GREAT LAKES WINDOW CONNECT®

2. Gear Up For Spring

3. Customer Service and

GreenSky Financing Webinar

4. Product Spotlight: ecoSmart

5. Planning for More Quality

Website Leads

6. Planning (Cont.) and New

Marketing Plan Program

7. Featured Marketing Programs

8. GuildQuality and What Makes Great Lakes GREAT

SUMMER 2017

INSIDE GLW CONNECT

Last month, the Great Lakes Win-dow Sales Team joined togeth-er to organize, cook and serve a cookout lunch for the Toledo Plant Associates.

“Every single one of our associ-ates is a key contributor to the numerous quality and safety ini-tiatives that the plant has rolled

SPRING 2018

out over the past two years. We consider them the backbone of our organization--they touch ev-ery window that we make, and we couldn’t do it without them. We’re proud of all of their hard work and dedication, and wanted to show them how much we appreciate all that they do,” said Brad Beard, Great Lakes General Manager.

Dick Egan, manning the grill Bill Emby and Brad Beard serving lunch

INSIDE GLW CONNECTFEATURE STORY:

PLANT APPRECIATION COOKOUT

A NOTE FROM THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF SALES:

GEAR UP FOR SPRING

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For most remodeling companies in seasonal markets the spring can be a hectic time! You’ve spent most of the winter months reducing your expenses, creat-ing budgets and meeting with your suppliers. During this time, you may have laid off some em-ployees, cut back install crews and reduced marketing and lead generation efforts.

Don’t get caught trying to be con-servative too long. Once the win-dow season is upon us, it’s diffi-cult to react in a timely manner and capture the opportunities before your competition does. Once your budgets for sales and marketing are complete, it is im-portant to map out where your dollars will be spent. Whether your approach is digital, direct mail or home shows, it’s import-ant to put your marketing into

action. As homeowners climb out of their hibernation, they are looking for one important thing moving forward: COMFORT. Winter is a great reminder that comfort is their most valuable want. Right now is a good time to promote the comfort of a new window and the peace of mind it creates. Add in some urgency with a hook, and you should start seeing leads pick up.

Once the marketing efforts are in action, it’s time to get your sales budget introduced. This will require leadership to push sales expectations not only to your sales team, but throughout the organization. Some compa-nies provide overall company goals versus others who take more of an individual approach by creating goals by salesper-son. Regardless of the size of your company or the approach, setting goals is necessary to be successful.

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”

- Benjamin Franklin

You may need to add salespeo-ple to achieve your goals. Since the training process can be long and you don’t want them burning expensive leads, get them hired now. The best industry sales people tend to be self-motivat-ed and technically savvy, with likable personalities. The new trend is converting people in the service industry like waiters and customer service representa-tives. The bottom line is; protect your top line by staffing proper-

ly with people who understand your sales goals and process.

The next step is making sure you can support your sales goals with proper labor. You may have lost some crews over the winter months, creating even a big-ger gap. With unemployment at all-time lows and less available labor, it is important to gear up your installer network. College expectations and white-collar jobs leaves us with less people willing to do the physical work that our industry requires. It is important that you are always on the hunt for labor, whether it be by training within your company or continuously looking in labor sectors like carpenter unions, or stealing them from your competi-tors. Labor costs have increased over 25% in the past 5 years and it’s important that you have a “pay to stay” philosophy for the good crews. Some owners are implementing incentives and bo-nus structures for top installers based on customer satisfaction or units installed. It is important to keep crews and make sure they are properly compensated. In the past few years the installa-tion turn cycle has changed from 4-6 weeks to 6-8 weeks. Thisnot only drastically affects yourcash flow but more importantlyyour bottom line. Better to “Planfor the worse, and hope for thebest.”

Stay ahead of these issues and you will find your business is Geared Up for the year.

Daniel HigeyNational Director of SalesGreat Lakes Window

June Webinar: Financing 201 - An Introduction to GreenSky, Sales Strategies and How To Use Financing with Homeowners to Close More Jobs

GreenSky is the largest home improvement financing company in the nation and has drawn a significant following among home im-provement contractors for the speed, ease, and flexibility of the pro-gram. Join the webinar to learn first-hand from GreenSky about how the program works, best practices for using it as an in-home closing tool and get your questions answered.

APPLIED EXCELLENCE:

APEX WEBINARS

Visit bit.ly/GLWGreenSkyWebinar to register for the webinar on June 13th at 12pm EST.

In case you missed them, recordings of past Great Lakes Window webinars can be viewed in the APEX section, on GLWConnect.com.

Cynthia JonesCustomer Service SupervisorToledo, Ohio

CUSTOMER SERVICE CORNER:

BACK TO THE BASICS

Customer service has deemed 2018 the year of “getting back to the basics.” The overall goal for Toledo’s Customer Service Team is making the customer’s experience with the Great Lakes Window team the best ever.

