Do you remember making “cold calls”? In business, this refers to using the telephone to reach out to new customers. For portable restroom operators, this might mean Googling home construction companies and dialing their office numbers, hoping to reach a decision-makers who need restrooms for their next project.

Not only do I remember making cold calls in my world of trade publishing, I recall when it was the best or only way to introduce myself to contractors — outside of meeting them at trade events like the WWETT Show. This was before the mobile phone and caller ID, when business owners had to answer their telephones because anyone could be calling them, from potential customers to their spouse asking them to pick up a dozen eggs on the way home from work. Now during working hours — or anytime, really — we can simply ignore unknown callers or those that seemingly don’t relate directly to revenue generation. 

If you’re a younger person in the workforce unaccustomed to the old ways of business, you may not believe this, but calling strangers on the phone was a very effective networking tool. Maybe especially for me, because I consider myself a talker and have always enjoyed making cold calls. With the proliferation of email, and especially texting, I have noticed that people who grew up using these technologies are often uncomfortable talking on the phone. 

In some ways I realize we’re undergoing an efficient communication revolution. But it is also disappointing that more people are ill-equipped to converse with co-workers and business associates. Sure, it’s quicker and easier than ever to order and receive products or reach your business’s target audience with a marketing message. But I believe one-on-one conversations will always be the best way to build long-lasting business relationships.

OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS

I bring up the concept of cold-calling to explain how my communication strategies have had to evolve to remain successful as a magazine editor. If you are of a certain age — and maybe your kids are starting to take the reins of your PRO business — you may be able to relate to my personal journey. I’ve learned in recent years that we all have to constantly make adjustments to build our audience and remain profitable. 

A good part of my job is talking to PROs about topics of interest in the industry. I also must reach out to contractors to put together the feature stories you are used to seeing in the magazine. In the old days, this typically meant calling companies, either recommended to me or at random, from Google searches, and introducing myself. Later that task extended to email messages and website contact pages. But recently, that hasn’t worked so well as contractors often don’t answer emails, much the way they stopped answering the phone.

So I had to come up with another way to start conversations. Most recently, social media has become the answer — specifically, I have found a whole new community of PROs through Instagram. And it has been an enlightening experience.

Aside from the Portable Restroom Operator presence on the social media site, I have my own account under the name editorjim. Please feel free to like and follow both PRO and myself, and I will add you to my network as well.

Instagram has been around for a while as a popular platform where users mostly post photos or short-form video content along with caption information. Failed stunts, teens showing off their fashion choices, cute pet clips can flood your Instagram feed. But like the currently controversial TikTok platform, small businesses use Instagram to build brand recognition and educate customers.

VIDEOS CAPTURE ATTENTION

A small, but active group of portable sanitation customers have started to populate Instagram. It’s a narrower crowd than you’ll find on Facebook, for instance. But I see it as the subset of the industry that is most willing to experiment with new marketing ideas. And I’m also getting the impression that it is more the upstart companies trying to gain a share of new business more than the long-established, multigenerational PROs. There are exceptions, of course, but many of the companies I encounter as I explore the platform are names I haven’t seen before. 

PROs use Instagram to show their daily and weekly restroom placement photos. Often they create “commercials” for their services aimed at construction or event customers. Another helpful addition are how-to videos showing how they thoroughly clean units in the field or prepare their shiny new trucks for service.

Some folks in our industry post every day — or several times a day — showing a photo whenever or wherever they drop a unit for service. Others post more sporadically with a wide range of objectives. I’ve seen them brag about a local event they’re serving, show off a new truck or restroom trailer they just received, celebrate a crew member’s anniversary with the company and seek job applicants to join their team.

It’s impressive to me that some of these social-savvy PROs have amassed thousands of followers and posted hundreds or thousands of times. Their content ranges from basic snapshots of the workday to sophisticated videos that exhibit a high level of thought and effort. The numbers indicate that these companies are gaining exposure, but it’s not clear to me yet if the likes and follows are translating into a significant revenue bump yet.

MEETING MORE OF YOU

How has it worked for me? Interestingly, my response rate from contacting PROs on Instagram has been almost miraculous. My hunch is that the PROs who dig deep into social media are the same ones who would see value in being featured in a national trade publication. A few short weeks after ramping up my presence on the platform, I’ve made several new friends in the industry, leading to feature stories you will see in PRO over the next year.  

If you are one of the PROs banking on Instagram for networking, let me know how it’s working out for you. 

Has your social media experience been positive, providing better networking with others in the industry and finding new customers for your products and services? What lessons have you learned to improve your experience using these platforms? Would you now consider Instagram or Facebook or TikTok to be marketing tools you couldn’t do without moving forward? 

I encourage you to reach out to me to share your opinions. You can do so through Instagram, all the PRO socials or even the old-fashioned way, by email, at editor@promonthly.com.