Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: andy east sussex on September 30, 2012, 10:02:37 pm
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right guys im not ashamed to admit it im now begining to strugle to get work in. i dont know what to do i would gasp any help i can get i would like to network with someone around the country . if no one can its fine just thought id ask.
thank you
andy vine
a.c.s2009@live.co.uk
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Andy your not the only one, times are hard at the moment and are about to get a lot harder. Carpet cleaning is near saturation point now with so many people doing it as an ad on. I could see the industry being diluted about 3 years ago.
My only advice would be to diversify and become expert in as many disiplines as possible.
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I keep in touch with several Carpet Cleaners around the country mate, you are not alone. I have been up and down all year, seems to go mad then the week after not a single enquiry. I been in this game 18 years and never known a year to be so unpredictable.
I :'(
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how long have you been trading for Andy?
Have you tried the usual proactive things like leaflet droping all day? knocking on the doors of offices, letting egents, commercials etc?
Do you keep the contact details of customers on a database? Maybe an idea to send out an offer to customer on the database? Not something that I do but alot of other carpet cleaners swear by it.
Tony
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trading for 9 years and 1 year with someone else before i went in to it by my self we have aproached all aspects to get work in we currently have 4k leaflets going out a week we use to get 0.5% return which worked out 4 per thousand plus the recomendation work. calls have really slackerned off its either companies not putting advertising out or the work just isnt there as 1 week we can be really busy with calls the following nothing cant win. i know if i put them out myself i know their getting done which i am currently doing in these quiet times everyday
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10yrs ago 12k per month leaflets kept me in work for the weeks, 3yrs ago I was putting out 20k now i'm doing 30k.
working is getting harder to find
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Feel for you mate. There is work out there it's just a matter of finding it and perhaps more importantly believing you can find it. Whatever you do don't try throwing money at it as the returns on advertising are likely to be poor if things are that quiet and that could just make your financial position even worse. Best to do things that cost nothing, emails, leaflets, door knocking, mail shots to past customers, making contact with lettings agents, contract cleaning companies, tele sales calls to prospects etc.
stick with it.
Simon
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id love to be able to afford to get 30k+ a month to go out but i just cant afford to this is the trouble im finding i do belive if i up the distribution my jobs would up i guess but with the distribution costs so high makes it difficult i have family and friends doing as much as they can to help me get more out but just isnt enough :(
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What sort of return do you get Mike per 1,000?
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alot of people are going to moan here but do you put your prices on the leaflet Andy? I know we shouldn't sell on price but desperate times and all that..!
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Richard I do 15-17 jobs a week i would say the majority of them are the result of the person receiving a leaflet......... ALTHOUGH SOME ARE EXISTING CUSTOMER WHO ARE PROMPTED TO CALL BECUASE THEY GET A LEAFLET
so say 60 jobs a month from 30k leaflets...... that 2/1000
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I agree mike but you used to have affordable prices with them printed and offers where as now you are casting the net the conversion may be high but the impulse calls may be less although profit is higher.
Shaun
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I feel for you Andy. The thing is no one area of the country runs at the same speed as the other.
I've been on here before when work is dead and others are flat out. Alternatively I've been flat out whilst others are dead, it's just a case of accepting it as hard as that is.
I'd never go down the route of prices on leaflets. Too easy for potential customer to use that to haggle a lower price with someone off a google search. If I were to run with mentioning prices on leaflets then I'd go with 'Cheapest in (name of area)' which at least gives you a better sporting chance of getting the customer with a bit of sales patter.
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Cheers for answering Mike. I've had mixed results on returns on leaflets but it seems to average around the same as yours. Just having trouble getting the numbers out as there isn't a decent local leaflet delivery company for my area. I've decided to try to get a self-employed leaflet person to deliver them for me. Are yours delivered solo Mike? As I'm thinking of approaching other businesses to deliver their leaflets along side mine, max of 2 others, and hopefully be able to cover my advertising costs. :) I know response rates drop if they are dropped with lots of other leaflets but by limiting them to only 2 others hopefully not too much.
