Marketing a Carpentry Contractor Today

Marketing a Carpentry Contractor has become more difficult these days.

Back 20 years ago when I started in the business we could get a yellow page ad and get a call every week or two. That was in Burlington Ontario and if you try that these days it is akin to signing on as an indentured servant.

So few people use the yellow pages these days that you may as well heat your house with the money you would pay them under their contracted print advertising. I know general contractors that were getting leads in years past from the phone book--but those dwindled in the last few years. For all intensive purposes the Yellow Pages are Dead.

I am sure you get hundreds of call from directory companies and SEO companies guaranteeing #1 listings in google. If they promise it, they are talking paid advertising in the margin... Adwords. And you can buy Adwords on your own. You don't need their middleman services. Basically, Google is the new yellow pages. The people that used to use yellow pages now go to their computer because it is easier than finding their phone book.

Starting a website for a Carpentry Contractor?--now that is an ambitious strategy. If you are planning to do this you need to have a marketing campaign to go along with it. Top level categories are dominated by players that have had websites for a decade now, directories, and sites that have actual content. Creating content is difficult unless you are an english major and a decent photographer. The average new website in 2010 will see 30 visits a month by the end of the year... that won't give you consistent leads.

Directories often play on ignorance to gain your confidence. "We get MILLIONS of hits every month"... the question you need to ask is how many Unique Visitors do you get every month? How many of those are contractors looking for leads or setting up their account, and how many are actual customers looking for a contractor. Divide the number of unique visitors by the number of services they are marketing for and the number of contractors listed within those services and then make an informed decision. Some niche marketers like GardenStructure.com will have your pages getting 30-300 visits a day... which makes sense. 1o visits a month just doesn't make sense. You would be better doing a few hundred direct mailings of something glossy.

Lead Generation Services that send the lead out to multiple companies are a scourge that should not be supported EVER. This victimizes you and every other builder using the service. You will devote your time and money towards being low bid... and increases the amount of time you will spend doing estimates. You pay for the privilege of working the lead... and so do your competitors. Keep perspective. It's not just $20 for a deck lead... the other guys paid $20 too... and there may have been 20 of them, and everyone wasted their time. It is not good for our industry. It just makes more overworked and poorer tradesmen.

Networking is important. Your friends and family and every client you work for can give valuable word of mouth referrals. Make friends with every client and they will help you for decades to come. (and keep in touch) Strategic alliances with companies that actually deliver non-competitive leads, and solid direct marketing should be part of your strategy in the 21st Century.

L

When you do a solid wood hardwood floor, sometimes you get a client that wants you to put more effort into the job--and sometimes they even want to pay you for your efforts. A hardwood flooring job can often be judged by what they do with the stair rails and treads.

There are ready made stair treads, however the species is rarely a perfect match, and often they are made of veneer plywood or laminate, which doesn't last particularly well when given the daily beating that stair treads take.

When people are spending money on real hardwood--or wide plank hardwood, they deserve to have the stairs done properly as well.

For this job I chose wood directly from a wide plank flooring mill near Barrie Ontario . Merv Gardener dries his lumber to 6% for flooring--so I know that these treads will be stable.

When it comes to biscuits we used a Beech Biscuit, with an exterior epoxy glue which when mixed with sawdust from the sander, I can tint to the same oak color.

Of course when I went to do this I realized I lent a number of my clamps to one of our builders, and haven't seen them return yet! So, I glued them up in a number of small batches. This job was about 15 treads including the stairs down to the basement.

When it comes to putting the flooring down, we use PL Premium adhesive and a few well hidden finish nails, or countersunk and plugged screws.

Really, with a good bed of screws you will find that treads are not removable... without destroying the sub tread.

We always make an extra tread just in case something goes wrong. This time we had the lowest tread break as we spun the newel into place--just a bad grain. I ended up having to score the tread in about 10 places and using a chisel to be able to remove it from the sub tread.

We'll get into the hand rails next post--they wobbled about 2 inches before we installed the new treads, so the third installation

was certainly a challenge. Salvage may save some trees, however it is never fun!

L