[RPCCS]

Looking for advice on getting work, I have a Facebook page and 2000 flyers to drop through doors. Is it worth  putting an ad in the local paper ? We have a weekly paper round these parts, I advertised in there late 2018 November time, cost me £140 for a month, got one job from it at £100 ,is it worth another try!? I want to build my carpet cleaning up this year so I can reduce my window cleaning time.

[Raymondo]

We have been cleaning carpets for 22 years used to clean windows but in the end the carpet side took over. Now much easier to clean windows now with the pole system fell off the ladder 3 times doing traditional.  It takes time to build up a carpets cleaning business, have you got a website is your van sign-written.

[Mike Halliday]

You’ve got 2000 leaflets. To quality homes that would take 16 man hours to deliver, have got access to persons  who can help you deliver  them?

A 4 man team can deliver them in a weekend doing 2hrs on Saturday morning & 2hrs on  Sunday morning (or a 3 man team working 2.5hrs each day)

This is how to leaflet, don’t think you alone can effectively deliver 2000 leaflets  quick enough to see an immediate result, get all 2000 out in a weekend and you will start getting call the following week.

 then order 10,000 leaflets an d repeat the process for the next 3months

[Ned Kelly]

Do you have a website Rich?

[RPCCS]

In response to. Raymondo and Ned, no website, no signwriting but hoping to get a new van this year and going to get vinyl signs for it.
Mike, my son will help me deliver.

[Mike Halliday]

Get your son to ask his mates, give then £5-7 an hour, you need a big team to  give them all out

[Cleanevangelist]

RPCCS

you are focused to much on new clients.  your business should sell more services more often to your database. upload your database to facebook make sure you have the mobile numbers setup so you have UK code 44 and not 0 as this helps facebook populate all the data they have on your customers.

and dont forget have recommendation marketing in the mix. paying your customers for referrals is cheap and easy way to get work.

Good luck

Ian Harper

[RPCCS]

Ian, all my customers have been given a flyer but I will be giving them another to remind them. I don’t have a database of customers, just a list , but don’t have everyone’s phone number. As far as rewarding customers for recommendations, I always give a new customer a handful of flyers and ask them to pass on to family and friends, with the offer that if they get me 3 jobs, I will send them a shopping voucher as a thank you. Several customers have left reviews on my Facebook page.

[Ned Kelly]

I recall you asking a similar question last year Rich.  Last year, if my memory is correct, you were advertising in local mags and using some flyers. You were given some sound advice on what to do back then from experienced operators on here, and some not so experienced operators like myself. In fact, I vaguely remember you thanking me for my advice but dismissing it at the same time telling me (and I'm paraphrasing) "that after years of owning my own business I do know a bit about advertising" lol.  I don't want to offend you Rich because you seem like a nice guy, but if you think for a minute that advertising in a paper or delivering a few flyers here and there is in anyway going to make you successful then you should just sell or your gear and stick to window cleaning mate.
We both started our business's at nearly exactly the same time two years ago Rich, we  both attended Derek Bolton's Cleansmart courses(maybe at the same time) and John Kelly's course (maybe at the same) and 18 months ago I was where you STILL are now, looking for work, looking for help and when I do get it choose to ignore it, blaming everyone but myself.  Eighteen months later and my business is growing rapidly. I have just bought the new top of the range Miniflex in cash. I enjoyed three lovely holidays last year and I'm sitting typing this after taking a half day while doing two small jobs in the morning with a £160 in my pocket. If you want to know how to get there Rich then I'd be happy to tell you because you seem like a good guy and I want you to succeed. But if your just going to ignore all the advice like you did last year then what's the point mate?

[RPCCS]

I hear what you're saying Ned, but last year all thoughts on promting the new venture went out of the window. My mother became ill early summer so I was looking after her. Following my mother's slow recovery my aunt became ill, then was hospitalized, got worse and passed away. It fell on my shoulders to organise her funeral and as executor of her will, I had to see to the house clearance, so I had forgotten about the advice I was given last year.

[Ned Kelly]

Sorry to hear about your loss mate. Life can be difficult at times as well as trying to run a business. Well done for getting through it all. 👍

[RPCCS]

Thanks, I had a meeting with the solicitor tonight and hatched a plan to go forward from here to get her estate settled. So from the end of this month seeing as I have no other things to take priority, I  am having a blitz with the flyers.I have some estates locally to target.Can you tell me again what you suggested last year please as I can't find it.