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yea prices are on my leaflets as thats all ive ever done and tbh scared to try it without in case i get no calls or work ive always stuck with what has worked
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I used to get loads of work from prices on my leaflets but that was pre Internet, I think mike has it right where he pumps out regular leaflets and has done for years the returns on all kinds of marketing at the moment may be lower but you do have to work at it.
Shaun
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If doing drops i have always had better conversion rates early evening, saturdsay afternoon and anytime sunday.
Stops getting thrown away with all the junk from royal mail.
Mark
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worst ones here are take aways i guess its same every where but god they hammer it to much
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Get yourself out there, restaurants, offices, offer free demos!! the works out, don't rely on domestic work and leaflets. Go sell yourself.
Good luck
Mark.
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what program do you guys use for customer database i just go excel at moment for it only basic but does job wonderd if anything else beacuse got 100's of previous customers to try again
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also this year im doing keyrings with contact details etc and give them to customers once job completed il see next year if they are working or not only works out 15p a key ring so isnt to bad
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Cheers for answering Mike. I've had mixed results on returns on leaflets but it seems to average around the same as yours. Just having trouble getting the numbers out as there isn't a decent local leaflet delivery company for my area. I've decided to try to get a self-employed leaflet person to deliver them for me. Are yours delivered solo Mike? As I'm thinking of approaching other businesses to deliver their leaflets along side mine, max of 2 others, and hopefully be able to cover my advertising costs. :) I know response rates drop if they are dropped with lots of other leaflets but by limiting them to only 2 others hopefully not too much.
Mine is with a local village magazine an 1 other leaflet.
One other piont is I actually get more calls but don't book in every job so the response is proberbly 3/1000 but I don't get every quote.
I'm paying £20/1000, which I know is cheap if I was paying £40 like some do I would not be leafleting.
I pay £200 every week in advertising, I accepted a long time ago if I want to busy I need to spend the money.
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In the franchise marketing manuals, Chem Dry etc they state that to grow your business you need to be spending 20% of your turnover on marketing. To stand still you need to spend 10%. These are substantial figures and I don't think very many carpet cleaners will be spending this but well worth thinking about.
Also worth considering employing pro sales people to expand your business. We did this years ago for our flood business. Cost 6k but has generated hundreds of thousands in work. Its amazing the doors that can be opened if you use someone with the skills to do it.
This business is all about marketing to get people to ring you.
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Cheers for answering Mike. I've had mixed results on returns on leaflets but it seems to average around the same as yours. Just having trouble getting the numbers out as there isn't a decent local leaflet delivery company for my area. I've decided to try to get a self-employed leaflet person to deliver them for me. Are yours delivered solo Mike? As I'm thinking of approaching other businesses to deliver their leaflets along side mine, max of 2 others, and hopefully be able to cover my advertising costs. :) I know response rates drop if they are dropped with lots of other leaflets but by limiting them to only 2 others hopefully not too much.
Mine is with a local village magazine an 1 other leaflet.
One other piont is I actually get more calls but don't book in every job so the response is proberbly 3/1000 but I don't get every quote.
I'm paying £20/1000, which I know is cheap if I was paying £40 like some do I would not be leafleting.
I pay £200 every week in advertising, I accepted a long time ago if I want to busy I need to spend the money.
I received a quote from one of the local leaflet distributors, they want £100-£110 per 1000 depending on the quantity (solus). :o I wish I could have them delivered for £20/1000.
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i had a lady and husband starting distribution £20/1000 but gave them 15k leaflets and never got 1 job i found out they just went in friday ad for people to put them out which i guess they just dumped them aint had much luck with distributers i dont understand because they charge enough to put them out
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it would be and is fantasic idea this forum to help our business not stand on each others feet nor go to area to say nick work of the other its just to help us when things are hard just to network ideas to hep us all stay in buisness
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I believe Simon has already said it and it is was Carpet Cleaners did in the Early Days if you read LLoys Owen Manual Go Door Knocking
Last night I watched Be Your Own Boss where one of the founders of a leading Smothie Brand is investing money in Young People with good start up ideas .
