Something For Nothing

Corndog · Oct 5, 2013

So here's what I got from the last post. You are having a hard time finding the number etc. That means you're essentially cold calling them and then trying to sell them a service for $350? There's your biggest problem right there. Yesterday they had no need for your service, today you're telling them they need to spend $350 for a service they didn't think they needed to begin with.

If someone calls you, sure tell em the fee, if you're showing up and just saying them is gold in that there hills. They think, you'll just be trying to rip em off.

Harfle · Oct 6, 2013

Tmac47_sl said:
So, I don't know how it is in other industries, but landowners are CONSTANTLY trying to get something for nothing. It's borderline ridiculous. People wouldn't go into a grocery store and ask for free milk or take their car to the mechanic and ask for free labor, but I get hit up almost every day for it.

In an effort to get some advice and response, I'm going to share a conversation that happened today. Is there anything I can do to turn the tide on this?

This happens all the freaking time.

that sounds to me like every time you submit a proposal something for nothing because you invested all those resources to submit something and got nothing because they went with ABC corp. Get with the program bro it happens everywhere.

Tmac · Oct 7, 2013

Corndog_sl said:
So here's what I got from the last post. You are having a hard time finding the number etc. That means you're essentially cold calling them and then trying to sell them a service for $350? There's your biggest problem right there. Yesterday they had no need for your service, today you're telling them they need to spend $350 for a service they didn't think they needed to begin with.

If someone calls you, sure tell em the fee, if you're showing up and just saying them is gold in that there hills. They think, you'll just be trying to rip em off.

No. We're not trying to sale a service for $350. We're cold calling to talk with landowners about timber management; a process that could give them up to 60% increase in returns on their timber.

We give them a plan, we help them execute the plan andwe sale their timber for them, then we replant trees for them. Rinse and repeat.

The timber sales is what brings in the bacon and occurs twice in the lifetime of a stand of trees. Once for thinning and again at final harvest.

The thinning process occurs naturally, but we streamline it so that it brings in an income for the landowner. Final harvest is the big return on investment when timber matures around 28 years.

A nice 100 acre tract of planted line can bring in $150,000 after it's all said and done. So, $350 is beans when it's all said and done.

The landowner,who contacted me, has 20 acres and about $25,000 worth of timber on it, but is unwilling to put up $350 to get the exact figure.

He could potentially lose thousands if he doesn't know what it's worth, but isn't willing to spend $350 to prevent bigger losses.

I'm going to contact him again ask him when he's planning on selling the timber. Then I'm going to tell him we will put in a bid for it.

Tmac · Oct 7, 2013

Harfle_sl said:
that sounds to me like every time you submit a proposal something for nothing because you invested all those resources to submit something and got nothing because they went with ABC corp. Get with the program bro it happens everywhere.

I think part of running a successful company is minimizing how much it happens.

You're free to disagree.

I didn't post the conversation to whine about the situation, but to get advice on how to turn people like this, who try to squeeze you at every turn, into revenue building customers.

Borzak · Oct 7, 2013

I have a double major BS and MS in Forest Management along with Wildlife Management. Lots of stuff you mention is why I got out of it quickly. Throw in landowners who say crap like "Well X got Y per ton/acre/stand so I think I should get that and a little more", regardless of what timber they actually have or how difficult it is to get to.

I'm not sure how it goes in GA but here another thing I ran into is people selling their land and having a registered timber deed to someone else. So like mineral rights someone buys property and doesn't own the timber, and might not know until someone shows up one day making a deck to start cutting.

Good luck with it. I'm glad I got it and it has paid for itself many times over managing my own land but every landowner is an expert in all things

A good friend of mine (actually my room mate from college) got into the boutique consulting business. Only deals with absentee landowners mostly out of staters and mostly those who live in large cities. He really goes after the top end for conservation and it really plays to them over the other rednecks who are for their timber/business.

The final straw for me was dealing with landowners who knew they got screwed by a timber buyer/consultant but would go right back to them next time because it was X's son, Y's cousin or whatever else.

But sorry can't help on your actual problem, just pointing out shit you already knew.

