Latest news with #conversion
Forbes
18 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Key To Customer Acquisition For Home Service Providers? Alignment
Michael J. Fox is a finance & marketing pro and founder of Corberry. He has successfully helped home service contractors scale operations. If you're spending thousands on digital ads and still struggling to grow, the issue probably isn't the ad creative or the platforms you're using; it's what happens after you generate leads. For most home service businesses, the real challenge isn't generating leads but converting them into booked jobs. Sometimes, it's a matter of targeting the wrong audience. Other times, it's a breakdown in follow-up, sales processes or operational readiness. Optimizing both lead generation and conversion systems is the key to maximizing revenue. Here's how aligning your marketing, sales and operations teams can dramatically improve your customer acquisition strategy. Ad Spend Is Getting Torched At Handoff When a potential customer clicks on your ad and calls or fills out a form, they're a hot lead. But if your team takes too long to respond, that lead will probably book with a competitor. That means the money you're spending on ads is getting wasted at the moment of handoff. Marketing gets the lead, but operations fumbles the conversion. If your customer relationship management platform, your dispatch and your sales flow aren't tightly integrated, you're not just inefficient; you're likely bleeding revenue. The Metrics That Matter Most Many agencies focus on vanity metrics like impressions and click-through rates, which alone don't drive revenue. However, these metrics can reveal issues with ad relevance or audience targeting, so you should analyze them alongside revenue-focused metrics like booking rate, close rate, average job value and your target return on ad spend. These are what drive your business. If you want to know what you should be paying per lead, you need to know what each booked job is worth and how well your team converts those bookings into sales. When you break it down, the real question is this: How much can you afford to pay for a lead while still hitting your ROAS target? That's the math that should drive every marketing decision. Why Team Alignment Changes Everything The most successful service businesses aren't winning because they have the biggest marketing budget. They're winning because their teams are aligned. Everyone is focused on the same goal: converting leads into revenue. The marketing team knows what kind of leads the sales team can close. The sales team knows how to communicate value. The service team knows what promises were made. And it all runs on shared data. Real-time dashboards give everyone visibility into performance. If booking rates drop, campaigns get paused instantly. If close rates are spiking, ad spend increases. When every team can see the same numbers, you stop guessing and start optimizing. Automation: The Difference Between Growth And Chaos It's hard to scale a home services business on manual processes. If your leads are routed manually or your systems don't talk to each other, you're setting yourself up to fail. The fastest-growing companies are using smart platforms that automate lead distribution, customer follow-up and service updates. Tools like ServiceTitan and Jobber give your team the ability to operate in real time, without the handoff friction. And here's the truth: Automation doesn't just save time. It saves deals. It ensures that no lead goes cold, no customer feels ignored and no revenue is lost due to human error. Misalignment Is Costing You Revenue Let's say you're getting 1,000 leads a month at a cost of $100 per lead. We've found that an average booking rate of 70% and a close rate of 60% are realistic for well-trained teams. With an average job value of $2,200, which is common for HVAC and plumbing businesses, you're generating around $924,000 in revenue each month. That sounds impressive until you realize what alignment can unlock. By optimizing your team's communication and improving systems, it's possible to increase your booking rate to 85% and close rate to 75%. These improvements have been reported to us by service providers using integrated CRM and automation platforms. In a nutshell, this is the cost of misalignment and the upside of fixing it. Train Your Team Before Scaling Your Spend Most companies make the mistake of scaling ads before fixing their back end. That's like pumping fuel into a car with a broken transmission. Before you spend a dollar more on acquisition, make sure your customer service representatives are trained to convert at a high rate. Sales scripts should be proven, practiced and consistent. Follow-up automation needs to be so reliable that no lead ever goes dark. Once your team and your systems are hitting consistent numbers, then you increase spend. That's how you scale with control. Five Tactical Moves To Realign Your Strategy You don't need another six-month strategic plan. You need five key changes, starting now. 1. Audit your full lead journey. Look at where leads fall off, and fix those points. 2. Unify your key performance indicators so that everyone across marketing, sales and service is working toward the same revenue target. 