[PILEUP]

hi to all

i'am you to the site and finding a few helpfull tips.

i have only started up on my own carpet and upholstery cleaning about 2 months ago. i advertise in yellow pages and yell.com. to be honest i have only had about 6 jobs from the advert's.

can anyone tell me please how i go about getting a bit more clients. i advertise in 3 yellow pages areas and awaiting 3 more areas in september. things just seem a little slow in taking of maybe about i job a week if i'am lucky.

does anyone have any tips for me to avertise or how i go about getting contracts like nursing homes /factory's.

any help to get me of the ground.

thanks in advance
chris

[fletch]

Chris,
Ive only been going 9 months now and if I could turn back the clock, I would focus my advertising in one local area .
I spent £2500 on Adverts Yellow pages, Yell.com etc and this has no way give me a great return financially compared to a local Parish mag, which is very cheap to advertise in and has been a great investment.
So my advice is focus your resources in one area and hammer it with your marketing budget and build from that.

To get Commercial business, put yourself together a Portfolio of your business,like who you are, what services you offer etc.
But importantly evidence your work with pictures and quotations from previous customers, this is important to get right, so you can gain the Commercial customers confidence.

I hope this helps you Chris.
                                   Regards,
                                     Fletch.

[AquaMagic]

Leaflets. loads of em

Dene

[lands]

Chris

Where are you based. Let me know and email me. I used to work for YP and yell andf it sounds like they have sold you down the river. Pete.

email me urg

Pete

[PILEUP]

Chris,
Ive only been going 9 months now and if I could turn back the clock, I would focus my advertising in one local area .
I spent £2500 on Adverts Yellow pages, Yell.com etc and this has no way give me a great return financially compared to a local Parish mag, which is very cheap to advertise in and has been a great investment.
So my advice is focus your resources in one area and hammer it with your marketing budget and build from that.

To get Commercial business, put yourself together a Portfolio of your business,like who you are, what services you offer etc.
But importantly evidence your work with pictures and quotations from previous customers, this is important to get right, so you can gain the Commercial customers confidence.

I hope this helps you Chris.
                                   Regards,
                                     Fletch.

hi fletch thanks for the relpy i will give the parish ago and see how it goes will also have a go at at portfolio.
regards chris

[Phillip Mold]

Every time you do a job ask the customer if they receive a parish mag, and could you either take it if they have finished with it or have a look. Note down who to contact to advertise.

My own local one costs me 20 pounds for 12 issues !! brings in one job a month, got to be the best value ads!

[PILEUP]

Leaflets. loads of em

Dene

hi dene
thank for the reply
i have tried some leaflets only about 500 from these i only got about 2 calls from them.
i just feel that leaflets mostly get bined cos so many people get a lot of what they call junk mail.

if someone has a cheap sorce fopr me to get leaflets printed it would be a great help to me as i have only started out and dont want to lose anymore cash when i'am not taken it in

also can anyone help me out with an good example of a portfolio as i have never done 1 before.

many thanks
regards chris

[PILEUP]

Every time you do a job ask the customer if they receive a parish mag, and could you either take it if they have finished with it or have a look. Note down who to contact to advertise.

My own local one costs me 20 pounds for 12 issues !! brings in one job a month, got to be the best value ads!

hi philip

i will try the parish mags thanks for the reply and help

regards chris

[PILEUP]

Chris

Where are you based. Let me know and email me. I used to work for YP and yell andf it sounds like they have sold you down the river. Pete.

email me urg

Pete

hi pete
thanks for the reply i have sent you an email

regards chris

[Neil Grainger]

Chris

2 calls from 500 leaflets is good, Just think the money you paid for Yellow pages could be used to send out 20,000-30,000 leaflets every 2-3 months and the return will be a lot more than you get from Yellow Pages. Dont worry about people throwing your leaflets away its the 2-3 jobs you get from a 1000 that will make you money.

I would suggest that you cancel the books for later in the year and use this money saved on other idea's.

Yellow pages is a dieing product because of the things like Google adwords and other such marketing sources. I have been in it 3 years and have not broken even so my 3000 is going into area's I know that works like Local Paper and local parish mags

My Yellow pages rep even admited that they had to change because of this and that they were losing more customers than they are taking on because of this and their reputation.

Cheers

Neil

[PILEUP]

Chris

2 calls from 500 leaflets is good, Just think the money you paid for Yellow pages could be used to send out 20,000-30,000 leaflets every 2-3 months and the return will be a lot more than you get from Yellow Pages. Dont worry about people throwing your leaflets away its the 2-3 jobs you get from a 1000 that will make you money.

I would suggest that you cancel the books for later in the year and use this money saved on other idea's.

Yellow pages is a dieing product because of the things like Google adwords and other such marketing sources. I have been in it 3 years and have not broken even so my 3000 is going into area's I know that works like Local Paper and local parish mags

My Yellow pages rep even admited that they had to change because of this and that they were losing more customers than they are taking on because of this and their reputation.