Tmac · Oct 7, 2013

Borzak_sl said:
The final straw for me was dealing with landowners who knew they got screwed by a timber buyer/consultant but would go right back to them next time because it was X's son, Y's cousin or whatever else.

But sorry can't help on your actual problem, just pointing out shit you already knew.

Most of the people that contact me (via Google search) have recently inherited their land and don't know anyone in the industry.

This is a trend that will continue to increase over the next decade and I'm moving in a direction now that should set us for success.

I'm even developing an app that tracks timber from land to mill and includes landowners in the process and makes reconciliation a breeze for dealers.

It also lets me track timber prices anonymously, which will become a huge traffic driver. Imagine the timber industry with a ticker...

Shonuff · Oct 7, 2013

Tmac47_sl said:
I think part of running a successful company is minimizing how much it happens.

You're free to disagree.

I didn't post the conversation to whine about the situation, but to get advice on how to turn people like this, who try to squeeze you at every turn, into revenue building customers.

What percentage of people are you closing? You can't expect to close everyone, but I have internal goals and tell my people what I expect. We close 50% of the people we talk to, which is pretty damn stellar. Sometimes, it drops lower, and then I get my people together and we try to figure out why.

Picasso3 · Oct 7, 2013

I'm here to say for the landowners that yes we would like something for nothing.

mixtilplix · Oct 8, 2013

..and chicks for free.

Nester · Oct 8, 2013

A timber cruise is just like a house appraisal.

Are you trying to sell appraisals or are you trying to broker timber? If your end goal is to try and sell my timber, would an assessment not be part of the services you should be providing while trying to sell my timber?

A Realtor does not charge me anything to tell me how much we should sell my house for.

It may be the norm in your industry, but from a laymans point of view it sets off a red flag for someone to charge you to tell you what they would do if you end up hiring them. I don't think people want something for nothing, however the way its layed out in this post it seems really odd.

Gadrel_sl · Oct 8, 2013

Nester_sl said:
A Realtor does not charge me anything to tell me how much we should sell my house for.

Most Realtors aren't appraisers, but most appraisers are Realtors. Your average Realtor has a state-issued license to sell real estate, typically referred to as a salesperson's license, which usually involves a very barebones course in the state's laws of property and contract. Appraisers have specific training in the valuation of property.

What I'm getting at is that most Realtor-salespersons don't have the training in real estate appraisal that appraisers do and, as a result, any valuations made by them should be taken with a grain of salt.

Tmac · Oct 8, 2013

Nester_sl said:
Are you trying to sell appraisals or are you trying to broker timber? If your end goal is to try and sell my timber, would an assessment not be part of the services you should be providing while trying to sell my timber?

A Realtor does not charge me anything to tell me how much we should sell my house for.

By that point you're already in contract with them. So, yes, they do charge you. Also, they don't actually appraise your property and it's illegal for them to call it an appraisal. They compare your home to "comparables" in the area and price it accordingly.

Nester_sl said:
It may be the norm in your industry, but from a laymans point of view it sets off a red flag for someone to charge you to tell you what they would do if you end up hiring them. I don't think people want something for nothing, however the way its layed out in this post it seems really odd.

This guy wasn't asking us to sale his timber. He specifically asked what it was worth. Having an "appraiser" appraise your house, costs money. Asking a forester to appraise your timber, costs money.

If you want someone to sale your timber, the appraisal still costs money, but the fee is hidden in the commission. It works exactly the same way with Realtors.

However, the big difference here is that people understand the value of a Realtor. Landowners do not understand the value of a forester. Why? Because the industry does zero marketing. I'm different in the fact that I actually do marketing, but trying to reinvent the wheel isn't easy.

Tmac · Oct 8, 2013

Lyrical_sl said:
What percentage of people are you closing? You can't expect to close everyone, but I have internal goals and tell my people what I expect. We close 50% of the people we talk to, which is pretty damn stellar. Sometimes, it drops lower, and then I get my people together and we try to figure out why.

Well, a big issue is people not having timber that's ready to thin or clear-cut. So, from the people who are actually ready to harvest, it's above 50%.