3. Connect your tech stack. Make sure your CRM, dispatch software and ad platforms are all integrated. 4. Align compensation with outcomes. If your customer service representatives and marketers are influencing revenue, tie their bonus structure to the right metrics. 5. Test alignment on one high-value service first. If it works there, roll it out across the board. These moves can help you achieve predictable growth. Build A Revenue Engine That Works If your leads aren't converting, the problem is probably alignment. And if you don't fix it now, you'll essentially be handing your leads to competitors. The home service businesses winning in 2025 are doing so because their systems are integrated, their teams are aligned and their decisions are backed by live data. You likely don't need more leads. You need your team operating as one cohesive unit. Your CRM and ad platform must sync in real time. You need follow-up automation running 24/7. And most importantly, you need a team where everyone, from customer service representatives to technicians, understands that they're in the revenue business. Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc. Announces Results of Special Meetings of Stockholders and Members
DUNKIRK, N.Y., July 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc. ('Lake Shore Federal Bancorp') (NASDAQ: LSBK), the holding company for Lake Shore Savings Bank (the 'Bank'), announced today that at special meetings held on July 1, 2025, the stockholders of Lake Shore Federal Bancorp and the members of Lake Shore, MHC (depositors of the Bank) approved the Amended and Restated Plan of Conversion and Reorganization in connection with Lake Shore, MHC's previously announced plan to convert from the mutual holding company to the fully public stock holding company form of organization and the Bank's conversion from a federal savings bank to a New York chartered commercial bank. The closing of the conversion and the stock offering of Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc. remains subject to receipt of final regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. This press release is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy common stock. The offer is made only by the prospectus when accompanied by a stock order form. The shares of common stock to be offered for sale by Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc. are not savings accounts or savings deposits and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or by any other government agency. Lake Shore Federal Bancorp is the mid-tier holding company of Lake Shore Savings Bank, a federally chartered, community-oriented financial institution headquartered in Dunkirk, New York. The Bank has ten full-service branch locations in Western New York, including four in Chautauqua County and six in Erie County. The Bank offers a broad range of retail and commercial lending and deposit services. Lake Shore Federal Bancorp's common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Market as 'LSBK'. Additional information about Lake Shore Federal Bancorp is available at release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about Lake Shore Federal Bancorp's, Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc.'s (collectively, the 'Company') and the Bank's industry, and management's beliefs and assumptions. Words such as anticipates, expects, intends, plans, believes, estimates and variations of such words and expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect management's current views of future events and operations. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company as of the date of this release. It is important to note that these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve and are subject to significant risks, contingencies, and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond our control including, but not limited to, that the proposed transaction may not be timely completed, if at all, that required final regulatory approvals are not timely received, if at all, or that other customary closing conditions are not satisfied in a timely manner, if at all, data loss or other security breaches, including a breach of our operational or security systems, policies or procedures, including cyber-attacks on us or on our third party vendors or service providers, economic conditions, the effect of changes in monetary and fiscal policy, inflation, tariffs, unanticipated changes in our liquidity position, climate change, geopolitical conflicts, public health issues, increased unemployment, deterioration in the credit quality of the loan portfolio and/or the value of the collateral securing repayment of loans, reduction in the value of investment securities, the cost and ability to attract and retain key employees, regulatory or legal developments, tax policy changes, dividend policy changes and our ability to implement and execute our business plan and strategy and expand our operations. These factors should be considered in evaluating forward looking statements and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements, as our financial performance could differ materially due to various risks or uncertainties. We do not undertake to publicly update or revise our forward-looking statements if future changes make it clear that any projected results expressed or implied therein will not be realized. Source: Lake Shore Bancorp, Financial Kim C. LiddellPresident, CEO, and DirectorLake Shore Bancorp, Inc.31 East Fourth StreetDunkirk, New York 14048(716) 366-4070 ext. 1012Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
