Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Joe W Brown on March 20, 2013, 12:20:42 pm
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Back before christmas sales where flowing in nicely. Conversion rates where around or above 50% for every enquiry. For every £1 I spent with google adwords I made £3 in sales. Adwords was bringing in vast majority of my business.
Recently money has continued to be poured into adwords. Cost per click in adwords is around $3.50 at the moment to get me into top 3, much higher than before xmas. Very few enquiries and next to no conversions. My conversion rate (for the few enquiries ive been getting) seems to have withered down dramatically. Ive gone from scraping profit zone to being massively in loss.
And whats worse I have no idea why. I understand its a quiet time of month, but I have had over 80 clicks through adwords in the past week and not a single conversion.
80 x 3.50 & no conversions spells out disaster.
I have been working on improving my site, but maybe this has worked against me.
Got 5000 sexy looking leaflets on there way, with vouchers, but I doubt this will bail me out of crisis completely, if at all.
??? :(
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Get your Adwords quality score up and the cost will go down, position go up and get shown more..
Rule 101 - If you come up for the search term "carpet cleaner norwich"
Make sure your Adwords ad says Carpet Cleaner Norwich in the title and the description or similar.... Or you will pay through the nose.
Lots more to get your quality score up and things you could do with the site ie. landing pages for the smaller areas etc..
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Also change your location settings so your Adwords results only show in the area you cover. Save you loads of with SEO companies in Manchester clicking on you.
Also check where you are appearing. Google Search Network Partners (box in the options) used to be other search engines powered by Google, but is now ebay, youtube and many more...
Have a separate campaign for mobile devices with click to call function. Only pay if they click to call you. Works well with most having iPhones or the like now..
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Thanks Imola.
Is there a way to set an automatic ad title ie if someone types "carpet cleaner Norwich' the title will be 'carpet cleaner Norwich', if someone types 'carpet cleaner Norfolk' the title will be 'carpet cleaner Norfolk' etc?
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No. You have to have a campaign or ad group for each area service.
"Carpet cleaner Norwich" should be different ad to "carpet cleaner Sherringham" or "Upholstery cleaner Norwich" each with a different specific ad for the area or the service.
Pain but worth it..
Also are you using Exact keyword phases like "carpet cleaner norwich" or [carpet cleaner norwich] or just putting in broad phrases without using "phrase" or [phrase]
80 clicks even for a city like Norwich is a lot. Especially as you not getting anything from it..
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80 clicks sound like a another carpet cleaning company may be clicking on your ad, have you contacted google adwords team and asked them to check to see if all clicks are coming from same source?
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80 clicks in a week is not abnormally high for me. In fact its quite low. Before xmas I was hitting 20 clicks a day at one point. From that I was getting one conversion every 1-2 days. The CPC was much lower ($2 click zone) to be top place and ROI was quite good. Direct ROI being roughly 1:3.
Now CPC is much higher. Im paying $3-$4 per click just to be in top 3, sometimes even drifting onto the sidebar with that bid. And they have stopped converting almost completely.
Clicks are search only, no network.
Thanks again Imola. I will look into it.
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Joe, did you set up ad words yourself ?
I'm considering getting adwords myself once my website is improved but having adwords set up by a professional. Could save you a lot of your cash.
I spoke to Ash the other day and got some sound advice.
I also find that when the weather is as bad as it has been the enquiries stop. March 2012, I earned over 2k we had warm sunshine...this year as you say is dismal, I'm sure things will pick up.
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There are 2 Norwich place names in America, are you possibly getting clicks from there. Maybe it would be a good idea to ring google adwords for free advise on your campaign.
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How long you been going?
How many clients do you have?
Other than adwords and leaflets what other ways have you been getting new clients.
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Joe, did you set up ad words yourself ?
I'm considering getting adwords myself once my website is improved but having adwords set up by a professional. Could save you a lot of your cash.
I spoke to Ash the other day and got some sound advice.