I'm putting together a post-card that my callers will tell landowners is "on the way" and then send it. This post card will have a picture on the front and a message from our Director on the back.

Then we're going to send them an infographic X days later that shows the percentage of return they can get from each of the 5 stages of timber management. Ultimately, if people choose to manage their timber our way, they can see increases of over 100% on their timber properties.

However, investment purposes aren't the only reasons people own timber, so figuring out how to also connect with the landowners who are interested in hunting and aesthetics in the same graphic space is a little tricky.

Shonuff · Oct 8, 2013

Tmac47_sl said:
Well, a big issue is people not having timber that's ready to thin or clear-cut. So, from the people who are actually ready to harvest, it's above 50%.

So...what's the problem? Most businesses only close 10% of their prospects. Other than having professionally done materials at the point of sale and a website (I paid a well known graphic artist to do mine), all you can do is stress to the salespeople about how important is to inform customers. I tell mine that it doesn't matter if they have to explain the company 20 times a day, they better not get bored going over the P-O-S materials.

If your close rate, among people ready to harvest is 50%, I'd be going out and doing free bids. It's all a numbers game, if you can double the number of people you talk to, and keep your close rate, you've just doubled business.

Tmac · Oct 9, 2013

Lyrical_sl said:
So...what's the problem? Most businesses only close 10% of their prospects. Other than having professionally done materials at the point of sale and a website (I paid a well known graphic artist to do mine), all you can do is stress to the salespeople about how important is to inform customers. I tell mine that it doesn't matter if they have to explain the company 20 times a day, they better not get bored going over the P-O-S materials.

If your close rate, among people ready to harvest is 50%, I'd be going out and doing free bids. It's all a numbers game, if you can double the number of people you talk to, and keep your close rate, you've just doubled business.

Well, the biggest problem is that about 1 out of every 10 landowners we talk to is actively managing their property. We've talked to over 3,000 in the past year.

Before I started calling landowners I would've thought we'd have a competitive disadvantage to other more established companies, however, I've found that this isn't the case. Our biggest barrier isn't another company, but rather that landowners don't understand the value of management. They could potentially increase their return by over 100% by managing, but they don't realize this.

So, my biggest question is how to express the benefits of management to them:
+ 30% revenues from site prep
+ 68% revenues from seedling choice
+ 12% revenues from planting pattern (443 trees per acre) // +12% revenues from thinning with denser pattern
+ 124% revenues from annual fertilization & competition control

So in total you can improve your revenues by 234%, by managing your timber. Only 1 of every 10 landowners are doing this and even the ones who are probably aren't considering everything I've listed here. A lot of these techniques are already used in the "farming" process. We just have to get people to think about their timber like a crop they can farm.

I'm working on a postcard and an infographic, plus other materials to send out. Plus, I have my callers talking to them about it.

Harfle · Oct 10, 2013

I have always looked at sending materials like this. If some dude called me and said he was going to send me a postcard or any information for that fact. Will I actually read it or just round file it. My bet is round file.

Tmac · Oct 11, 2013

Harfle_sl said:
I have always looked at sending materials like this. If some dude called me and said he was going to send me a postcard or any information for that fact. Will I actually read it or just round file it. My bet is round file.

Right.

So, what I'm trying to figure out is how to provide them with meaningful information that's concrete, unexpected and emotional.

If there's some shock value, then they're more likely to pay attention. Something like, "The value of your home is sitting in your trees. If you don't take care of them, you're not reaching your full potential." Obviously that sucks, but you get the idea.

Tmac · Oct 11, 2013

Another idea I've thought about is having a postcard with the picture of a manicured yard vs an overgrown yard full of weeds with something like, "You wouldn't ignore your yard. Why are you ignoring your trees?"

I want to take something people are familiar with and understand the value of and relate it to their timber. The only problem is them assuming it's an ad for a yard company, heh.

Tmac · Oct 12, 2013

This is by no means the final product, but it's an idea I'm fooling around with. I will send it to my graphic designer once I know what I want.

It will be on the front of a postcard I send out to landowners.

cabbitcabbit · Oct 12, 2013

Mixtilplix_sl said:
..and chicks for free.

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