But what he said about his own early days was they went door to door by postcode . Each day they set themselves a target of 8 new outlets
He recentley sold out to CoCola for many millions.
So if he was prepared to do it and we cannot afford Leaflet Distribution etc thats what you have got to do.
Mike am wondering what you would do if your Leaflet costs doubled or trebled
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Unfortunately things are changing rapidly with everything associated with running a business of any kind and what worked for over a century right up 'til as recent as the past 4-5 years no longer work as well.
We live in a consumer driven market where access to service providers is almost instantaneous via modern phones, i pads, etc and traditional avenues such as Local Newspapers, Leaflets and so on get a smaller return.
The best suggestion I ever saw to increase your volume of work was to ; -
DO WHAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY DOING .......BUT TWICE AS MUCH !
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very very true
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Mike am wondering what you would do if your Leaflet costs doubled or trebled
Double or treble my prices ;D
If I was asked to pay over £35/1000 I would employ my own people to do it, was doing it this way last year, had 2 people delivering them solus. Didn't do as many but the figures worked out the same.... Just more hassle so went back to the company
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Hi Mike,
Your so lucky to have a decent company doing the delivering at such a good rate!
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What's your repeat and referal rate like Andy?
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referal rate is 35-40% of my initial work
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There are leaflet distribution companies who's workers carry GPS trackers so you can monitor them via PC.
Why not look into that if you are concerned about lack of delivery, or start your own GPS tracking leaflet distribution service
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Cheers for answering Mike. I've had mixed results on returns on leaflets but it seems to average around the same as yours. Just having trouble getting the numbers out as there isn't a decent local leaflet delivery company for my area. I've decided to try to get a self-employed leaflet person to deliver them for me. Are yours delivered solo Mike? As I'm thinking of approaching other businesses to deliver their leaflets along side mine, max of 2 others, and hopefully be able to cover my advertising costs. :) I know response rates drop if they are dropped with lots of other leaflets but by limiting them to only 2 others hopefully not too much.
Mine is with a local village magazine an 1 other leaflet.
One other piont is I actually get more calls but don't book in every job so the response is proberbly 3/1000 but I don't get every quote.
I'm paying £20/1000, which I know is cheap if I was paying £40 like some do I would not be leafleting.
I pay £200 every week in advertising, I accepted a long time ago if I want to busy I need to spend the money.
Interesting Mike as I always thought your leaflet went out on its own, is it inserted in the mag or just delivered at the same time?, the reason that I ask is that i have a similar mag, glossy a5 size that is delivered to 3 area's near me with a distribution of 33,000 and they also offer leaflet distribution along with their mag at £25 + vat per 1,000
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its delivered with it not inside which i have had quite a lot of arguments with the company about.
it falls onto the door step separately
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Do any of you chaps use door2 door for your leaflet delivery...(I think that's the name), its a franchise......they are always advertising in our area for distributors...
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40% referral rate. So you do 10 jobs and get 4 referrals/jobs from domestic work.
I find that hard to believe. Either your amazing or Im terrible.
Mark
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hire 2 ppl to deliver mon - thu... then hire diff person to knock on ppls doors that the drop has been done all week or even do that bit by yourself
also must add we have to types of buyers ppl who go with price and ppl who want quality imo
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Yeah pretty impossible, I am actually a bit of a perfectionist in my work which believe me is not a good thing, get me reseaonable repeats though, but referals are never 40%.
repeats are higher than referals.
Referals are almost a miff, they are so small in number.
I guess id say if repeat are 20% referals are 3%
You see if a mate says this co is great whats the chances they need their service?
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Lots of competition out there for sure...