[Ned Kelly]

No bother at all Rich and I'm glad you're getting everything sorted.
There's to much info for one post so I'll give you a couple of bits of advice just now. Those flyers you have..... keep them under wraps until you get a website sorted. Think about it? You get a leaflet through the door offering any kind of service which at that time you may need. Before you phone the number most people would google the companies name and look for reviews, accreditations etc. When a customer does this when they receive your flyer, they get zilch, na na ,zero and they will throw your flyer in the bin and call one of your competitors listed on google!!! Okay you may have Facebook but a lot of people can't be bothered with it especially the high end customers who tend to be professionals like doctors, solicitors,teachers etc and their the customers you want. You can set up your first website yourself (https://www.wix.com/business/website). Okay this bit is a bit daunting at first and I did have help but after a couple of days myself and my helper had built a pretty professional looking website from scratch which included the Facebook reviews I had received, plus info on TACCA and my helper gave me some basic tips on key words etc and how to add stuff. This will do until you can afford a professional website (which I got for free and Ill tell you how you may get that in another post if your interested) who'll look after your SEO etc. But the homemade one(which will probably list on about page 5 of google to start with lol) will at least  give prospective customers a chance to see you have received professional training etc, which will give your fledgling business the one thing you need fast as a newbie to compete with the bigboys....CREDIBILITY!!  All this will seem simple stuff to the experienced guys on here but getting a professional looking website is a fundamental building block for a new business no matter what services you sell and it's not that hard. Just to let you know Rich, this basic advice  was given to me by my "helper" who just happens to be a guy like you and me who has started two companies from scratch (in the process of starting up another which he does in his spare time) built them up and sold them on for a small fortune. Before that John Kelly was a great font of info on business building on his training course(as well as carpet cleaning) and I can still see myself laughing when he said that you might be able to charge up to £80 for a lounge clean "aye right" I said to myself who's going to pay that lol. Now I don't leave the house for any less than £80. If you want Rich I can give you more advice on how your going to compete and WIN against the big boys in your area in a years time. It can be done mate

 

[RPCCS]

Much appreciated Ned, I have flyers listing the names of the companies I trained under, I would photo and send you it but I don’t think there is a pm facility on this forum? Are you north east based yourself, if so where? I don’t want to tread on your toes lol. As  for a website, I can ask my daughter to design one for me,she is not actually a web designer, but a graphic designer and has recently done one for herself..


PS if you want to contact me so you can offer further advice or I can contact you, search for R.peters carpet cleaning services on fb; send me a message with  email or mobile number, if you want to that is. That way it’s not public.

[Ned Kelly]

😂 Don't worry  about stepping on my toes Rich I'm up in God's Country. Even so mate if there was a guy starting across the road from me cleaning carpets I would still give the same advice. Just make sure you use a few  key words and phrases in your website like "carpet cleaning/cleaner in (your area).  Don't be afraid to look at other carpet cleaners websites in your area or beyond and get some ideas but what ever you do DO NOT CUT AND PASTE and put it on your own website as believe it or not Google can recognise you have done this and put your website further down the pile.

[Ned Kelly]

No bother at all mate. I'll get your number and give you a wee call on Monday if I get a chance 👍

[RPCCS]

Ok, leave it til after 4 though as I will be free to chat then.   Lovely part of the world you live in, one very close to my heart, many happy memories of childhood holidays in the dales , Carlton in Coverdale  is my happy place.

[Ned Kelly]

😂 I'm up in Scotland Rich. It shares it's title of " God's Country" with County Donegal in Ireland.

[Robin Ray]

😂 I'm up in Scotland Rich. It shares it's title of " God's Country" with County Donegal in Ireland.

I noticed that according to the oracle which is Wikipedia "Gods own country" has also been used to describe not only the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland in County Wicklow, a place in India called Kerala and also Yorkshire. The term being interchangeably used with the title "Gods own County" when describing Yorkshire.

No bias as I'm down in Devon just thought Id look it up.

[RPCCS]

😂 I'm up in Scotland Rich. It shares it's title of " God's Country" with County Donegal in Ireland.

I noticed that according to the oracle which is Wikipedia "Gods own country" has also been used to describe not only the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland in County Wicklow, a place in India called Kerala and also Yorkshire. The term being interchangeably used with the title "Gods own County" when describing Yorkshire.

