Seiss Taylor – Web Authority Builder
Seiss has owned a service company for 27 years and understands the need for local internet marketing and seo services consulting
I am a native born Atlantan and live in Marietta, which is in the northern suburb of Atlanta. I am husband to Patti Taylor and father of 4 boys who are now grown and on their own. We live in a home that I personally built in our present Marietta location.
I am a graduate of Business Administration (management major) from Georgia State University and have always had a passion for owning my own business. After working for several corporations managing distribution and customer service, I decided to start my own home improvement company. I’ve operated my home improvement corporation for 27 years. Although I minored in computer programing while at Georgia State, through the years I continued my study in computer science but more specifically in internet marketing. I have dedicated the last 10 years in studying internet marketing. I have often spent 40 hrs a week honing my skills in business promotion online. Through the years I have developed this huge passion for helping other companies succeed online, especially companies whoes survival depends on the local market.
I want to share with you my own experience in taking my company through the advertising media shift and the faltering housing market. You need to know how I was able to adapt my company to the ongoing changes and bring profitability back to my company.
If you are a business owner, you probably can relate to the following scenario
The home improvement industry like most other industries, has been adversely affected by the media paradigm shift, or should I say the consumer paradigm shift. My own company struggled until I managed to achieve dominance on the web in my local market and how it has put my company on the road to growth again.
During the 80’s and 90’s, my home improvement company grew steadily from the use of a number of advertising Medias. Two of the most effective forms of advertising I used during that time was the yellow pages and Telemarketing. And our company (Homeowners First Choice Painting) grew fast and became a very properous company during that period of growth.
Change Was In the Air
What I didn’t know was, all that was about to change. Although I have a business degree, management major, accounting minor, and computer science minor along with years of experience in management and running a business, you would think I would’nt allow myself to get caught flat footed by the big shift in consumer buying habits, but it did catch me by surprise as it has for many business owners.
During the 90’s, just two quarter page yellow page ads would bring me an average of 260 hot prospects wanting an estimate for our home improvement services per month. Our telemarketing program would generate between 600 to 1000 prospects for our services per month.
Big Changes Made Me Change the Way I Think About Promotions.
By 1999 the same yellow page ads were only generating about 70 leads a month. By 2006 it had gotten much worse. During 2006, I ran 5 half page yellow page ads and the results with all half page ads combined was only about 15 leads per month on average.
In 2003 the government legislated out of existence you ability to mount any king of effective telemarketing campaign. Around 90% of homeowners are on the Federal No Call List, making it illegal for businesses to call unless you have done business with them within the last two years. By 2007, I eliminated our telemarketing program because it became ineffective.
Other forms of advertising that we used became ineffective. Newspaper ads, coupon mailers all dropped in response rate to the point we had to discontinue their use. Continue my story on transitioning to a web site marketing specialist.