I also find that when the weather is as bad as it has been the enquiries stop. March 2012, I earned over 2k we had warm sunshine...this year as you say is dismal, I'm sure things will pick up.
Hi Terry. set up myself. No money to outsource at the moment.
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There are 2 Norwich place names in America, are you possibly getting clicks from there. Maybe it would be a good idea to ring google adwords for free advise on your campaign.
The campaign is limited to people within 20 mile radius. I tend to watch traffic on my website realtime (it makes it really handy when I get a phonecall as I already tend to know where the person is based, how long theyv spent on my site, what page they are viewing etc!) Adwords traffic almost invariably comes from my area.
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Joe,
Don't panic. The thing to do when a quiet spell hits you is to not react by thinking it is just you, or one of your competitors have done something new that is sapping your calls, neither of which are true - it is just that the market is quiet. Best advice - cut your overheads as much as possible and WAIT for things to pick up. The worst thing you can do is spend all your reserves of money on a dead market and have nothing to spend when it picks up, which it will.
I'd even go as far as saying 'stop your adwords campaign' and let your competitors exhaust their funds and keep yours until it will do some good.
Simon
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Joe,
Following on from what Michael said above, are your Adwords ads sending traffic to your homepage?
If they are, then I suspect that your quality score will be lousy (obviously you can see that value whilst we cannot.
If it is poor, it may be worth, as Simon says, stopping the Adwords campaign.
In the meantime, add a highly optimised page to your site and point a brand new (not amended) campaign at this.
If people click on an ad saying "carpet cleaning norwich" they expect to land on a page about that.
That way you should start with a much better quality score (which, allied to your bid price and click through rate) should get you more clicks for a lot less money.
Another point Simon makes is don't throw money at daft things like directories, no matter how tempting they sound. It's easy to think "Oh if I only get one job from XXXXX". Most times you will get zero return.
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I'm finding my competitors at the top of Adwords have also got good sites but they are a lot cheaper than me and whatever people say they are taking away customers .ive not had a job for a week now . At the moment I'm going round local news agents putting adds in the window .not done this in a long time so will see how it goes del
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How long you been going?
How many clients do you have?
Other than adwords and leaflets what other ways have you been getting new clients.
1 year now.
Ive satisfied about 150 clients.
Ive experimented briefly with an advert in a local newsletter but didnt have much success. I dont think I had a single enquiry from it.
Groupon campaign last year. It wasnt terrible but I wouldnt repeat in a hurry.
SEO - i was spending over £300 a month on until recently. Im now first page number 5 for search term "carpet cleaner norwich' 'carpet cleaning norwich' im in top 3 for 'upholstery cleaner norwich' i think. Despite this not getting many clicks at all from organic. Not even sure if ive had one conversion from organic in the past few months.
Facebook - i invested a couple of hundred pounds into cpc paid facebook adverts. Untargated, to over 22 age if i remember rightly. First advert offering people chance to win a free carpet clean by liking the post. Second offering a free stain treatment by liking the post. Campaign went terribly. 30-40 people signed up for s free stain treatment, i sent them all messages to ask for there phone number so I could phone them to arrange a time to come round. Not a single person replied. Actually 2 people replied to say theyd clicked the button by accident.
Adwords has been pulling in vast majority of my work until recently when results from it flopped.
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Simon and Garry - thanks ever so much for your advice.
Benny - i wonder the same thing. adverts im competing with on adwords include
"whole house £79 deep cleaned. Free stainsheeld and alergyguard."
"Lounge, Dining Rm, Hall, Stairs and
Landing carpets cleaned for £29.99!"
"any 4 carpets cleaned £89
3 bedroom house £119"
Its crazy.
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You say you have no money for paying for someone to run the adwords for you properly but for a fraction of the £300 monthly spend then someone could save you a fortune and reduce your CPC. I'm sure someone would have a quick look for you on here to let you know what they could do???
