I don’t get it.
My “Tree Guy”, the fellow who sprays professionally applies pesticides to my hemlock hedge to prevent wooly adelgids from sucking the life out of them, came by to make sure we were renewing our contract with him. Some of his customers are switching to less expensive, less professional solutions, and others are dropping their tree maintenance services altogether. “Landscaping seems to be the first thing to go,” my Tree Guy said, “when people start cutting back”.
His plan to retain my business, bless him, was to scare me with visions of infested boughs and dead trees lining my side yard.
I understand his logic, but there is a much easier way to get me to buy his services, or to chose his company over the guys who mow our lawn.
That would be: Appeal to my values.
Given the explosion of marketing advice around connecting to customers’ interests in sustainability, you’d think that there would be more than one (nationally franchised) company appealing to my own and my neighbors’ green inclinations. And, you’d think that the enterprising small business, the tree service with 4 trucks and 8 employees, would be able to focus on values as a low cost way of differentiating their services. Why hasn’t my Tree Guy caught on?
It wouldn’t be that hard. All he’d have to do is put the values on his printed materials (like the page where he calculates the estimate and contract), on his yard signs, and on his truck. And of course, he’d have to make sure that his processes and materials complied with his values statement. He would have to be “authentically” green.
I live in a town that is very liberal – it’s so blue you can be sure everyone would also like to be green. So, an appeal to eco-values would be likely to net him some business, and also help him retain customers who might otherwise be thinking of switching to a less expensive (and less expert) option.
I ask this question not just of my Tree Guy landscapers but also of kitchen remodelers, handy-people, housepainters and driveway repavers, most of which are small businesses, independently owned and able to reflect the values of the proprietors:
Where are the signs of everyday service people appealing to consumer values?