It's Time For Brands To Stop Selling And Start Educating
Leonard Cercone, CEO, CBC PR & Digital Marketing. Most brands think they have a sales problem. But in my experience, they have an education problem. As marketers, we've spent years mastering conversion funnels. But in today's crowded, research-savvy world, the brands that win aren't pushing harder—they're teaching better. Education isn't a content trend—it's a business advantage. It builds trust, drives long-term loyalty and increasingly determines what gets seen in search and social. For brands that are serious about sustainable growth, we need to operationalize education, not treat it as an afterthought. Rethink The Funnel: Trust The Educated Buyer Traditional sales funnels are linear. But real decision making today is messier, slower and far more skeptical. Customers bounce between research, reviews and self-education before they buy. This is where most brands miss the mark: They focus on persuasion, not empowerment. But a well-informed customer is a confident customer—and confidence leads to conversion and retention. Instead of asking, 'How do we sell this?' smart brands ask, 'What do people need to understand first?' Example: Launching a new supplement? Skip the pitch. Start with: 'How do I read a label?' or 'What does clinical strength actually mean?' Why This Works: Education Drives Growth Across The Funnel The data backs this up: • Consumers are 131% more likely to purchase from a brand right after they read educational content—and 48% more likely to do so even a week later. • Customer education improves both product retention (by 22%) and customer satisfaction (by 26%). • Education drives a 35% increase in average lifetime value and reduces customer support costs by 15%. These aren't soft metrics—they're what chief marketing officers care about. Education aligns your content with what the customer actually wants: clarity, confidence and control. AI Has Raised The Stakes There's another reason education matters now more than ever: AI is reshaping how people find and trust information. AI tools tend to prioritize clear, helpful content—how-tos, explainers and expert insights—not promotions. Educational content earns visibility in generative results. SEO is evolving into AIO—artificial intelligence optimization. And education is your best asset for earning visibility in an AI-driven world. Build The Educational Journey Just as we map the buyer's journey, leading brands now build parallel educational journeys—guiding consumers from confusion to confidence. At a high level, this journey mirrors classic awareness stages. Content should help move people from: • Unaware to problem-aware • Solution-aware to product-aware to ready to act Each phase requires a different message and mindset. Brands that meet their audience where they are—educationally, not just transactionally—can build more lasting relationships. Think Like A Publisher, Not A Promoter High-performing brands don't just post content—they build destinations. That might look like a searchable hub of explainers, a science-led newsletter or a webinar series. These aren't tactics—they're trust-building machines. Customers return not for deals, but for answers. Ask yourself: • Would someone save or share this because it's helpful? • Would a competitor begrudgingly respect it? • Does it teach something meaningful—even without a call to action? Social Isn't Just For Selling—It's For Teaching, Too Your brand's most visible stage—social media—is often the most underleveraged when it comes to education. Top social content today is helpful, not hype. Think reels that teach, carousels that simplify and influencer posts that explain—not just endorse. Influencers are more powerful when they're educators, not billboards. When creators teach, their credibility grows—and so does your brand's. Pro tip: Want shareability, saves and long-term ROI? Start with: 'What's a question our audience is googling right now?' Redefine Success Educational content operates on a longer horizon—but it pays off across the funnel. Brands that teach earn deeper engagement, better post-purchase loyalty and more organic visibility. Key metrics to watch: • Time on content • Content-to-conversion lag • Post-education repeat purchases • Customer feedback using words like 'helpful' or 'trustworthy' If your reporting stops at impressions or clicks, you're missing the bigger picture. Educators Will Be The New Category Leaders At the agency level, our job isn't just to help brands stand out. It's to help them stand for something. And in a world where AI curates visibility and trust determines loyalty, the brands that teach will lead. Educational content is no longer optional—it's strategic. It's what fuels SEO, earns shares, drives retention and, increasingly, determines who shows up in AI-generated results. The future won't belong to the noisiest brands. It will belong to the most useful. Educate boldly and help your clients earn their edge by being the brand that helps. Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Globe and Mail