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Ok so you have done well in twelve months. This can be a quiet time and dont forget the serps and adwords will be people already thinking of carpet cleaning so if there aint anybody looking then you have to create interest now.
Sounds like your adwords is going wrong somewhere though. Are you taking out phrases that are not getting clicks? Are you setting up new ad groups for phrases that are working? Or did you just run it and leave it alone?
I think your best bet is to go back to the people you worked for a year ago and offer them something they would find hard to resist right now, not when the sun comes out or the kids are back at school but now.
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It is a big problem mate if people phone them first the web sites look good the price is good people will use them .and there's nothing we can do about it . Lets face it if I wasn't in this business there advertising would work on me . Del
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Adwords is a bidding system so the more hoohahs and whoop dee doo's there are about Adwords, the more competition you get and the more you will pay regardless if your campaign is setup correct or not.
There are a lot of big organisations dropping Adwords at the moment, like Ebay for one
With all the updates Google does with organic rankings, people are being driven in droves onto adwords which is what Google probably want ££££££££ 8)££££££££
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20 clicks a day with 1 job from that is very low
Have you worked out how much you are paying to gain a customer???
I'm pretty sure its not very economical at $2 per click based on your conversion rates
This is an avenue you need to drop. Its alluring because once its setup it sits on auto pilot but the numbers are not adding up
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Joe
You say this earlier in this thread: "Ive experimented briefly with an advert in a local newsletter but didnt have much success. I dont think I had a single enquiry from it."
I run ad words campaigns but dont spend enough to get me out of the sidebar very often into the top three - I have good organic results and I advertise my website in the newspaper - In fact I sort of changed the company name to allow me to do this - I advertise ON THE FRONT of the local freesheet and it is consistently good money spent - I have been on the front of the local freesheet with my url advert for over two years - newspapers is not like turning a tap on and off you are getting the public to accept you as a fixture - then when they need you they have some recollection of seeing an advert on the freesheet about carpets - newspapers still work but only if you get a good position
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Joe,
We had a similar situation in Southampton where the Adword advertisers were all at the cheap end of the market and the only way to compete with them was on price, which we did for a bit. We got a lot of calls but ended up with people fussing over a fiver. We then stopped adwords, took the prices off our sites and put them up to normal and relied on our websites and the call count went down a bit but business went up.
The illusion is that people want cheap and that the only way to compete with a competitor is to beat him on price - both are totally and utterly wrong.
Don't get transfixed by what your competitors are charging, if they want to work for nothing, let'em. There are plenty of people in Norwich that will very happy pay the going rate for a top quality job, all you need to do is point your advertising towards them. These type of people won't buy from the cheapest, they've tried them in the past and learned their lesson.
I'm not suggesting you charge top end prices but you should let the price you charge be dictated to by your competitors.
Simon
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Warren A, thats right, I notice that yell.com are now doing well on page 1 and gumtree is, plus maps, its all to knock us off first page and drive us into adwords
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Joe, I'd gladly take a look at your campaign to see if I can give you some pointers, at no charge.
Info@pagecrest.co.uk
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Ash... can you look at mine please..
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As long as you mean your Adwords, yes of course ;D
Email the address above with your customer I'd and I'll take a look later.
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email sent, many thanks Ash.
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email sent, many thanks Ash.
Notice he hasnt answered your question Ash. ;D
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lol Definitely my adwords. ;D
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Your inbox is going to be full of people wanting to show you
there's thiers Ash! :P
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Joe
I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click
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Ah Joe, chin up.
Hope you feel more positive this evening. It was nice to meet you yesterday.
Like we said we'll help you if we can.
Best wishes Vicki
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Joe
I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click
I hope so. Leaflets arriving tomorrow, so I will soon find out :)
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Ah Joe, chin up.
Hope you feel more positive this evening. It was nice to meet you yesterday.
Like we said we'll help you if we can.