No bias as I'm down in Devon just thought Id look it up.

Yeah I  googled God’s country and it came up with Yorkshire

[*Hector*]

Yeah I  googled God’s country and it came up with Yorkshire

Quite right too 

[Mike Halliday]

Rich if you need a website the kireth.com  can design and host one for £15 a month, he did both mine and they look good, both rank on the first page of google.

The idea that people will get your leaflet and throw it away as you don’t have a website is in opinion wrong, not having a website is no reason not to get your leaflets out as soon As possible., (although it’s a good excuse not to put them out) I have lots of elderly customers who are not internet savvy and never look at my website

[RPCCS]

Rich if you need a website the kireth.com  can design and host one for £15 a month, he did both mine and they look good, both rank on the first page of google.

The idea that people will get your leaflet and throw it away as you don’t have a website is in opinion wrong, not having a website is no reason not to get your leaflets out as soon As possible., (although it’s a good excuse not to put them out) I have lots of elderly customers who are not internet savvy and never look at my website

A very valid point Mike, never thought of that, tbh I targeted a couple of estates in the next village, and got about 5 jobs from there and most of them were elderly.   As mentioned in a previous post, my daughter can design me a basic website to get started, I just need to decide what to put on it, do you mind if I send you a pic by email of my flyer? I presume your website has contact details?

[Mike Halliday]

Info     @         henry         halliday      co  uk

Put all this together

[RPCCS]

Photo on the way.  Now sent.

[Mike Halliday]

This is one of mine,  front and back, it’s a DL size in a quality thick paper

[Mike Halliday]

As a A5 leaflets

[RPCCS]

I l like the  promotional offers saying more work done and receive a discount.

[Ned Kelly]

If you do it the way I suggested Rich you will optimise your leaflet drop and you may get 10 jobs instead of five. For Mike to suggest that prospective customers after receiving your flyer won't google your company name looking for reviews etc and after finding none are still going to call you is nonsense, and I would absolutely take anything Mike says now regarding starting a new business with a pinch of salt . Yes you are going to get the little old lady calling you but the middle class professionals are going to toss it right in the bin! It's no skin off my nose who you believe Rich, but have you ever wondered why round about this time of year, Mike, after  decades in business is still sitting in McDonalds sipping coffee at six in the morning before he delivers 1000 flyers to little old ladies? btw credit where credit is due Mike your flyers are top notch

[Mike Halliday]

got To agree with Ned, I would ignore me and listen to him

[Mike Halliday]

If you are going to market using flyers then you should target them to specific areas  or events and order them in small batches, eg; if you are going to target a specific town then mention that town in your special offers or if you are targeting a specific time like Xmas then mention that.

The best way to do this is have a blank template of your leaflet, then you can use a free app to put text onto the leaflet, I use this (photo attached) as you can see it has 3 boxes that can be filled with specific text, so I can target specific places, times or events

You can see in my above posts an example of how I have filled in the boxes

[Robin Ray]

Best piece of marketing info I ever heard is simply to target your ideal customer (who ever that is) What does that type of customer want? (provide it for them) Where does that type of customer live? (market to those neighborhoods) What message will motivate that customer? (write it) What type of media will that type of customer look at? leaflets, facebook, google, local magazines, etc? (use that type of media). Ignore everyone else and everything else, it is a waste of time, money and effort.

For me that is a elderly lady, living in a bungalow who is willing to pay for the job to be done right, she is established in the local community and values using  tradesmen who have been recommended by their friends. She is more likely to look at a flyer than search on google or ask on facebook.

For someone else it may be a middle age person who lives in a rental property they need to get the carpet cleaned because they are moving out and it is in their contract to get them cleaned. They are not interested in how good the result is they just want an invoice so they can get their deposit back. The lowest bidder will get the job. They will ask on local facebook groups for recommendations.

There are other types of customer and you tend to find yourself working for a particular type more often than not.

Your service needs to match the customer too. If you provide a top quality service to customer A, she will be happy and recommend you. To make any real money servicing customer B, you need to be working extremely quickly because the profits tend to be alot lower.

[Ned Kelly]

Your flyers look great Mike but I take it you just use them on a certain demographic e. g. estates that would appreciate a discount? Do you have one which serves higher end housing estates where the customer is only interested in quality work and not looking for a discount so much?