23-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
TC Energy provides results of Series 3 and Series 4 conversion elections
CALGARY, Alberta, June 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- News Release – TC Energy Corporation (TSX:TRP) (NYSE:TRP) (TC Energy or the Company) today announced that 104,778 of its 9,997,177 fixed rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series 3 (Series 3 Shares) have been elected for conversion on June 30, 2025, on a one-for-one basis, into floating rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series 4 (Series 4 Shares); and 1,822,829 of its 4,002,823 Series 4 Shares have been elected for conversion, on a one-for-one basis, into Series 3 Shares. As a result of the conversions, TC Energy will have 11,715,228 Series 3 Shares and 2,284,772 Series 4 Shares issued and outstanding. The Series 3 Shares and Series 4 Shares will continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbols and respectively. The Series 3 Shares will pay on a quarterly basis for the five-year period beginning on June 30, 2025, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of TC Energy, a fixed dividend at an annualized rate of 4.102 per cent. The Series 4 Shares will pay a floating rate quarterly dividend for the five-year period beginning on June 30, 2025, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of TC Energy. The dividend rate for the Series 4 Shares for the first quarterly floating rate period commencing June 30, 2025 to but excluding Sept. 29, 2025 is 3.924 per cent and will be reset every quarter. Holders of Series 3 Shares and Series 4 Shares will have the opportunity to convert their shares again on July 2, 2030 (adjusted from June 30, 2030 to account for applicable business days) and on June 30 in every fifth year thereafter as long as the shares remain outstanding. For more information on the terms of, and risks associated with an investment in the Series 3 Shares and the Series 4 Shares, please see the prospectus supplement dated March 4, 2010 which is available on or on our website. About TC Energy We're a team of 6,500+ energy problem solvers connecting the world to the energy it needs. Our extensive network of natural gas infrastructure assets is one-of-a-kind. We seamlessly move, generate and store energy and deliver it to where it is needed most, to homes and businesses in North America and across the globe through LNG exports. Our natural gas assets are complemented by our strategic ownership and low-risk investments in power generation. TC Energy's common shares trade on the Toronto (TSX) and New York (NYSE) stock exchanges under the symbol TRP. To learn more, visit us at FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This release contains certain information that is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties (such statements are usually accompanied by words such as "anticipate", "expect", "believe", "may", "will", "should", "estimate", "intend" or other similar words). Forward-looking statements in this document are intended to provide TC Energy security holders and potential investors with information regarding TC Energy and its subsidiaries, including management's assessment of TC Energy's and its subsidiaries' future plans and financial outlook. All forward-looking statements reflect TC Energy's beliefs and assumptions based on information available at the time the statements were made and as such are not guarantees of future performance. As actual results could vary significantly from the forward-looking information, you should not put undue reliance on forward-looking information and should not use future-oriented information or financial outlooks for anything other than their intended purpose. We do not update our forward-looking information due to new information or future events, unless we are required to by law. For additional information on the assumptions made, and the risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from the anticipated results, refer to the most recent Quarterly Report to Shareholders and Annual Report filed under TC Energy's profile on SEDAR+ at and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at -30- Media Inquiries: Media Relations media@ 403-920-7859 or 800-608-7859 Investor & Analyst Inquiries: Gavin Wylie / Hunter Mau investor_relations@ 403-920-7911 or 800-361-6522 PDF available:
WIRED
20-06-2025
- Automotive
- WIRED
How to Convert an Analog Bike to an Electric Bike