Best wishes Vicki
Thanks Vicki :)
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Joe
I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click
I hope so. Leaflets arriving tomorrow, so I will soon find out :)
Leafleting works for me - though it's a tough way to get new customers.
1 days hard leafleting = approx 2 new jobs (in my limited experience)...
Don't leave any gates open.
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My next batch of leaflets should be here next week .but I've not had a carpet cleaning jub for 8 days its never been this bad :'( :'( del
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My next batch of leaflets should be here next week .but I've not had a carpet cleaning jub for 8 days its never been this bad :'( :'( del
How it picks up for you soon.
What have you been doing during the quiet times? In Feb I spent nearly 3 weeks learning/playing with Adwords & SEO & web development... and trying to avoid going out into the cold, leafleting.
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Benny you live in a highly populated area and you have no work ?
Do you go out ?
I tend to talk a lot which can be a pain sometimes but usually i pick up a good few jobs like that ,
I tend to live and breath carpet cleaning which in turn leads to work i have hundreds of photos of jobs we've done and i use these in ads all the time
we stick local and saturate advertising in that area regular instead of spreading to thin .
i haven't paid for advertising for over a year now but work hard at all the available free ads available or leaflets i have left just delivering 10 where ever im working ,picked up two jobs in one day doing that and both within 100 yards of each other .
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" Lets face it if I wasn't in this business there advertising would work on me"
Hit the nail on the head there.
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Although it will be condemned by every Tom and Dick but maybe not Harry, if you are literally SKINT and there can be many reasons why some one might be, you need to generate money to simply get by.
What 99% of businesses do when times are tough is to HAVE A SALE / OFFER DEALS / ADVERTISE WHERE IT'S NOTICED and that is still in your LOCAL NEWSPAPER.
IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER A DAMN THAT THE " TYPE " OF CUSTOMER YOU GET WILL MOST LIKELY BE " ONE OFF'S " AS YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MARKETING ANY TIME YOU LIKE TO TARGET SPECIFIC GROUPS.
Cash flow is KING ( obviously there needs to be enough profit involved ) and if you are fit enough and capable enough of doing five or six jobs a day it will do you no harm whatsoever to work the lower end of the market for a while. I don't mean the BOTTOM of the market, but it should be relatively easy to generate work that will return you around £25 plus per hour.
I know that's a lot less than some will claim they won't get out of bed for and is less than I aimed for 20 years ago, but times ARE tough right now so you do what you have to do.
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^^ Thanks, thats got me motivated to go around all the tralier parks in West Sussex.^^
My new advert headline...
" No trailer too small. And a free spittoon with any cleaning" ;D
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Hi at the moment my site is high on the generic and is hovering around the top of Adwords I put out 20,000 leaflet per month I also contact previous customers . It's odd I get work from previous customers but it not usually the ones I've contacted it's ones looking for me . My latest plan of action is putting leaflets in local shop windows so fingers crossed ;) del
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"3 bedroom house £119"
If times were that hard you could undercut that
and still make a decent living.
You could do it at £100.
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"3 bedroom house £119"
What does that mean though?
I've just completed a 5 bedroomed house which took me a day and a half.
At the prices above I'd have been paid about £150. I charged far more than that!
But I cleaned every square inch of the carpet, properly, and did a little washing up, and unblocked their sink, and moved loads of furniture. Oh, and patted the dog on the head.
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A day and half for a five bedroom house ??? Crikey, that's three hours to me and that's with stopping for a brew. :o
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A day and half for a five bedroom house ??? Crikey, that's three hours to me and that's with stopping for a brew. :o
Blimey... at my prices, and your efficiency, that's, er... 5bed house x 3hrs x 3 jobs per day x 6 day week x 52 weeks per year = £1,000,000.01p a year turnover ;D
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There's 5 bedroom houses and 5 bedroom houses.
I did one last month. £3 million quid and over 5000 ft2 of carpet alone, that's without all the marble floors and bathrooms.
