Conference Pays for Itself Before it Even Begins

Posted on November 3, 2009

It’s quite possible that you’ll get your money’s worth before ACCA’s 42nd Annual Conference and Indoor Air Expo even starts. Besides the $295 Learning Labs DVD you’ll get for signing up before December 1 (more info on this valuable promotion is here), the Tampa event again features a pre-conference consulting session with two of the top marketing experts in the HVACR industry.

This means you get access to the industry’s top marketing consultants without having a bill land in your inbox.  The “open floor” format of the session, slated for the morning of March 7th just before the conference opens, allows participants to ask their marketing-related questions and see a first-hand overhaul of typical, unsuccessful Yellow Pages ads and contractors’ websites.

Hosted by marketing gurus Adams Hudson and Brian Kraff, these gentlemen know that marketing to HVACR contractors is about like going to the dentist—we know we have to do it, but it takes some mental nudges to actually show up for the appointment. “To most logical contractors, marketing seems like voodoo,” says Hudson, president of Hudson, Ink Corp. “Most of their marketing training has been from the self-serving media salespeople or misguided competition … [so] you get hesitance, discomfort, or total neglect.”

And yet, he continues, marketing techniques can battle the current economic challenges with cost-efficient lead generation and by keeping a tight grip on current customers. “It costs roughly $275 to generate one customer,” Hudson says. “So if you only service them once and they leave, you probably lost money. [It’s] not their job to remember us, but our job to be memorable.”

Although he knows attending his workshop might require some dentist-appointment-like will power, Hudson promises some powerful take-aways that will make contractors glad they forced themselves to tackle marketing strategies head-on. “If they don’t think the economy has changed their business or customers’ buying triggers, then no need to come,” he says. “Yet, if they’re ready to accept the fact that things have changed drastically plus are interested to find how they’re likely sitting on an absolute gold mine already in their business, then come in, questions ready, notepad in hand.”

Hudson will begin his portion of the session by ripping apart “The Ugliest Yellow Page Ad I Ever Saw in my Life,” giving contractors an eye-opening look at common mistakes made not only with Yellow Pages ads, but other marketing venues as well. He will then take questions from the floor, firing off quick solutions to attendees’ marketing challenges—free of charge.

Those who participate in the pre-conference session will be entitled to priority seating at Hudson’s regular seminar that will take place later in the conference. He will also give away a Yellow Pages makeover to a contractor who attends the open floor session.

“The old model of dumping wasteful money on a Yellow Pages ad that looks like it was designed by a drunken blender and then wait for the season to make your phones ring is dead,” he says. “Contractor marketing today is a hyper-efficient model corrected for today’s buyer, and near formulaic in profit production.”

For more information on the session, or to complete your early bird registration before December 1, click here.