[heritagecleaning]

Well, I'm certanly feeling sorry for myself this evening and humbly seeking some advice as to how to go forward.

I've been doing office cleaning contracts for over 10 years now and combining this with carpet cleaning as and when the work came in. The thing is the office contract work has been slowly dropping off. Today I lost a big job which leaves me with very little regular work and plenty of time off!

I've always enjoyed the carpet cleaning much more than emptying people's bins at 5am for no thanks, and so I have decided that pushing carpet cleaning full time will be my way forward.

I have a clean 5 year old Berlingo van, I have all the CC gear and a new website going online in mid March. I'm BICS/NCCA trained and a TACCA member. I have a mailshot ready to go out to 50 ish local lettings/estate agents. Hopefully this will give me a good start, but I am confused as to what combination of things to do as an ongoing monthly strategy and how much I should be spending. I do have savings but I am frightened of pumping these into an advertising black hole due to my own ignorance.

Anyone care to point me in the right direction?

Thanks guys


Owen

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Mail everyone you know every month regularly, you've been used to regular programmed work but cc has no real contract so there's no comfort zone in that respect but if you keep a 'train' of marketing going every month then every month you'll get a regular income.

Shaun

[dek]

owen
you sound like you have your head scweded on and know how to run a business.exploit your contacts they all have carpets.Get out and knock commercial doors,tell them what you can do.IMHO forget leaflets adds etc.and use the pesonal approach.

[Simon Gerrard]

Owen,
That's a bummer.
Your website looks ok so why not just re-jig it just for C&U cleaning until your new one is ready.
Getting on Google Places and perhaps think about doing Adwords in the spring.

Simon

[Max Campbell]

While you've got the time walk out some leaflets - aim for several 10's of thousands. Printing is cheap, delivery is the expensive bit. Guaranteed to make you money.

[heritagecleaning]

Who removed Ian Gourlay's post??

Some good poiints. Leaflets are the way forward initially then- God knows I have the time.

[Ian Gourlay]

I did
I thought I was being a bit offensive   to you on a bad day.
I do hope you are able to find replacement contracts

[heritagecleaning]

You're a good bloke Ian 

A lot of what you said hit the nail on the head though.

[fitz2kleen]

You dont have to spend silly amount on advertising, there are hundreds of free directories you can add yourself too for nothing more than time.
While they probably wont bring you loads of bookings they will give a boost to your website and get you further up the Google maze.
The more places customers can find you reassures them that you are a genuine business and not just some fly by night.
Good luck, keep at it , you're already established , use that to your advantage.

[heritagecleaning]

Thanks for the ideas and encouragement 

[andrew66]

start inbound marketing if you have time read this book inbound marketing by brian halligan it really opens your eyes to the potential of facebook twitter etc