As January and February are typically the slower months in customer service, the team reached the decision that in or-der to improve the customer’s experience; we should focus on our department first, as we are the point of contact for the cus-tomer. For the first quarter of the year, the team decided our main focus should be on cross train-ing. Cross training provides more flexibility in order to manage the workforce, which helps to ensure that the job gets done effectively. Cross training also helps to make the employee more valuable to the Great Lakes Window Team,

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as they learn new skills and be-come well rounded in their re-sponsibilities. Our cross training currently consists of tasks within the call center, order entry tasks, and identifying parts for the win-dows and doors.

As the year progresses, we are excited for more cross training opportunities to arise, and look forward to providing the very best customer service to our GLW dealers and sales team.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

Great Lakes Window has been awarded the ENERGY STAR Most Efficient Recognition in 2018 for ecoSmart windows

The ENERGY STAR Most Efficient 2018 designation recognizes the most efficient products among those that qualify for the ENERGY STAR program. The Great Lakes Window ecoSmart windows represent the leading edge in energy efficient products this year.

We have created a one-page sheet, available in the IRIS Marketing Portal, to start the conversation with home-owners about the importance of energy efficiency, and encourage you to use the Most Efficient certification as an upsell opportunity. Window cling stickers for samples, home shows and showroom displays are also available.

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR:

PLANNING FOR MORE QUALITY WEBSITE LEADS

While the title of this article men-tions website leads, planning also can incorporate many other forms of leads. However, we de-cided to focus on website leads since so many contractors sim-ply do not have a great online presence designed to capture more business opportunities. Go open your last version of your Marketing Plan. You will then not believe how fast time flies by. It will feel like just the other day where many of you were mak-ing all sorts of plans to change things, then time went by, then you got busy so the plans went in the to-do pile. Unfortunate-ly, that implies that you are not doing anything specific to attract better customers.

Many people have never had a Marketing Plan at all, which is even worse than not following through on your plans. It is kind of like constantly building some-thing without any measurements or schematics whatsoever.

The most common situation we run into is hearing distributors and contractors updating their websites and making changes without any concrete planning.

Most companies rely on their website company for their mar-keting strategy, which is a mis-take, unless that website compa-ny clearly has a strong foothold in this particular industry. Always remember, just because someone has mastered Google Docs or Microsoft Word doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to write a concise story. It is the same thing with many website programmers who are focused on websites and SEO, without first having a strong background in marketing.

Want better customers in the future? Then start planning for them today. It will take some time to methodically organize yourself to market correctly. That begins with a Marketing Plan or an update to your existing Mar-keting Plan. And many do not want to embrace this fact, but it will take months for these efforts to all come together after you are done. This includes making the correct updates to your website, Facebook and YouTube for So-cial Sharing, Google Reviews for consumer rankings, etc. So start today, take a few months to or-ganize yourself slowly, and then start to reap the rewards some-time in the next quarter, with mo-mentum picking up around two quarters out. It is amazing how one’s business can change for life once you actually do some-thing about it.

Don’t use the excuse you are busy and waiting for things to slow down. Guess what? That

is the same thing the majority of your peers are saying. Ever wonder what the top compa-nies do differently than you to be overly successful? Much of it is not magic. Much of it is business practices and continuity with no excuses.

I hear all the time “you do not know how lucky you are to get so many quality leads”. And I re-spond the same way, “No, luck has nothing to do with it.” It took planning, execution and per-sistence to build the momentum of image and results we produce. In fact, that is why I like to focus on the words More Quality Leads as opposed to just saying More Leads. I used to get too many leads that it was actually a dis-traction. Now our business has vastly reduced the time dealing with tire kickers, which gives us more time to focus on good cus-tomers and quality leads. These quality leads turn into quality customers who in turn give us some quality referrals. And the merry-go-round spins. Sure, bad leads continue to come, but at a much slower pace and they are easy to let go.

Perhaps you are doing well with your marketing and leads. That is great. Then at least make sure to not rest on your laurels and keep it up. But maybe you are wondering why are you so busy and not making as much profit as you thought. Or maybe you are getting leads and not clos-ing as many as you thought. Or perhaps you really do not get as much referral business as you

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Brian Javeline, Special Guest ContributorPresident & Co-founder of MyOnlineToolbox.com

Diamond Strategy and Marketing Plan: Custom Website Consulting, Strategy & Marketing Program for Great Lakes Window Dealers

Great Lakes Window has partnered with MyOnlineToolbox to bring you the best in class Strategy & Marketing Planning for more quality leads. The focus is on your website and all associated online initia-tives including effective use of Facebook, YouTube and customer reviews. Great Lakes Window can be incorporated as part of this strategy too, by featuring your best Case Study to help further im-prove your website rankings.

hoped for with your existing cli-ents. You can change so much by identifying a problem and planning to change it.