Michael Venutolo-Mantovani You can save yourself thousands of dollars on an electric bike by upgrading your current ride. Let us walk (or cycle!) you through it. Courtesy of Science Photo Library via Getty Images All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Say you want to get a bicycle up and down hills with a minimal amount of pedal power. What do you do? The first option is simple: buy an electric bike. However, ebikes aren't cheap. These days, the least expensive but still reliable ebike you can buy is Aventon Soltera 2.5, which costs around $1,200. You can rent an ebike, or find a city bike program that uses them, or, if you're really lucky, find an ebike in a lending library. Or you can just make your regular bike into an electric bike. That is, you can slap an aftermarket unit on your traditional bike, creating a motor-assisted ebike with little more than your bicycle and any of a variety of aftermarket power sources. What used to be a very niche field with only a small handful of offerings has become a cottage industry full of contenders and pretenders, and any number of startups offering a readymade conversion for your bike. So how do you turn your traditional bike into an ebike? And what are some of the best offerings out there? We'll walk you through it. If you don't see anything you like, make sure you check out our guides to the Best Electric Bikes or the Best Electric Scooters. Hot to Throt Well, first, you need to decide what kind of conversion you want. There are two basic kinds of ebikes, pedal-assist and throttle, with many newer models boasting some combination of both. Pedal assist is a mechanism that provides an added boost of electric power when you're pedaling. Via the use of cadence and/or torque sensors (how fast your pedals are rotating and the power that's being applied to them, respectively), pedal-assist units kick on at a certain point, making pedaling easier. Sometimes pedal assist can be so minimal, it's difficult to tell just how much work you're doing versus how much of the load your bike is handling. Throttle units act more like a motorcycle or moped, allowing the rider to either twist a tube mounted near the handgrip or use a thumb-based knob to deliver immediate power to the wheels. Throttle-based ebikes can be ridden without pedaling. When it comes to ebike conversions, where your power comes from and how it's delivered can look several different ways. Some mechanisms deliver power to either your bicycle's rear or front hub. Others are situated in the bottom bracket (that is, where the cranks meet the bike frame). And some newer conversion kits act something like a treadmill mounted to your bike, using rollers to help propel your wheel forward. Roll the Clip Photograph: Stephanie Pearson Having said all that, it's important to consider your level of bicycle know-how when it comes to what kind of ebike conversion you want to undertake. If you're a wrencher, the conversion process is generally straightforward, regardless of the type of unit. If you can change a tire or swap out your cassette, you'll probably be fine with a bit of trial and error and the help of YouTube tutorials. If you're asking yourself, 'What's a cassette?' it's probably best to visit your local bike shop and have a pro handle the work. Those 'treadmill' style conversion kits—such as the Rubbee X, Livall PikaBoost 2 rear-wheel units, or the Clip front-wheel unit—are typically the easiest to install, as you simply need to fix the machine to either your bike's seatpost frame or its fork, make sure its rollers are contacting your tire, and off you go. However, that 'contacting your tire' bit is a bit of a rub (pun intended), as the added contact with your rubber might lead to some extra wear. As disc brakes are becoming ever more the norm (as opposed to a traditional rim brake), Skarper offers a conversion unit that is equally as simple to install to your bike's disc-brake mounts and can be done by almost anyone who knows how to use an Allen wrench. The cool thing about each of these aforementioned units is the ease with which they can be attached and removed, meaning your ebike conversion isn't permanent. With them, you can use your road bike as a commuter during the week, yet keep on with your weekend group rides on the weekend. Hub It Out If you're looking for something more permanent (and way more powerful), units such as the Bafang M-Series replace your traditional bottom bracket with a motor that can deliver up to 1,000 watts of added power to the crank arms of your bike. However, as replacing a bottom bracket is one of the more involved things you can do on a bike, this isn't something you'll want to swap in and out. Somewhere in between the clip-on ease of units like the PikaBoost and the more permanent solution the M-Series offers, are the aforementioned hub-based power units, which tuck motors into the hubs of your wheels. Many of these units also offer battery packs that are meant to be attached to your bike's existing bottle cage mounts. Among the many options for hub-based power units, it's hard to beat the Zehus, which requires nothing more than replacing your existing rear wheel with a Zehus-outfitted wheel. Similarly, Cytronex, one of the earliest and longest-standing ebike brands around, offers a hub-based conversion kit that, while a bit more involved, should take no more than a few minutes of setup. With the explosion in popularity in ebikes, this list is barely scratching the surface. For each of the units mentioned here, there are a dozen or more aftermarket competitors offering similar products. Do your research, talk to the experts at your local bike shop, and decide which unit is right for you and your needs. Once you do that, keep the rubber side down! Power up with unlimited access to WIRED . Get best-in-class reporting that's too important to ignore for just $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today .
