Speaker 1
So this is part two of the little video series on learning from mistakes and not replicating these mistakes again and again and again and not doing deals.
Speaker 1
So one of the common ones we come across is people sending out lots of letters and not getting lots of replies. And one of the most common things that people are getting wrong at this stage of the process is that they come away from the cause knowing that they have to do these letters, remembering that there’s this credit checking software thing. So they start looking into the credit checking software. So you have things like Credit Safe and Experian and all these various ones. Obviously, the credit checking software sales guys get on the phone to you and they all tell you that you can use the credit checking software to search for the type of companies you’re looking for and the type of criteria that you want.
Speaker 1
So you think, “Okay, yeah. I remember I need half a million to five million of revenue. And I remember I want cleaning companies in Essex,” to use that constantly overused analogy. So you type cleaning companies in Essex into your Credit Safe, and low and behold, a big list of companies pops up. So you think, “Great. Really nice simple hack. I’ll just send out letters to all of these guys.” And then you get no responses.
Speaker 1
And just like a lot of the things that I find that people are struggling with, actually, if they just went back to their notes or went back to the presentation on your USB and just went through the steps, you’ll realize you’re probably missing one piece. And if you just put the pieces back together, you then benefit from the 20 years of experience that’s gone into producing the Harbor Club.
Speaker 1
All of those steps are in there for a reason, and it’s because we found that doing it in a different way doesn’t give you the desired results. So if you remember, the key here is using a directory service to find the companies. So something like Thompson Business Search or you can use Yell or these kinds of things because the SIC codes, which is the code that represents the business that people are in, are invariably wrong. Because you know quite often people just buy an off the shelf company, so it’s some miscellaneous category and then they become a cleaning company or they start out doing one thing but pivot the business into something else. We’ve all done that.
Speaker 1
So SIC codes are invariably wrong. So the, the key is to get the directory entry because people’s directory are generally right because they’re looking for business. A directory is somewhere where people will contact them looking to do some cleaning work. So the directory will be correct and you then search the company name you find on the directory in the credit search and you’ll notice just very quickly you get a completely different list for a start when you look on a directory of cleaning companies in Essex versus a credit search of cleaning companies in Essex.
Speaker 1
So straight away, you’ll see you’ve got a completely different list. Directories will be more current and better, and often just that little one degree shift, which is search them first in a directory, then do the credit check, has a huge impact. You’re talking about multiple responses from a batch of letters versus no responses from a batch of letters. So a one degree shift can create a huge, a huge, huge impact. So make sure you’re using a directory service to source the details before you credit check them and send the letters. It adds an extra little a thing you have to do, but trust me, the juice is worth the squeeze.