I spent the first 2 hours just running the hoses and protecting everything.
a day and a half's work and a lucrative job ticket price.
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David,
'Efficiency' is the word ;)
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I have no idea what David charged or what Simon would charge but a day and a half' work could be £1000 where as 3 hours could be £100 !!! I'm sure you can see my point anyway.
Disclaimer there are other cleaners and prices available.
Shaun
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I think there is an issue with saying to a client that it will take a day and a half just to clean the carpets in a 5 bedroom house which with the right equipment and an efficient work ethnic can be done in a matter of hours.
Simon
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Just meant a bog standard 3 bed, living room and hsl.
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I think there is an issue with saying to a client that it will take a day and a half just to clean the carpets in a 5 bedroom house which with the right equipment and an efficient work ethnic can be done in a matter of hours.
Simon
There are so many variables - e.g. size of the rooms, and how much furniture needs shifting - this one had a grand piano, and a dining table that was so heavy I couldn't easily lift a corner up to get my sliders under... amongst other things.
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When it comes to moving furniture.. If it is going to break or give me a hernia.. it stays where it is unless the custard moves it.......
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I quoted a customer to clean her lounge carpet she asked if I would be there all day, people's perceptions are different.
Shaun
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i do,every now and then get a run of price shopping peasants but most of my work in the last 3 months have been rec or repeats so the price isnt an issue, make them a great offer and they will ring..especially now spring is in the air....IS THAT SNOW ON THE HILLS?
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I think there is an issue with saying to a client that it will take a day and a half just to clean the carpets in a 5 bedroom house which with the right equipment and an efficient work ethnic can be done in a matter of hours.
Simon
There are so many variables - e.g. size of the rooms, and how much furniture needs shifting - this one had a grand piano, and a dining table that was so heavy I couldn't easily lift a corner up to get my sliders under... amongst other things.
David,
I seriously hope you aren't moving all of those things, if you are you'd better tell your insurance company.
We won't move heavy tables, pianos. bookcases, wardrobes etc and I can't remember the last time someone considered that an issue.
How much did you charge for that job, if you don't mind me asking?
Simon
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I think there is an issue with saying to a client that it will take a day and a half just to clean the carpets in a 5 bedroom house which with the right equipment and an efficient work ethnic can be done in a matter of hours.
Simon
There are so many variables - e.g. size of the rooms, and how much furniture needs shifting - this one had a grand piano, and a dining table that was so heavy I couldn't easily lift a corner up to get my sliders under... amongst other things.
David,
I seriously hope you aren't moving all of those things, if you are you'd better tell your insurance company.
We won't move heavy tables, pianos. bookcases, wardrobes etc and I can't remember the last time someone considered that an issue.
How much did you charge for that job, if you don't mind me asking?
Simon
I tried PMing you - no PM button.
No, I don't move that type of furniture either... I didn't move the piano. However, I did have to lift the very heavy table (leg by leg) as it was on top of a huge wool rug, which needed shifting out of the way. There was a large amount of 'other' furniture to be moved, like sofa's (5), more dining tables (2), some big armchairs (er, 6), coffee tables (lots) etc etc... I would guestimate I spent 3 hours shifting furniture in total.
I worked really hard on this job - 7 hrs no break on day 1 (yes, I was kn*ck*r*d). I might not be super efficient, but I can't imaging doing the job more than 10% quicker if I was.
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David,
You can email me if you wish.
simon@gerrardscarpetcleaners.co.uk
Simon
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David mister shifter ;D
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David mister shifter ;D
do you know this piano is on my foot, you avit son i'll play it ;D
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Robert Meldrum. Excellent post. At last someone who talks some sense on this site. Very few and far between.
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Robert Meldrum. Excellent post. At last someone who talks some sense on this site. Very few and far between.
