Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

This weekend Schrock Innovations kicked off the 2010 Ultimate Upgrade sale with all of the normal events, plus one new twist.

While I was taping last weekends show in the studio with Chris Goforth the first day of the NCAA Basketball Tournament was under way.

In between each segment Chris was switching between the studio mode and the KLMS 1480 – ESPN Sports Lincoln feed to catch the latest scores.

I am not a huge basketball fan, and while an upset is always interesting something else stood out to me above all else. There were no local commercials in the commercial segments.

Why No Local Commercials?

In just 5 weeks 1480 AM was flipped from a sports station, to an oldies station, and then back to a sports station again just days before the tournament began.

There was simply no time for the sales management to put together commercial packages, get them to the sales people, and then present them to clients.

These situations always interest me because here I saw a great sports product paired with a station with available advertising spots, and a lack of a pre-defined pricing structure.

I was already in the studio, so we cut a quick :30 spot (listen to it here) and I simply asked the station manager if I could advertise during the games. Of course they agreed, so the only thing to work out was the price.

I was able to get spots during each game for an unbelievable price just because I asked. The price was so good that I asked if I could have 2 spots per game instead of one. They agreed!

What is the Ultimate Upgrade?

The commercial we cut was all about the Ultimate Upgrade sale at Schrock Innovations. During this sale you can trade in an old computer for credit against a new system.

The new computer is only $449 after your trade – $250 off our normal entry level price – and you can trade any old computer working or not!

Its a little early to know how the commercials did, but for the price I paid I would be willing to blindly commit to a regular KLMS schedule no questions asked!

Schrock Innovations successfully hired a new Web Development Director last week thanks to a radio recruitment advertisement we ran on KIBZ-FM, The Blaze.

Brian Augenstein was hired away from Phoenix Computers in Beatrice, NE to head the company’s Web Development Division. Brian is a very promising employee who is laying important groundwork for Schrock’s future expansion into website development, hosting, and application development.

Normally if we would have advertised that position in the paper we would have had to search for the proverbial needle among dozens of applications from unqualified people.

Let’s Do it Again!

The radio recruitment ad worked so well that we decidied to run a second one seeking a Computer Repair Technician. For some inexplicable reason experienced computer break / fix technicians are hard to find in Lincoln Nebraska.

We have had a post up on Craig’s List for weeks, only to get applications from people ranging from auto mechanics to fry cooks. We can’t hire a poorly skilled technician to work on our customers’ computers, so the next step was to drop an ad in the paper – or try the radio again.

I decided to give radio another try.

What Schrock is Looking For

You can listen to the radio recruitment ad we are running the week here.

In the ad we describe the kind of person we are looking for. Schrock technicians are never allowed to give up on a problem. At times this leads us to work directly with developers and engineers at companies like Microsoft or Kingston to resolve problems on the bleeding edge of technical support.

When a Schrock technician is confronted with an un-patched problem, they don’t quit and wait for a patch. They become the catalyst that gets the patch created.

In fact, Schrock is so selective about the kind of person we employ that two of our senior technicians have been courted by Google.

This position pays up-to $30,000 annually plus benefits.

How Can I Apply?

If you are a technician who wants to take the next step in your career, fill out an application on Schrock’s website. Its nice to be part of an award-winning team that will challenge you to rise to the next level of performance.

We will not contact your current employer unless you allow us to do so and we will arrange an interview around your work schedule.

Last December I attended a seminar about the various ways radio advertising can be used to accomplish goals other than simple product and service marketing.

One of the speakers spoke about using radio to recruit new employees rather than the newspaper or a recruitment service – especially when you are hiring for key positions.

Why Use Radio to Recruit Employees?

For one thing, it can be less expensive than the newspaper and is definitely less expensive than a recruiting service.

Schrock is hiring a Web Development Director, and it would have cost us over $900 to place a classified ad in the Lincoln Journal Star for that position.

A recruiter would have charged a percentage of the employees annual salary – typically 10% – which would have been up to $4,000 for this position.

Second, using radio allows us to do more than just look for an employee with an ad. It also tells all of the station’s listeners that we are hiring, we pay well, and that working at Schrock is a great experience.

While we are reaching out to potential employees, we are also increasing our brand awareness.

Here is the ad we ran for our Web Development Director position.

What Kind of Employees Do You Find With Radio?

The biggest reason to use radio for recruitment is so simple most HR managers miss it.

When you post an ad on Craigslist, in the classifieds, or on Monster you are advertising to the available pool of unemployed workers – or at best un-loyal workers who are always shopping around.

When you think about it, the people you want to reach are the ones that employers have held on to. These key people have the best skill sets, the highest degree of training, and are competent at what they do.

When you hire from the pool of employed people rather than the pool of unemployed people you get fewer applicants, but the applicants you do get are of a much higher caliber.

So How Much Does a Recruitment Ad Cost?

We ran an ad about 60 times on one local station for about $800. We had one very qualified applicant, currently employed with a competitor, on the first day the ad ran. The ad is still running, so I will post about how it comes out.

Schrock Innovations received a letter last week that our Lincoln Service Center has been selected as one of 100,000 “Favorite Places” on Google.

The selection was based on how many people have sought out information about Schrock Innovations on Google. That information includes reviews, requests for driving directions, and general search data.

