When I first became self-employed - at the age of 19, social media didn't exist. It was all door to door or cold calling on the phone. Back then we had 'territories' to cover that no one else could cover. It's a good thing that being kidnapped wasn't so rampant back then, because I spent many hours walking the streets alone at the age of 19-20 going door to door to cover my territory. A few years later, I was in a different business, no territory and spent most of my time selling from home, cold calling was a way to get new customers without leaving my baby daughter. I rarely got a yes but I'd also spend hours reaching out to every person I knew - on a landline, to tell them about my new venture. With a lot of dedication and hard work, it paid off. I was top salesperson out of more than 200 consultants my second year and I promoted to manager the third year.
In 1999, I had five different businesses and models under my belt, so when we moved to a new state and I knew no one, I knew where to start. Face to face is everything! We didn't have social media and I knew better by that point than to go door to door, but I made every effort to network. To reach people, in any way I could, that were within my target audience.
Fast forward to 2006, we opened our first HVAC business. My husband took the time to go door to door in every mobile home park in our immediate area and we hung flyers on every bulletin board. I didn't join FB until 2009 and it wasn't being used as a business platform at that time. We just kept plugging away at the networking.
In 2017 when we opened our current business, I did it all immediately. Google page. FB page. Newspaper blurb about this new business. Posting, sharing, networking. Anything and everything to get in front of people, for as little cost as possible. Everything I did in the beginning was free. Even the newspaper blurb. You just have to ask. Now I only do FB because I cannot show client's homes on IG and there's not really a lot that people want to see in our field. I refuse to use TikTok and Twitter. I do most of my FB posting as scheduled content, so I don't have to monitor it daily. I usually do about a week's worth at a time.
I wish I knew that radio spots were not going to be worth it and shouldn't spend the money. We invested over 20k in 4 years and got ZERO ROI on it. Radio only works when you have a very large disposable marketing budget and you're a big enough business to support daily traffic. You have to be a brick and mortar or be so visible in the service industry that you've got a fleet of vehicles. It didn't matter how many spots we did, it never helped. People we knew would tell us that they heard us on the radio but we never got new customers from it and I know that because I ask every new caller how they heard of us.
Co-Owner/Business Manager
Arctic Heat
R&C Property Management
Event Planner/Business Trainer
Member - Women in HVACR
Member - Women's Leadership Network, Helena