Depending where you live and the type of customer you are trying to attract will depend on what type of marketing will work for you...
For example your more affluent areas will have customers who will be searching for carpet cleaners using the internet on ipads and smart phones, whereas in other places where the price is more of an issue fliers may work better... this is just what i have experienced...
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Do any of you chaps use door2 door for your leaflet delivery...(I think that's the name), its a franchise......they are always advertising in our area for distributors...
It is a franchise and each franchisee is responsible for the a particular postcode area so you will not be dealing with a national company who will sub-contract it out. I nearly brought a franchise a few years ago and was impressed with the set up. The one negative I would say is that it is expensive, at least for solus.
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IIRC, it's called Dor2Dor - yes they are expensive, but I suppose it might be better paying to get 100% of 5000 leaflets delivered than 50% of 10,000.
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referal rate is 35-40% of my initial work
[/quote
I would buy a ticket if you ran a session on how to acheive this provideing you offered a double my money back guarantee.
Worked with some of the top Direct Selling People in Uk and no one ever acheived that.
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This is the misconception newbies have, they think, well, if I work for next to nothing or do Groupon Il get x number of repeats and referals and make money on those.
In actual fact reccomendeds are so small you wouldn't believe. Also I find recomendeds happen mostly with very close people, eg. you do the Mothers then the Daughter calls.
Plus for a newbie repeats are going to be like 5% when they start out as they are not doing as good a job as a seasoned pro. and that 5% will not repeat for 1 or 2 years, maybe 3
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Our repeat rate varies between monthly 45 and 55% of turnover, and in January is as high as 70+%, and referrals around 8 - 12%, but we have been around almost 24 years.
Mailing/emailing existing clients is what generates most of that repeat work. The rest comes, as Mike said very early on, is from previous customers who get our leaflet through the door and that prompts them. After doing them for leaflets for 20+ years we still hit each area every 12 - 13 weeks and we find previous customers are waiting for the offer to arrive, some even call to ask when the leaflet is coming again. If I just looked at how much new business we get from leaflets it would be a very expensive way of advertising, but when we add in the repeat and referral work it generates then they are cost effective. It's tricky what to suggest as we are very lucky that we have an established client base, so although it's not a walk in the park easy at the moment there are enough loyal long established clients coming back to make it okay times.
I'd go visiting Estate agent's, retailers and HAIRDRESSERS. Offer to clean the owner of the hairdressers carpets annually at home for free if you can put some of your cards on their counter. Hairdressers are great to get in with as they are chatty with their clients and have a very personal relationship with them. If they recommend you then they will be chatting about you in the shop and there will be a 'buzz' generated in the shop about you. It's not easy to do, but works.
Al.
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IIRC, it's called Dor2Dor - yes they are expensive, but I suppose it might be better paying to get 100% of 5000 leaflets delivered than 50% of 10,000.
Exactly, If you want to get them done properly then you are going to have to pay for it.
Friend of mine bought one of their franchises, (they are quite cheap) in Surrey and uses it to promote his landscape gardening business while delivering other people leaflets, and getting paid for it, he has about 10 part time delivery staff all monitored and checked, he is guaranteed that all of his leaflets and brochures get to where they are intended.
His landscape gardening business is flying, the leaflet business breaks even or makes a small profit,
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Mate iv'e struggled for the 2 years iv'e been on my own iv'e had 1 job in the last 2 weeks iv'e scraped to go in local paper and leaflets but the phone just won't ring i just keep going in the hope eventually i'l get there i added gutter vaccing and get the odd job from that but only enough to keep the business running it will come in the end just got too knuckle down and keep at it.
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If you are struggling but want to keep going here are some options that dont cost the earth
Window cleaning ( regular income )
Oven cleaning
Office cleaning ( regular income )
Pressure washing
or get a part time job to take the pressure off a bit
And put up your prices so you can discount and run offers
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Been up and down for me this year too, lost an agency that I was doing about 1.5k pcm for ,as they found someone else who will work for a third of what I was charging them, but I have done less jobs, with bigger tickets since.