[RPCCS]

I get a few enquiries from my fb page, but most never come to anything, as they just want a price and that’s it I have had 3  or 4 jobs from enquiries but most never bother replying.  However I have had  quite a bit of business from flyers.  Will have to start thinking about  what content to put on a website.

[Ned Kelly]

Rich, have you contacted an organisation like this yet  (if not ,why not?) https://www.northeastgrowthhub.co.uk/ ? I think it's your area. It will give you proper advice on how to start a new business. It will give you real info on how to grow a new business properly instead of trying to rely on Mikes flyers which resemble a traveling zoo coming to town lol. Please pay special attention to the Finance and Funding bit.

[Mike Halliday]

Ned have I said something to upset you? I know I contradicted your advice about when Rich should put out his leaflets but like I said in that post it was just my opinion.

Now you are have little digs at my business which isn’t very nice My intention was never to offend you,  we all have something to offer advice wise and we all work and market in different ways.

Leaflet marketing I think does have a bad image I think it’s the thought of walking the street on a wet day putting out leaflets it’s horrible and hard to do... ‘surely there are better ways to market’ is what people think.

But I normally work as a 3 man team  ( me, my son and another man) we work 5 days a week this time of year, 6 days March-Nov our leaflet marketing produces all the work to fill these days, this is high end customers paying top prices. We deliver to the same area every 4-6 weeks so all our existing customer receive our leaflet regularly so it also act as a reminder card to them .

To give full disclosure carpet a upholstery cleaning is only part of what we do, (about a grand a week) the bulk is the exterior cleaning.

‘In my opinion’ leaflet marketing when done right is the most effective and quickest way to build a business, you might not agree but  there is room for everyone’s advice in this subject

[RPCCS]

[Quote ]:Mike Halliday   
‘In my opinion’ leaflet marketing when done right is the most effective and quickest way to build a business, you might not agree but there is room for everyone’s advice in this subject.   I agree and will take on board what you both have said .

[Ned Kelly]

Not very nice when someone is rude, condescending and dismissive of your post is it Mike?  You seem to be a well read sort of guy so if you get a wee chance there is a terrific book by Jordon Peterson called "12 Rules for Life".  Rule number 9 is "Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't".
 Normally I find your posts informative, interesting and educational but at times, unfortunately, you do come across as rude ,condescending and dismissive (I have personal experience of this and not a way a moderator should behave) and I do get the impression that if someone said black you would say white, just to contradict them, and it does put me off from posting sometimes. A type of guy as they say in Scotland who " would start a fight in a empty house".
Most forums now a days, unfortunately, have moderators who tend to be mostly alpha- male type , middle-aged, articulate but far to opinionated and egotistical.  A times Mike,  sadly,  you occasionally turn into this type . 

[Darek M]

Knock the door and instead sell your service, leave a leaflet if no one is in.

[RPCCS]

Not very nice when someone is rude, condescending and dismissive of your post is it Mike?  You seem to be a well read sort of guy so if you get a wee chance there is a terrific book by Jordon Peterson called "12 Rules for Life".  Rule number 9 is "Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't".
 Normally I find your posts informative, interesting and educational but at times, unfortunately, you do come across as rude ,condescending and dismissive (I have personal experience of this and not a way a moderator should behave) and I do get the impression that if someone said black you would say white, just to contradict them, and it does put me off from posting sometimes. A type of guy as they say in Scotland who " would start a fight in a empty house".
Most forums now a days, unfortunately, have moderators who tend to be mostly alpha- male type , middle-aged, articulate but far to opinionated and egotistical.  A times Mike,  sadly,  you occasionally turn into this type .

Ned/Mike please don't have a falling out on my part. Respect to you both, you have both given me sound advice, which I intend to act on. There is no need for any unpleasantness, you both have your own way of doing things, what works for one doesn't for another, so how about agreeing to differ?😀😀 That's what gentlemen are supposed to do, not pistols at dawn 😂😂😂

[*Hector*]

I thought that maybe Mike had run over Neds cat 

 

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I thought Mike’s advice was sound he has after all been leafleting for 20 years you don’t do something so time consuming if it’s not successful or profitable that doesn’t make sense.

[RPCCS]

Went out at the weekend  and delivered flyers to a. posh estate, before I had even finished the estate,,I got a call from someone wanting a whole house done as an end of tenancy clean.