook Groups to the list of ones to join as everyone gets a bit more confident.
👌🏽
P.S. I’ve suggested Facebook Groups as an example.
But if your Trade WhatsApp Group members are all more present on LinkedIn with more commercial based Trade and Construction businesses, then you can still follow similar principals in LinkedIn Groups.
3. Tag each other in social media posts that are looking for that specific Trade and Construction service.
So.
Now we’ve got all our Trade WhatsApp Group members in the same Facebook Groups.
And we’ve got our laser focused WhatsApp Group to post the links in the conversation thread when we see someone ask for a specific Trade (whether it’s for our business or one of our WhatsApp members).
Epic.
Now, we want to be sure we TAG our fellow Trade in the post when recommending them.
To do this, we use the @ sign and then we start typing the name of the person.
E.g.
@JohnSmith if we wanted to tag John from our Trade WhatsApp Group.
Why do we do this?
So that John gets a notification (on whatever social media platform this post is on) on his phone that you have tagged him.
He can then read the post himself and then comment back.
Example.
You see a post in a Facebook Group that says this:
From a potential customer named Daniel.
‘Looking for a decorator in the local area to help with an external spray paint job for our new shop’.
If you wanted to recommend John, you would then go into the comments with something like this.
‘Hi Daniel. You need to speak to @JohnSmith from @JohnSmithDecorators. We’ve worked with him on several commercial projects when we’ve gone in to do the window cleaning. He is an expert in spray painting and comes highly recommended by many of our local Trades. He spray-painted the Salon on the High Street. @JohnSmith, can you help Daniel?’
Few things to take from this and why this kind of response is epic.
✅ You address the person posting directly – ‘Hi Daniel’ – keeps it friendly.
✅ You’ve tagged John in so he gets a notification.
✅ Daniel can also click on John’s name (as it becomes a link when you use the @ sign) in case he wants to direct message.
✅ You’ll notice I ALSO tagged @JohnSmithDecorators Facebook business page – so Daniel can also click straight on that link and go to John’s page to see his previous decorating work and more about his business. An impressive Facebook page could be the difference between Daniel enquiring or not.
✅ I gave a short but important recommendation on previous work and dropped in a bit of extra detail that I knew of John that might help spark Daniel’s interest about another local shop front John had sprayed.
✅ I finished with a question ‘@JohnSmith, can you help Daniel?’ so that it makes it really easy for John to jump in the comments, almost like he’s replying to me but then a nice easy way in to start a conversation…
Your reply might look something like this:
‘Thanks for the kind recommendation, Georgia. Hi Daniel, yes, I can certainly help with this. I’ve just Direct Messaged you now to get the best number to call you on first thing to get all the details from you. Did you receive my message ok?’
And so, the conversation with the customer begins…
4. Create a branded marketing pack with each of your Trade and Construction business details in.
This one is a bit of work.
And something to do a little down the line when you’ve established who is serious in helping each other in your Trade WhatsApp Group.
Putting together a branded marketing pack that includes all of your details.
This could be as simple as a small branded folder consisting of individual leaflets – each of which has one of the Trade WhatsApp Group members details on.
The idea is that when you go to quote for your job – let’s say you’re a flooring company – you can also give your client your branded pack of OTHER trusted local Trades you work with that you can recommend.
If you’re doing the flooring for a residential client, they may well have just moved into a new property.
And may be looking to get curtains and blinds sorted.
Or start on the garden next.
This is a great way to help promote your fellow Trades.
And they will do the same for you in turn.
This is where having non-conflicting Trades in your team is more beneficial, as you don’t want to hand over a pack with 1 gardener, 1 electrician, 1 plumber, 1 carpenter, 1 waste removal company and 3 builders in.
It creates conflict.
And the customer may ask you which of the 3 would you recommend most!
Awkward.
The beauty of this is that if YOU are already working in the customers home or business, you are trusted and you have a great relationship.
Therefore anyone you recommend is much more likely to get a look in than a Trade and Construction business found on a random Google search…
Way to help support your fellow Trades.
And in turn.
Your fellow Trades are more likely to help get YOU referrals if they already have great relationships with their clients and a solid reputation.
Bringing it full circle to one of the WARNINGS we mentioned at the start.
Be sure to only bring in Trade and Construction businesses you align with in terms of brand and reputation.
As you risk being tarnished with the same brush should they have much lower standard than you – if you align yourself with their business in this branded marketing pack.
5. Promote each other’s Trade and Construction businesses in workshops and offices.
This one’s nice and easy.
If you have an office or a workshop where you have clients visit you, why not have a recommended Trades book or Wall Mount that contains all the details of your fellow Trade WhatsApp Group members?
Great way to add an extra layer of promotion if you have a premises as well as show how you are integrated and support the local community.
6. Organise a regular, informal meet up where you can work on ideas on how to push your Trade and Construction marketing and businesses further, together.
Finally.
The purpose of these ideas are to help support each other and build your Trade and Construction brand and marketing presence as a team
Because two hands are always better than one, right?
So imagine 5 hands.
Or even 15?
And the majority of these ideas are free, easy and quick to do.
But if you really want to level up your Trade and Construction brand and marketing then nothing beats accountability.
I encourage you to meet up face to face on a regular basis to talk ideas, learn more about each other’s businesses and new ways to collaborate and build.
Do it informally.
This isn’t a networking meeting.
This is helping support fellow Trades, and in many cases, friends.
Maybe avoid the pubs and places there’s lots of distractions.
Go somewhere quieter, where you can hear each other speak.
Talk about other local Trades you might like to add to your Group.
Introductions you might all be after.
Talk about how you might be able to put a branded marketing pack together to help promote you all as a collective.
Maybe you might take a few minutes to show some of the non-techy Trades how to share a Facebook post to the Group – so they can get more involved and do their bit for everyone else… and actually learn some social media skills for their own business.
The possibilities are endless.
But one thing IS for sure.
A regular catch up – be it once a fortnight, monthly, or every quarter – means relationships build and everyone gets better, together.
A pressure free environment, full of support with like-minded Trades who hold themselves to account.
I mean, can you imagine being part of something like that?…
⬇️ Win More Customers With The Help Of Your Fellow Trade And Construction Buddies Rundown:
1. Create a business and referral only WhatsApp Group.
2. Join the same Social Media Groups.
3. Tag each other in social media posts looking for that Trade.
4. Create a branded marketing pack with each of your details.
5. Promote each other in your workshops and offices.
6. Organise a regular, informal meet up where you can work on new ideas.
🛠 Need a little more help building your Trades and Construction Brand?
Course you do.
First. Let’s work out where you are with all things brand and marketing.
Got 3 minutes?
Take our Trades Quiz to discover how you score with all things ‘Off The Tools’.
We have heaps of tips, tricks, and hacks for your Trade and Construction business in our cheat sheets, videos and ideas waiting for you on the other side… i.e., your results page.
So, you can improve your score. And NAIL your Trade and Construction business.
Nice.