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| Down the Right Road: Got Junk |
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| Written by Jill Rose |
| Saturday, 31 January 2009 23:00 |
 {smoothgallery folder=images/slideshows/0209_gotjunk&sort=asc} For the executives at 1-800-Got-Junk, last spring’s downward economic turn acted as a catalyst for a program that moved them one step closer to that dream. “In May, the leadership team sat down, and we all agreed we needed to do something to shift all the negative energy about the economy into a more positive place,” said Brian Scudamore, founder and CEO. The team decided a strategic planning session was in order, and one was quickly set up involving a facilitator, the leadership team and company directors, and six franchise partners. “The 20 of us talked through every potential opportunity,” said Scudamore. “The goal was simple: get revenue to shift back up rather than continue to erode.” Scudamore and Bryan Mavrow, director of marketing, are understandably pleased with the 100-day plan formulated during the two-day meeting. It resulted in a sales increase of 5% for franchisees that participated, along with 2,500 inbound links to regional Web sites—up from zero. Squeegee kids The plan involved a focus in three areas: neighborhood marketing, regional online presence, and targeting property managers. Scudamore said the idea to focus on three fairly basic things came from his memory of how newly elected Mayor Rudolph Giuliani launched his campaign to clean up New York. Giuliani picked taxi-driver attire, subway graffiti, and squeegee kids as his battlegrounds. “What I love about the story is he picked three things that didn’t seem, on the surface, like the most important things,” explained Scudamore. “But they led to people rallying around three things they felt they could change that would start to change the culture and feeling of the residents and the city workers.” The key to the success of the three focus areas was branding, said Mavrow. Executives at The Junction (company headquarters in Vancouver) began spreading the word that the 100-day plan would help the franchisees own the neighborhood, own online, and own property management. “People can wrap their heads around and remember three well-branded items,” said Scudamore. Scudamore and his team were surprised by how quickly the ball got rolling. IT created a secure Web page where franchise partners could read other’s ideas and success stories. E-mails sent to the company about strategies being used were posted several times a day, along with photos of teams beginning or ending big jobs, screen shots of Web links being generated in search engines, and a bar chart showing which franchisees were getting the most links or lawn signs put up. Soon, franchisees were trying to out-do each other with neighborhood marketing, inbound links, and appointments with property managers. Take ownership The idea behind owning the neighborhood was simple: make sure every franchisee was doing three things already proven to work. First, park each company truck in a high-profile location at the end of every day—essentially a mobile billboard. Second, after completing a job, drivers and navigators hang doorknob flyers on six houses to either side of the job location. Third, ask customers to allow the company to leave a lawn sign for a week or two. “These were three things that people knew they should be doing,” said Scudamore. “So, when they saw success stories on the site every day with unique ways of asking customers to allow a lawn sign, it inspired them and got them engaged.” One franchisee came up with the idea of leaving the lawn sign as a virtual coupon. After the sign had been up for a week or two, he asked customers to store it in their garage. If they showed the sign the next time they called for a pick up, they received $20 off. Scudamore called virtually every franchise partner and explained the end goal. “I said the idea was if a competitor, customer, or potential customer was driving through the neighborhood, they would see 1-800-Got-Junk everywhere—trucks in the neighborhood, a flyer on their door, and signs on the lawns of people we’ve done work for.” On the online side, the goal was to increase the search-engine visibility of the company’s local Web pages. The team at headquarters, which numbers about 200 (including seasonal call-center workers), had created a home page for each city the company serves, about 100, but it would have taken it months to fill out each page and universal business profile, and Mavrow noted that the vast majority of customers make their buying decisions using the Web. Each franchise partner was asked to build his/her own profile, raising the ranking of the local pages, and each was taught some basic e-marketing techniques in a series of online seminars. “We didn’t want to overwhelm them,” said Mavrow, “We said, ‘Take an hour tomorrow morning, and do this exercise.’ We explained the power of linking and mentions in a blog or local directory. In about six weeks, we got an enormous lift.” After four weeks, 220 universal profiles had been created. After eight weeks, about 75 of the 100 local pages were showing up in the top five results in Google—previously, they had been on page four or five of the results for a search such as “Junk removal in Boston.” Overall, Mavrow said, the company is driving about 10% more business from the Web than it was. Making inroads Property management was the new-business portion of the 100-day plan. It was the vertical that made the most sense, said Scudamore, because professionalism is top of the list for property managers, something 1-800-Got-Junk specializes in. “They value the fact that we’re insured, that we will show up in the evening, that we can have multiple trucks show up on short notice and do the work as they expect,” he said. The marketing department purchased lists of property management companies in key areas and sent 56,000 pieces, a combination of direct mail and e-mail. The lists were broken down by geography and given to franchise partners as leads. To prepare franchisees to make inroads in this new area, the marketing department ran a series of sales technique Webinars. On one system-wide call, a prominent commercial property manager spoke for 45 minutes and answered questions about the best way to contact her and what she looks for in a removal service. “The franchise partners were bowled over that we had one of the top property managers in Vancouver on the line,” said Mavrow. Added Scudamore: “We generated about 615 in-person appointments with property managers as a result of this focus. Our investment in this has continued and will be a central focus in 2009.” A rallying point Indeed, the 100-day plan, which included $21 off residential jobs in the last third of the program, was such a success that several more are planned. Specifically, there will be two focused programs next year for residential business and four for the commercial market. The company is hiring a senior-level campaign manager to facilitate these efforts. There are many reasons the plan worked so well, said Scudamore. First, 100 days is the right amount of time—long enough for people to fully engage and see results, but not so long that the campaign loses momentum. Second, it helped focus not just the individual franchisees but the company itself. “It gave us a framework so that if someone came to us with an idea, if it wasn’t on the 100-day plan, we knew it would need to wait,” said Scudamore. Third, it showed the franchise partners the power of strong leadership and working together. “Essentially, we have hundreds of small business owners working on their own territories,” explained Mavrow. “The tough economy meant an opportunity to bring a rallying point; they love to see leadership from their franchisor. We were able to extend a strategy to them that they could believe in.” Finally, it brought the company together in a way it had never experienced. “Every person—the franchise partners and people at the Junction—felt like we were on the same team, fully aligned, and charging ahead with the same message,” said Scudamore. |