Cheers

Neil

hi neil good bit of advice think i will cancel the september yellow pages only prob is i dont know if they will charge me to cancel the agreement.

i will give the parish mags ago
i'am looking for a good rate for getting leaflets printing if anyone can help me here.

thanks for your reply neil
regards chris

[markpowell]

Leaflets, leaflets, leaflets. It has been my most cost effective advertising by far, 2 jobs from 500 is good, i will average 4-8 for a 1000. Sometimes its 2 or 3 week after i deliver them that that person rings me. Keep your chin up and keep going. D.P print in hull will do 10,000 leaflets for arond £120.00 inc vat and delivery. Good luck Mark

[AquaMagic]

yeah here here, 500 isnt bad, but lets be honest 500 isnt enough to test an advert, i get mine from http://www.leafletsforyou.co.uk/ £129 all in for 10k A5 full coloul 80gsm, and he will even design it for you, goto http://www.leafletsforyou.co.uk/ and you can see some samples, once you get em try to disipline yourself to do 2-3 hours a day untill you get goin then you can get away with 1-2 hours a day if you can augment it with other advertising such as local press.  But by far leaflets work better than anything else, sometimes you will leaflet an area and get nothing but the second time you will get something and the 3rd time, Mick Haliday has done a great deal of testing his leaflets with both desgin and distribution methods and he always says to get them out in numbers then repeat repeat repeat, ive tried it and it works.

Dene

[PILEUP]

Leaflets, leaflets, leaflets. It has been my most cost effective advertising by far, 2 jobs from 500 is good, i will average 4-8 for a 1000. Sometimes its 2 or 3 week after i deliver them that that person rings me. Keep your chin up and keep going. D.P print in hull will do 10,000 leaflets for arond £120.00 inc vat and delivery. Good luck Mark

hi mark
thanks for the reply iwill keep my chin up and slog on
that seems a fair pric thanks for that mark will give them a call.
regards chris

[fletch]

Chris,
Regarding the portfolio, I take it youve got a website so just extract the info from that and put it into a 4 page spread.
Keep it plain & simple; Basically enjoyable to read and succint.

Select & research potential Commercial clients in your area. Use the portfolio to introduce your services and then follow on from that.

                               Regards,
                                  Fletch.

[markpowell]

Chris,
send me your e-mail address i will send you some info, Mark

[chrisg]

You will find it hard to establish a C/Cing buisness, the market is saturated and theres not enough work to go around the c/c'ers it is simple as that, its not that your doing anything wrong.

say there 40 c/c'ers in an area and you get your 1/40'th share then thats not enough to survive, unless you can find a way of taking a larger market share.


Of course some market reserch before starting would stop alot of pain for many people.

[PILEUP]

Chris,
send me your e-mail address i will send you some info, Mark

hi mark thanks for the reply.

i cant find your email address to send you mine.

regards chris

[PILEUP]

You will find it hard to establish a C/Cing buisness, the market is saturated and theres not enough work to go around the c/c'ers it is simple as that, its not that your doing anything wrong.

say there 40 c/c'ers in an area and you get your 1/40'th share then thats not enough to survive, unless you can find a way of taking a larger market share.


Of course some market reserch before starting would stop alot of pain for many people.

hi thanks for the reply.

i have carpet cleaning for about 15 years for a company and always asked my self why am i doing this getting paid very small amount of monies. i found that i could earn 1 days pay from the company in 1 hour working for myself.
so that is what i have done.

as to not enough work for the amount of carpet cleaners.
i think there is room for me in the c/c game. i'am prepared to work my conkers of   and keep my prices down just to get the job. i always think that getting a job is 1 way of advertising with a little word of mouth it has got me some other jobs. iam not looking to earn mega bucks. just a little more than i was getting paid by the company to support me and my family so a little slice of the c/c will do me am not gready.
regards chris

[the red carpet]

Just remember when pricing work not to go to low as you cant compare the money you take from a customer to the money you got paid by your old boss.

Say you got £50 at the end of the day before, that was yours to go down the pub or buy some shopping, pay your bills or do with what you choose.

If you was to do two rooms now and earn £50 in a hour it seems great, but in effect you will have probably earnt little to nothing dont forget all this advertising be it parish mags, y/p or leaflets all has to come out of this as well as fuel costs, insurance, phone bill, chemicals and a whole load of other stuff.

You will also find that keeping a van and cc machine on the road is a expensive buisness as they will break down and you have no choice but to repair them else you aint getting to work the following day. And then to top it off i rekon this industry must get more last minute cancellations than any other leaving you gaps in your diary even when you think you are fully booked.

All this is not to put you off, just be realistic when setting your prices as you will come across a lot of obsticals day to day. Its no good setting them on par with a daily wage else when something goes wrong in the week it will swallow all your profit and you will have done a weeks work for nothing

For example this week i had a decent weeks work booked in not loads but something every day some jobs paying as much as £100 a hour. Then yesterday the brakes went on the van costing me £200 and i had a job cancell to the tune of £245 thats all my profit for the week gone now, had i have been charging lower prices i would have made a loss this week, and if my prices were to low and i had no reserve money in the bank i may have not even been able to fix the van meaning i would have been out of buisness

Also if you can get 2 leads out of 500 leaflets, why not pay somebody to deliver 1000 a day you would be getting 4 leads a day much more than you would ever get from y/p