CHAPTER 1 - MARKET RESEARCH

Please note I use a fancy splitting formula to cut out the un-needed data from the import. If you would like to use my formula for your data, just “unhide” the columns containing the formula on the far left.

Step 5) Examine the initial three columns of data you imported. Does everything look complete? Are there any towns you can think of that are missing? It never hurts to double check your work.

These five steps will help you determine your potential service area.

In the next section, we will research and enter relevant demographic information. This will help determine the possible customers in your new service zone.

Plug In the Demographic Data

Step 6) Navigate to the second website we will use in this process. Go to factfinder.census.gov. Enter the first zip code you have listed in your spreadsheet. It will then take you to a page that looks like this:

From here, you will be able to uncover all sorts of wonderful information. You will know all about your service area and the potential customers within it.

At the least, I would like to see you enter each zip code into the website and log the following data points:

■ Population count
■ Median income
■ Total homes in each zip code
■ Number of homes occupied by renters
■ Number of homes occupied by owners
■ Median age
■ Level of education high school and beyond•
■ Poverty level•Percentage of population who are female

With these nine points of data tracked against your zip code, you will have powerful data at your fingertips. But let’s not stop there. We are so close to making it just a little bit better.

Step 7) Navigate to melissadata.com/lookups/zipdistance.asp

From here, you can plot how far each of your prospective zip codes is from your home base. I know this seems like a small thing, but trust me, do it. The data will come in handy in the future. Go to your spreadsheet, and plot every single data point in every town we listed.

Step 8) Navigate to trends.findthehome.com

At this site, we are researching and logging the average sale price of a home in your service area.If you find any missing data, other free websites will provide similar data for you. Google around a bit; you’ll find it.

Analyze and Review the Data

Researching and logging all the information in your service area will take almost a full day. I promise you it will all be worth it. You will be so much closer to making better-informed decisions in your business. Now for the fun part: analyzing and reviewing, slicing and dicing the data, cutting up the spreadsheet, and sorting through the columns. We will go over some different factors here and try to determine why each of them is important.

Let’s focus on this area first:

■ Median income—The higher, the better. Sort your spreadsheet from highest to lowest median income. Highlight with a color of your choice the top-twenty towns that have the highest median income.
■ Total homes in each zip code—Although this won’t be a deciding factor for you, it will be helpful later on.
■ Number of homes occupied by renters—The lower the number, the better. Renters are going to be much less likely to use your services.
■ Number of homes occupied by owners—The higher, the better.
■ Median age—This is an interesting one. My research has shown that women between the ages of forty and fifty-five are my most likely customers.
■ Level of education high school and beyond—The higher, the better. More education typically equals more disposable income.
■ Poverty level—The lower, the better. Avoid areas with a high poverty level.
■ Percent of population who are female—This one doesn’t matter too much. It will always end up being around 50%.

Sort each column from highest to lowest. Highlight the top-twenty highest or lowest cells based on the factors above. Step back and take a look at the data. It should be no problem for you to decide what areas will be the most responsive to your services.

Here is where I would most likely target (in my area)

Other things to consider are distance in miles from your location and average home-sale price. What appears to be an amazing town might not end up being so amazing when you see how far it is from your home base. Average home-sale price is interesting because it may help you gauge the size of the houses. Larger homes usually will equate to a higher window count. The more windows on-site, the higher your average ticket price can rise.

Don’t base your decision on any one of these factors alone. Use all the data together to make an educated determination. We want to put your marketing efforts in front of the people most likely to take advantage of your services.

Competitor Research

The other part of your market research is seeing what your competitors are up to.If I had only twenty hours for market research a year, I would spend sixteen hours researching the ideal customer and the local town demographics and spend the other four hours doing a competitor analysis.

Don’t discount the power of knowing what your competition is up to. After all, you can’t be better than them if you don’t know what they are like. Competitor research is part of knowing your market. We don’t want you to become obsessed about this, but we do want you to have some general knowledge about them. Here are some things you should know about the companies you are up against:

Background:

■ Company Name
■ Owner’s name
■ Phone Number
■ Website
■ Location
■ Operations
■ Service Radius
■ Employee Count
■ Vehicle Count
■ What is their core business? — Window Cleaning? Pressure Washing? Landscaping?
■ Big contracts held?
■ Big contracts end date?
■ Marketing–what methods are they using against you?
■ Direct Mail
■ Social Media
■ Paid Print advertising
■ Web presence
■ How do they rank against your targeted keywords?
■ How are their reviews and ratings?

Social media can be a great place for you to keep an eye on the competition. You don’t need to stalk them, but it couldn’t hurt to keep your eye out for what they are up to. How active are they? Are they doing anything worth emulating? What kind of promotions and specials are they running? What’s the word on the street?

Again, I don’t want you to obsess about this, and it’s something you should check on only a couple of times a year. Don’t have an adversarial relationship with them. In fact, you should try to befriend them all. Have conversations with them, and even try to get together now and then. Likely, most of them will not have similar goals as you, and they can turn into great sources of referral work. We got tons of work from friendly competitors.

Do know that your strong marketing campaign will help your competition grow? Your marketing creates competition. I knew that our marketing efforts kept whole competitor companies of ours in business. I did a ton of marketing. On some days, it caused hundreds of people to call us for services. If we couldn’t get to them fast enough, or if they thought our price was way high, they could call one of our competitors.

These were people who never knew they wanted their windows cleaned until I spent the time and money to market to them. It always irked me on some level that my hard marketing work kept some of our competitors in business. But at the end of the day, I was just happy to have plenty of work.

Also, whether you believe it or not, there is enough glass out there for everyone to clean. There is way more glass than all the window cleaning companies in the world can handle. Your competition isn’t your real competitor. The real competitor is you and the customers who don’t know they want their windows cleaned.