How To Generate Landscaping Referrals During COVID-19 With ONE Simple Piece of Paper

Let's dig into how to use this magical sheet of paper. So depending on when you're listening to this right now, while I'm recording this, it is Tuesday, April 7th, 2020, and there's this world pandemic. People are freaked out, quarantined. There's a lot of chaos happening in the world. Even if you're listening to this after the whole pandemic, I believe that this letter strategy that I'm going to share with you today can be used to generate referrals. With that said, I really intend to share this in a way that'll keep you working if your business is considered essential, I want to keep you working. I want to keep you and your people safe and the neighbors of your clients safe. That's really the goal here is safety first everybody, and be sure to check your state, national, and local regulations in order to make sure you can keep working.

With that out of the way, let's dig into the sales letter. So if you've worked with me at Ramblin Jackson, you've probably received a print sales letter from me. Yes, a print sales letter. I'm a big fan of sending things in the mail because they have an emotional value that yes, this show is largely around generating leads online, but that's just a path to starting a relationship with somebody, to have them become your customer, where you're going to take care of them. And paper has this weird emotional value and I know it works. I send it to you guys and it works and I want to share with you how to do this. 

So essentially, you can download this letter and I'm going to read it out loud for you who are listening to the episode here. So essentially this is a letter that you are going to give to the neighbors of your landscaping clients because I've been talking with my clients who are working and they're sometimes getting complaints from the neighbors of their clients wondering, "Why are you guys out working during a pandemic? Am I going to get sick?" 

This is meant to address that concern and also generate more referrals. So the letter would sound something like this:

Dear Neighbor,

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and to address some concerns many people may have regarding COVID-19 in the landscaping work we're doing in your neighborhood. Jostes For All Landscapes is a residential landscaping company based in Lyons, Colorado. We will be working on Mary Johnson's property at 123 Main Street over the coming weeks and months. 

Landscaping has been deemed an essential business by state and national authorities, which means that we are permitted to work because of the environmental, sustainability, and construction safety elements of our work. In addition to restricting employees who are showing COVID-19 symptoms from working, our plan to keep your community safe includes: 

1. 1. Our uniformed employees will be wearing face masks to help reduce the spread of disease, keeping homeowners and their neighbors safe.
   2. Limit of one person per vehicle. This means that our staff may be driving their personal vehicles to the job site in addition to our branded trucks and vehicles.
   3. Regular hand washing & sanitation of all company equipment used on the job site.

I expect that my staff will adhere to these policies. If you see otherwise, I'd appreciate that you contact me directly with any concerns.

Sincerely,

Jack Jostes

CEO, Jostes Of All Landscapes 

Then I'd include my cell phone, email, and then…

P.S. Read more about our safety precautions and available services during this quarantine on our website at landscapersguide.com/COVID19.

Now, the little P.S. with the Call To Action to the website is really powerful. What we've been doing at Ramblin Jackson is helping our clients get an update on their website. We have a pop up that comes up. We have what's called an eyebrow, which goes across the top of the site leading to a page that describes all of this.

So I'd recommend that if you're not our client that you go ahead and build something like that or reach out to us if you'd like our help because this little P.S. with the Call To Action to the website is driving those people to your websites and now you're taking care of their concerns about who you are, why you're there. They're probably going to keep this letter around. It has your cell phone number on it. I include in the template a space for your headshot and logo, and guess what? You can repeat this letter later on. Hey, just wanted to let you know, you can repeat this, that we are finishing the project in two weeks and here's one way that you can generate a ton of referrals and get a guaranteed open rate.

I want to share that this next tip may help you get a 100% open rate. Meaning people are actually going to open this letter. This idea came from the NO BS Referrals book by Dan Kennedy and Shawn Buck. You have the envelope addressed from your neighbor's name. Now you've got to get their buy in on this and then it's addressed to them. I guarantee that they will open this. If one of my neighbors wrote me a letter, I would certainly open it. And when you finish the job, you could have a letter in there that's from the client with a testimonial from them. Now you've got a solid referral. And the key here is that referrals are proactive. This is a proactive referral strategy versus word of mouth. Those are not referrals. Referrals are things you ask for. You solicit them, you go for it, you get them. I'm a big fan of this type of print strategy because if you, let's say that you generate a lead on the internet, from what I help people with, and now you're in that ideal neighborhood, why not, you know, go and add a letter or give a letter to people in their neighborhood.

I hope this was helpful to you. I'm trying to provide current, timely, relevant ways to help you guys keep selling during this weird economic time. And one thing is for sure people are doing more internet research than ever. They're looking at people online. They're, they're Googling you. And if you're using video, that's something that's working for a lot of my clients.  

One last thing I wanted to mention was that I saw a landscaper offering, in a state where they are not essential and not working, they're offering to help people pick up groceries. They're being helpful. Now, when it comes time to finally do that delayed spring cleanup, when your lawn is 10 feet long, who would you be more likely to hire? Would you even Google at that point or would you work with that person that helped you get groceries? So be creative. There's lots of opportunities out here. 

You'll see in the show notes for this episode how you can download this worksheet. And the cool thing is, check it out. Here's my printer. You can print this at home. This is like a bare bones inexpensive, get this thing done at home. I know you're home right now. Go introduce yourself to ideal client neighbors of your customers. 

Thank you for checking this out and I look forward to talking to you guys next week.