My worry is had a really good year last year, come Jan Mr Tax man is going to shaft me...
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come Jan Mr Tax man is going to shaft me...
Buy some vaseline ... bend over and take it like a man.... :P :P
;D
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your doing something wrong we working in the same town and four the last 5 weeks we been flat out !
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Yeah great, rub it in the guy face Susan :D
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So the moral delima is Susan, do you help out a local carpet cleaner, or offer him a few quid for his van? :D
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If you had say 2 or 3 vans with operators, going out there every day (getting lots of calls because you are maga cheap, compared to solo operators) doing the actual graft for you, and after they are paid and ALL expenses taken off you make £25 per van per day clear profit. That's £75.. per day, or £375.. per 5 day week. Not a bad extra income.
However using the same cheap priced tacticts as a sole trader, one man band like most of us are, with just the one van, your income would be 1/3rd of that = £125.. per week profit.
If these rough profit figures are on the low side, even if they were trebled, with both examples working flat out.The cheap multi unit operator would be making over £1,000.. per week while the one man operator would be making only £375.. and doing all the work.
That's why 'cheap' can work well for multi units but not so good for solo's.
Obviously there's more to it than just that, but it is generaly true.
Dave.
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Getting the work for a multi van operation and keeping it all year long is the hard bit that's why Allans marketing budget will be higher than most peoples turn over although I do know of a cleaner in Sheffield who has 3 vans and is very cheap IMO half my prices or less and is mainly pulled out with work.
Shaun
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I used to run an active referrall campaign. It worked really well and cost very little. Everyone tells you you've done a great job and they are going to pass your name on. They don't, you may get the odd friend and family member but thats it.
So make it worth their while to actively refer you. I used to hand them a sheet of vouchers, signed and dated with the customers name on. When I got 3 back from new customers the original one got 20 quid, that was 10 years ago.
The beauty of this is that I used to gets lots of ones and twos but only a few threes so over the couple of years I did this it didn't cost me much.
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I wonder how the OP is getting on now, 3 weeks later?
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I think I know who you mean Shaun, they have a reasonable reputation too, not one of the many we hear about regularly.
Every business has a different structure and costs associated with that, so one size does not fit all. One thing is certain, there are clients out there at every price level, you just have to decide where you sit and go out after that work, not worry about the rest. No matter how bad things get in the economy there will always be those who want really cheap and always those who are willing to pay. Domestic carpet cleaning is a little recession proof in that those who would never consider having cleaned and would just replace perhaps cant afford to just replace so now clean instead. This means if you work at that 'higher' end of the market they would never choose the cheapest cleaner as that just goes against the grain. To clean, let alone use the cheapest cleaner is just something they would not do. So you could say the 'higher' end of the market is less prone to the recession than the 'cheaper' end of the market. Add to that that some people start up carpet cleaning when they've been made redundant as they think it's easy and flood the market with cheap prices, that just adds more competition at the cheaper end.
If any of that makes sense?
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No not really Allan.
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Just kidding ;D
Yes there certainly been newbies flooding the market, but fortunately for us they are pretty clueless, and as you say are at the cheap end of the market.
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Allan are we thinking of the same company?
Sheffield based company use puzzis?
Shaun
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I thought more North Derbyshire/Sheffield boundry. Not sure what machine is but dinky yellow and black.
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Ooo I'm trying not to give the game away but ..... Fresh blank blank?
Shaun
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I know nothing! Don't think so tbh.
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Just kidding ;D
Yes there certainly been newbies flooding the market, but fortunately for us they are pretty clueless, and as you say are at the cheap end of the market.
You are right there Craig, however some quite long established CCs are packing up too. I know of at least three who have packed up in the last 18 months, because they couldn't get enough regular work. Are these new start ups with low prices to blame, who knows. I can only think that they never built up a very good repeat client base.
Dave.