Remember that marketing is different than sales and should be treated as distinct topics. Many remodelers and contrac-tors are so much better at sales since they are accustomed to bragging about what they do, and that is fine. But many really have not positioned themselves to be clearly aware of how a con-sumer researches for their ser-vices. And many more do not po-sition themselves to differentiate from the competition. Consider taking a step back and creating a Marketing Plan that

captures your specific services, your specific territory and posi-tions you against your competi-tion. Many times you will discov-er weaknesses in your marketing that you were unaware of. Many times you will also discover strengths in your business that you are not properly using in your marketing. And then you can make great implementation decisions when you see what your competitors are bad at as well as good at.

Great Lakes Windows dealers may even consider applying their co-op funds for a custom Mar-keting Plan (certain restrictions apply). Even without available co-op funds, a Marketing Plan is an absolute game changer when

it comes to focusing on your objectives to Get More Quality Leads.

The future of having better cus-tomers is achievable if you have a road map to change the direc-tion. Your planning to go in that direction should start today.

Brian Javeline is the President & Co-founder of MyOnlineToolbox.com, the #1 Online Marketing & Website Education Series – Just for Contractors! The company also specializes in Marketing Planning for a Website Strategy to dominate inbound lead gener-ation efforts for a new or existing website.

NEW MARKETING PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT:

USE CO-OP FUNDS FOR MORE QUALITY LEADS, WEBSITE AND SEO

Put your co-op funding or marketing rebates to work, investing in your company’s web positioning and generating more leads.

For more information, view the flyer at bit.ly/GLWMarketingPlans or visit GLWConnect.com. To take advantage of this program, contact your Great Lakes Territory Sales Manager for approval.

CONTINUED:

PLANNING FOR MORE QUALITY WEBSITE LEADS

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Broadcast Marketing and Lead Generation Program with First Person AdvertisingFree Radio and TV advertising consulting service for Great Lakes Window dealers. Radio reaches 90% of every consumer demographic in the USA, make sure you’re existing advertising is strategically resonating with home-owners, or learn how to get into radio advertising in your market.

GLW MARKETING:

NEW 2018 MARKETING PROGRAMS

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Make sure you’re getting the most out of the Great Lakes Window Dealer Network! Ask your Sales Manager today about how to take advantage of our free programs to help you grow your business and generate more leads.

Customer Testimonial:“We can’t sell stuff unless we get the leads to do so. And the best way to get those leads, without a doubt, because it drives all our other marketing abilities, is radio.” – Jim Baskett, General Manager/Owner of Thermal King Windows, and has worked with First Person Advertising for the past 8 years

Live Website Chat Program with ApexChatAs homeowners are shifting their preference to text-based communications, ensure that your wensite is set up to engage these visitors. GLW is sponsor-ing free set up of a live website chat, exit pop-up and text-to-chat, to help you connect with customers who don’t want to pick up the phone to schedule an estimate.

Homeowner Loan Program with GreenSky FinancingClose more sales when you increase your customers’ buying power by offering them a financing program. With over 40 different loan options, you can pick the option that works best for your business. A record number ofGreat Lakes Window Dealers have already signed up!

Up To a 50% Increase in Sales with Financing Offers

Free Shareable Articles To Help Grow Your Social Media PagesHomeowners are frequently researching remodelers online before making an appointment for an estimate, and the more content you have, the better you look. Every Wednesday GLW posts homeowner-facing content that you can repost on your own Facebook pages, as an easy way to grow your online pres-ence and look great when potential customers visit your page.

“Nearly half of consumers are already using social networks, like Facebook, to discover local businesses through brand pages, the Places feature or recommendations.”

- Why Facebook Is The Next Big Player In Local Search, Forbes 2018

Get 30-40% More Online Leads with Live Chat on Your Website

YOUR DEDICATED PARTNERS:

WHAT MAKES GREAT LAKES GREAT?

Free, Independent and ReputableCustomer Satisfaction Surveysfrom GuildQuality

• Honest feedback• Improved SEO & Google search rankings• Great reviews• Referrals and leads

Customer Testimonial:“I LOVE IT! I wish I would have used them years ago. Great feedback on sales and marketing as well as product value to installation. Our new customers

love the reviews.”– Robert V. Quillen,

President of Quillen Bros. Windows,using GuildQuality since August 2017

GLW MARKETING:

FEATURED PROGRAM

GREAT LAKES WINDOW30499 TRACY ROAD

WALBRIDGE, OH 43465

SIGN YOUR COMPANY UP TODAY!