Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: mattyex4 on November 18, 2005, 09:39:28 am
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Have only been going properly for around two months now and business is finally starting to pick up from refferals. I have copleted a couple of courses inc the 2 day complete carpet care iicrc course in royston, but what they dont prepare you for is driving to the job finishing the all the prep work then starting to prespray and realising i had forgot the BLOODY wand for my machine. had to make an embarrasing excuse and dissapear for 35 mins.
P.S Thinking of advertising in local paper does anyone have a rough idea of cost i know it may differ slightly from location to location.
Best regards
mat
pps Ref 1st three piece suite post, everything went really well got a bit wet from a leaky hand tool but the customer was chuffed with results a light coloured suite that looked so much better when finished
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Hi Mat, cost of a box black white ad 2" by 2"in a free paper should cost you approx £60-£80 total for 4 insertions depending on circulation figures
That what the equivilent free papers up North charge.
hope this helps
Paul
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Mat
Sorry I can't help you with prices for London, as I don't advertise. But a lovely story. Well done!
I will be doing the iicrc course in the spring as an add-on to my office cleaning. Would you say the course fully prepares you technically and gives you confidence to step out into the carpet cleaning world?
If you also did the Prochem course, how do the two compare?
Cheers
Freddie
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Hi Matt
Join the club, I have not gone on a job without my wand, but did a job one day
and in the evening got a call to say that I had left a 'bit of metal behind'!! It was only my £295.00 wand, cheeky buggers.
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I'm always leaving stuff. Sprayer last Saturday, jacket the week before. ::)
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hi Matt Glad too see things are going good !!! ;D
Im based in cornwall and do alot of my advertising with trading pages 01209 722582
Speak to Debbie shes a hoot, they do all your art work for your add, and leaflet drop at the same time for you
£30 per 1000 for leaflets
£50 - 100 per month depending how many towns or areas you want to cover
But goes out too over 10,000 coppies per town
cheers James
ps :- my fav is my jacket to, for forgetting
drove all the way to Cardif once from Camborne to tex, therm a pub but forgot the base plate, woops, spent the next 4 hours running around hotels, train stations etc after a buffer, finaly got one from sainsburys only slow speed but got the job done
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I advertised in my local paper last year. Cost me £270 for 6 inserts in the expert services and also went out in the free paper. Only paid for it's self. But some people have a good response and it's a case of getting your name out there.
I had a padlock on the back of my old van drove 45min to a job only to realise i had forgot the key for it.
Rob
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Hi Matt,
I've never got a good return from Newspaper advertising - if you are lucky the ad will pay for itself, but don't expect a big profit.
I also found that many of the enquiries were from the lower end of the market - people who wanted a cheap price over the phone.
However, this is a high point of the year, so there are more people looking to get stuff cleaned - so you might do better.
But be warned: If you run an ad and it doesn't get a good response - the rep will probably try and tell you the response will go up if you keep running it. Don't be fooled! It won't!
Be wary too of commiting to a run of ads at a discounted price - I'd try one (small) ad and see how it goes.
Positioning in the paper has a big effect on the response you get - the bottom right hand corners of pages 3 and 5 (and 7 at a push) are good ones if you can get them.
Sorry to be a bit negative, I wasted a lot of money on newspaper advertising when I started out - and I don't want you to do the same.
There are much better ways to advertise in my opinion - ideally, you want to be targetting middle class/high income areas, rather than paying to advertise to everyone.
Good luck with it!
Matt
Cleansmart Supplies
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we used to do a lot of newspaper advertising.as a tip go for an early right hand page top right corner if u can get it. leave the advert in for at least 4 weeks, and give your customers a reason to ring u, ie special offer etc.
also we found especially with free local papers do not accept the first price given,eventually we found out u can get up to 55% discount .
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THANKS FOR ALLTHE TIPS LADS, THE KIND OF ADVICE MONEY CANT BUY
MUCH APPRECIATED
P.S
JUST A QUICKIE HOW HIGH A PH WOULD YOU GO FOR PRESPRAYING WOOL I KNOW THE RECCOMENDATION IS AROUND 8.5, BUT THE OTHER DAY I USED CITRUS PRESPRAY PH10 ON ONE OF MY OWN AND IT CAME UP LOVELY.
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I found that newspaper ads attracted the wrong type of customer "Can you clean my suite for 20 quid mate" ;D
I also leave my bloody jacket behind regularly, usually when I am working 30 miles from home!!