Contained within the letter was a window decal for our Service Center as well as some statistics about how local Lincoln, Nebraska Google users were seeking out Schrock Innovations over the past 6 months:

• An average of 14 people a month request driving directions to Schrock Innovations (pretty nice considering we are on one of the busiest intersections in Lincoln)
• There were 942 requests for specific information about Schrock Innovations (coupons, reviews, etc.)
• The majority of users who look into Schrock Innovations are looking for computer repair services

Gooogle Favorite Places is a sub component of Google Local Business Center. I was unaware of this program until Google contacted us to let us know we had been selected.

If your business has not been selected, you can apply for consideration by signing up for and completing an entry in Google Local Business Center.

New York Times best selling author Chet Holmes is renowned for his business growth strategies. He’s perfected them over the past two decades, working with over 60 of the Fortune 500 and countless small to mid-sized companies and is now helping businesses of every kind and size implement these strategies to achieve breakthrough growth for themselves.

I am pleased to announce that the Computer Repair Business Weekly podcast has scheduled Chet Holmes to talk to our subscribers about the importance of a revenue model in your PC repair business. Chet will also talk about some of the methods he uses to transform average companies to award-winning powerhouse organizations.

The Computer Repair Business Weekly podcast will be featured on the topITshop.com website and will begin posting in December of 2009. Chet is a VERY busy man and is in high demand as a speaker and as a consultant. We are fortunate he found the time to spend with us and I can promise you this is a podcast you will not want to miss.

Follow topITshop on Twitter to receive a notification as soon as the podcast goes live!

This afternoon I did some research for marketing a computer repair company resource website. I planned on directly marketing the website to computer repair companies, and to do that I needed a list to work from.

The first name that came to mind was InfoUSA, and I was thrilled to find that their lists can be purchased online through an automated system!

InfoUSA Sells BIG Lists But…

I entered SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) numbers 7378 and 7379 and their system returned just over 38,000 results. The price of the list was a WHOPPING $6,227.00!

For that price I might as well build a bot to harvest names and phone numbers from computer repair web searched on Google. The only down side to that is that harvested lists are rarely accurate, and can lead to wasted marketing dollars (unles you have a desire to become a mass spammer).

Holy Proofreading Batman!

InfoUSA had a cool feature where you could preview an entry from the list you are about to buy. I hovered my mouse over the option to see what my 6K was going to buy.

There is no excuse for a result like this to show up in a database search. I entered SPECIFIC SIC codes that should have returned computer repair companies.

They obviously had this listed in a database somewhere with an Automotive Repair SIC code because they listed it in the result. Why would I pay $.16 per name for a list of businesses that will have no interest in an IT shop website?

If InfoUSA can’t manage their results database, there is no way I am going to trust them to sell me a $6,000 targeted list for a marketing campaign. Anyone know a good coder who can build a bot for me?

There are a lot of ways to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. You can look at market share gained, revenue generated, or response rates. But sometimes the true measure of an ad’s effectiveness is not in these numbers.

A truly brilliant marketing campaign makes your competitors whine. It makes then call their lawyers. It makes them grasp at any straw to make the bleeding stop.

There is truth to the saying “thou dost protest too much.” If you get your competitor to respond in a direct way to an indirect advertisement you know you are doing something right.

If Your Competitors Squawk, Keep Doing It

If something in your advertising – a word, phrase or concept – draws the ire of a competitor there is usually something about what you are doing that they are afraid of.

Take this recent example:

Microsoft recently launched a series of TV ads called Laptop Hunters.

Local Insight Yellow Pages is informing its advertisers that their contracts are being forcibly extended – at their existing monthly rates – for three additional months. 140 of the company’s 900 directories are being delayed.

While the company says the move is to allow time to install new printing equipment, it is also obvious that the delay will prevent advertisers who wished to cut back their ads from doing so. In Lincoln, the billing of yellow page directory advertising is linked to your telephone service. If you refuse to pay the bill, Windstream will cut off your phones.

In effect, the delay will allow Local Insight to delay what would most certainly be cuts in small businesses yellow pages advertising budgets.

A few weeks ago I received a letter form Local Insight Yellow Pages informing me that they were delaying the release of their 2010 book by three months. Instead of its normal release in November 2009, the 2010 book was being pushed back to February of 2010.

When new web clients come to me they all seem to want one thing – They want to rank well in Google to get FREE business leads. Before you start to navigate the thorny paths of search engine optimization, take advantage of what Google gives you for FREE.  Take 5 minutes to list your business […]

You read that right! Schrock Innovations is teaming up with 104.1 The Blaze in Lincoln, NE to give away one FREE netbook computer EVERY DAY for a whole month!

How to Win One of the Schrock Netbooks:

All you have to do to win is listen to 104.1 the Blaze on the air or on the Internet and wait for the cue to call in. When you hear the sounder, be caller #10 at 402-464-1041. They will air the sounder once each day.

Improve Your Odds of Winning:

If you are trying to win by listening online I have a couple pointers for you. The online feed is delayed by upto 45 seconds. Since you have to be caller #10 to win the computer a time delay will make that challenging for online listeners.

You can improve your odds (and get more sleep) if you follow the Blaze on Twitter. They will tweet specific details about when the sounder will be going off so you can be one of the first people to call in. Knowing WHEN the souder will happen dramatically improves your odds of winning!

What Are You Trying to Win:

You are trying to win an Asus netbook from Schrock Innovations. The netbook has a retail price of $349. Because the promotion is called PCs and Pudding, the radio station will throw in a box of instant pudding as well. If you don’t know how to use a netbook, the instant pudding is a nice addition to any office.

I have no inside information about when the sounders are going to air, and I can’t do anything more than what I already have to improve your odds of winning, so enjoy the great music and have fun trying to win!