On one fateful day in March 2020, Lollipop’s revenue from Fire & Security marketing imploded.
With just a couple of incoming phone calls, Jo learned the sphincter-clenching, gut-curdling truth about what it meant to be specialists…
Total vulnerability to an external event over which we had no control.
It became crystal clear that the Lollies were totally reliant on a small section of our industry – installers.
And we had to do some hard thinking about how we could reduce our exposure.
And increase our visibility so we were not just doing marketing for Fire & Security installers.
MORE THAN JUST FIRE & SECURITY MARKETING
We also had to accept that, to fill any gaps, we might have to take on quality projects FOR GOOD GUYS in other industries – not just Fire & Security marketing.
The Lollies met the Tolks online when we were both members of Perry Marshall’s Round Table Europe Mastermind Group in 2021.
Father and son team, Jaap and Kristian, run a webshop for interpreters in Amsterdam, Holland called Tolk2Go.
They started the business when Svetlana, Jaap’s wife and Kristian’s mother pointed out how hard it was for interpreters like her to get good work at good rates.
So they created an online platform to make it quick and easy to book an interpreter at short notice for businesses and for consumers.
The Tolks needed help with their marketing and messaging.
As Jaap said:
“We are pretty good at operations and getting things done.. but our marketing…no.”
And so finally Perry said: “Well, why don’t you engage Jon and Jo?”
MARKETING FOR MORE THAN FIRE & SECURITY
One of the changes we had made was to our Fire & Security marketing product line.
Previously we only had one ‘Done For You’ monthly retainer over a year, which included a Fire & Security company website design and associated marketing.
It was a great product which had produced great results.
But it was not ideal in the Pandemic when there was so much fear around whether companies would even be able to hit payroll that month.
So we had added some smaller ‘in a box’ products. These were Done With You or DIY options.
Where you can buy ‘a chunk’ for three months and see how it works.
And these products could be adapted for other industries so were ideal for marketing an online service like Tolk2Go.
LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION & SALES
Here’s Jaap again:
“We had been doing LinkedIn marketing before with some other companies and it never worked.”
“We had had training from a LinkedIn expert. He made some very good points. You need to do this, this and this and this. And it makes sense when he explains it, but really doing it is somehow different.
So when Lollipop helped us like formulate our LinkedIn header, so: we help people, blah, blah, blah, do this, then it suddenly started making sense because what we would say is “we help psychologists book an interpreter quickly”.
But Jon says: We help psychologists to book an interpreter quickly so that they can communicate with their customers or patients that don’t speak Dutch.”
So they put this extra thing behind it – what does this customer do with that interpreter that we get them quickly?”
“And it works. We are delighted with what you do for us.”
Kristian added:
“I’ve experienced the misery of cold calling by phone or on the doorstep. Now I sit at my desk and only talk to people who want what we do.”
We are growing month on month. Both small jobs and bigger jobs where companies want multiple interpreters for longer periods of time.”
MARKETING TO DOUBLE YOUR SALES
The Tolks are the GOOD GUYS in the interpreter industry. They have a great product and great customer service.
The Lollies have helped them to improve their message and gain greater visibility with people who are most likely to need interpreters – both on LinkedIn and on Google.
After the initial enquiry, these leads become customers. And they come back again with more requests for interpreters. AND they tell their friends about Tolk2Go.
If you are a GOOD GUY in your industry and you are looking to have the same thing happen for your Company, we should talk… to see if there is a fit!
Oh… and yes it wasn’t just marketing for a new industry, it was marketing in a new language – Dutch in this case!