Erm, it might be a good idea to get a few posts of your own under your belt before insulting the rest of us. ;D
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Now Simon, i wonder who this one is :D
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Joking aside I've got a job come through from my website for Wigan if you are interested Simon?
email me shaun_ashmore@lineone.net
Shaun
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Robert Meldrum. Excellent post. At last someone who talks some sense on this site. Very few and far between.
Not content with one ego, he now has an alter ego. ;D
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Now Simon, i wonder who this one is :D
Mmmm, it has been more than a week.
I wonder............ ;D
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David, your quite new to the business aren't you?
One lesson you need to learn quick is dont get bullied by the customer (remember, your "the man"), dont move everything single piece of furniture. 3 hours moving furniture on one job is unheard of.
Some customers would be happy for you to be there all day cleaning a single room! But this is not thier fault, they dont realise whats involved in professional carpet cleaning.
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Charge more, 4 good jobs a week should do you, honestly running around working for peanuts will get you no where.
Charging more means surviving on a lot less jobs. You cant have 4 jobs a day, so price accordingly.
Doing 4 jobs a week at £200 is better than doing 6 at £60, man get the calculator out.
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when advertising pays you advertise, when it does nt you do nt.
It is common sense to increase your advertising budget when it is effective, when business is hard to come by you go not buy in work.
Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com (http://www.carpetcleanercardiff.com)
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Joe.
Every £ 3.50 click on Adwords is the equivalent of six or seven stamps.
In a quiet period, sit down and write a nice letter to your existing clients (even very recent ones).
Say something like this...
Hi, I hope you are well? I wonder if I could ask a favour?
Could I give you some money?
I have been looking at my business costs and my advertising spend is going through the roof. If (and only if) you were delighted with the work I did for you; how would you feel about making some money for yourself and helping me cut my costs (and prices) down?
Then go on to offer them a cash commission for referrals
I'll send you the copywriting bill later ;D
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Joe, I've sent you an e-mail.
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Now Simon, i wonder who this one is :D
Mmmm, it has been more than a week.
I wonder............ ;D
I often wonder at the mentality of some on here. Over the past year I'd thought a couple had become more pleasant and less self centred seems I was wrong.
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Robert, it was not directed at you.
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I know who Andrew L was. If you think about it, it's not hard to work out. ;)
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he just tried to confuse by NOT talking about committees :o
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Robert, it was not directed at you.
OK Paul I should know better than make assumptions !
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I know who Andrew L was. If you think about it, it's not hard to work out. ;)
AKA The phantom
whatever the name used he would be hard pushed to hide that special inane quality.
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stop it James :P :P :P
;D
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stop it James :P :P :P
;D
I am getting worried Hector, your avatar is quite hypnotic, woo hoo :-[
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I am getting worried Hector, your avatar is quite hypnotic, woo hoo :-[
Which bit do you keep staring at? :o ;D
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I am getting worried Hector, your avatar is quite hypnotic, woo hoo :-[
Which bit do you keep staring at? :o ;D
;D ;D ;D
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(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1364239629_icon_redface.gif)
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"3 bedroom house £119"
What does that mean though?
I've just completed a 5 bedroomed house which took me a day and a half.
At the prices above I'd have been paid about £150. I charged far more than that!
But I cleaned every square inch of the carpet, properly, and did a little washing up, and unblocked their sink, and moved loads of furniture. Oh, and patted the dog on the head.
We've just done a 5 bedroom house top-to-bottom in 2 hours ten minutes from arriving to leaving. Ok it was empty and we had more than a little help from a Titan 875 :o
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Stopped for a lunch break in the middle of the job, did you? :P
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Nipped to maccies for a big mac meal with all the trimmings ;D
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i was jealous at Titan but now your just takin the peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. lol
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Derek,
I thought you'd given up Maccies.
We had Big Mac, Large fries, chocolate shake and a chocolate muffin..... Jealous? ;D
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lets just say i've cut down. ;D
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Ha ha, knew you wouldn't be able to resist ;D ;D