Free Advice: What Actually Works (And What Doesn't) to Get More Customers

Every owner I meet is spending money somewhere. Some of it's working. Most of it isn't — and nobody ever told them which is which. So here it is, free: the honest rundown of what actually brings customers, and what just burns money. Take it and use it whether we ever speak or not.

What works: being found the moment they're looking

When somebody needs what you do, the first thing they do is search. Google. Their phone. "Near me." If you don't show up in that moment, you don't exist to them — it doesn't matter how good you are. That's why your Google Business Profile is the most valuable free thing you own. Claim it. Fill out every line. Real hours, real photos, every service you offer, the areas you serve. And then feed it reviews, because Google puts the well-reviewed businesses on top, and so do customers. This isn't a trick. It's the front door of your business now, and most of your competitors left theirs half-built.

And this isn't my opinion. Harvard Business School measured it: one star higher on your rating is worth about 5 to 9 percent more revenue for an independent business. Ninety-seven percent of customers read reviews before they choose (BrightLocal). Most won't even consider a business under four stars — and they ignore reviews older than three months, which means the reviews have to keep coming, not just sit there from two summers ago. Fresh reviews aren't decoration. They're income.

Local ads on Google work too — the kind where a customer searching right now, in your town, sees your name at the top with a call button. Done right, that's not advertising, that's being there at the exact second someone needs you. Done wrong (wrong area, wrong words, nobody answering the phone) it's a bonfire. The ad isn't the magic. The answering is.

What works: a website that turns visitors into calls

A website has one job: turn a visitor into a phone call. Your phone number big, at the top, tappable. What you do, in plain words. Where you do it. Real reviews. A reason to trust you. That's it. I've seen beautiful websites that never rang a phone because nobody could find the number — and simple, homely websites that print money because everything on them says "call." Pretty doesn't pay. Clear pays. And it has to open fast: Google's own research says over half of phone visitors abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load. They're not waiting. They're calling the next name.

What works: showing up where your customers live

Your customers scroll their phones every day. If your business never crosses their screen, their cousin's business will — or your competitor's. You don't need to be famous. You need to be present: useful posts, real photos of real work, your face, your crew, your finished jobs. A few times a week, every week. The businesses that win social media aren't the loudest. They're the ones still there in month six when everybody else quit in week two. That's been measured, too: Buffer studied over 100,000 accounts and found the ones who posted weekly, week after week, got about four and a half times the response of the ones who posted now and then.

And don't sleep on the old ways. For the right local business, a local commercial — TV or radio in your own market — still works, because it makes you a familiar name in your own town. Local TV is still the most trusted advertising there is — roughly three out of four people trust it, against about one in four for social media ads. Print in front of the right homes works the same way — the Postal Service's own household study found about half of advertising mail gets read, and more gets set aside to look at later. It gets kept. The principle never changes, only the channel: people buy from the name they know. Be the name they know.

What doesn't work

Let me save you some money. Buying followers doesn't work — a thousand strangers in another country never called anybody. Boosting random posts with nothing behind them doesn't work. A one-time ad blast doesn't work; the first time they see you, you're nobody, and nobody hires a nobody for real money. Discount-chasing doesn't work — the customer who comes for cheap leaves for cheaper, and he tells his friends you're the cheap guy. That's not a guess either: a Rice University study of businesses that ran big discount deals found about a third of them lost money on it, over 40 percent said they'd never do it again, and only a small share of the bargain hunters ever came back at full price. Hiding from your reviews doesn't work — the unhappy ones are already talking; the happy ones just need to be asked. And doing nothing works worst of all, because your competitor isn't doing nothing.

The part nobody wants to hear

None of this is a secret, and none of it is instant. Every channel on the "works" list works the same way: show up in front of the right people, take care of them when they call, and keep showing up. The owners who grow aren't smarter than you. They're just still standing there in month twelve. That's the whole game — and now you know it as well as anybody who'd charge you to hear it.

Never quit. Never give up. Keep trying.

— Michael