Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: bennymon on November 28, 2008, 04:13:54 pm
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hi folks this year has been pretty good for me until now . next week i dont have a single job booked in . my next 20,000 leaflets start going out next week so fingers crossed as this is usually a busy time of year. is anyone els this quiet del :'(
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I had 11k flyers go out two weeks ago and have another 11k going out next week. although I have a lot on it all seems to be small jobs. Normally this time of year I am stacked out. Just goes to show what a goverment can do, no one is spending money and if they are its as little as possible
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Had a very good September, above average October, average November but now going quiet. Just a few jobs booked for December so far.
Pity I dont charge VAT, I am sure the 2.5% reduction would get them flocking to their phones ::)
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Fully booked, most through our sites, don't do leaflets.
S
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Been mental here ,had 3 dead weeks then bang ! been doing 4 jobs a day ,not been this flat out before,not sure whats going on,not been doing any advertising,only yellow pages and net.Did a clean for some polish people and got on with them really well,they even cooked me polish food to try ! knocked some money off their bill,and they have now told the entire polish population that live around this way !
done about 5 jobs through the letting agy this week,only just started getting cals from them again,had 3 months where they didn`t give me anything ! finding that it all balances out really,the really busy times make up for the realy dead times,have learnt to keep some money aside for emergency`s though,lot`s of my jobs this week have been cash,and they have not wanted invoices ;D Trouble is it`s all gotta go in the bank for my tax bill,rev are going to hammer me next year !
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Same as Spence, cant possibly squeeze anyone else in next week. Recently been working 6 days a week to cope - all mostly high end jobs too which is good. Dont do leaflets either.
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Got a busy week next week and have some booked up the week after :)
Had a v good september and good october and november :)
Have not done any more of my leaflets as yet ::)
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just got one booked in for the 29th, the day after a party, if its too bad i'm walkin.
derek
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Ive got 5 jobs booked and 4 quotes ,im just ticking over nicely.
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Derek
IT was me that put the wrong phone number in my phone ::)
It was a totally dif number i put in lol
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Hi Guys
I am really steady at the moment, although the phone was uncannily quiet this morning, not a call.
Checked diversion and like a plonker I'd forgot !!
Put it back lunchtime and it started ringing again.
Whats been particularly noice this past couple of weeks is good quality enquiries, very little price shopping.
Cheers
Doug
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next week is booked up, the following weeks leading up to xmas all the morning are booked with suites (for some reason I've had a big run on suites just lately)
most of Jan & Feb is booked up because of my 'buy 1, get the rest of the house free' offer :D :D
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hi doug i need your help i will give you a call cheers del
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Good to see all you guys are really busy, you can all turn your phones off now for the rest of December. I have got to know loads of cleaners around my area and none of them ever say they are booked out for weeks, ever. Christmas is never the best anyway, Give me a July and August anyday over Xmas.
Its seems really strange to me that customers book so far in advance as most only book 3 weeks out at a max. Most dont no what they are doing next week let alone 1 or 2 months out.
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Steady work right up to 22nd December. Mostly all referrals and repeat customers.
My mind boggles at the amount of leaflets Bennymon and Lavinia are putting out. I wouldn't have used 10,000 leaflets in ten years or more.
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Was hoping to have next week off, phoned customer today Saturday’s work postponed till Tuesdays. One collation won’t have to pay time and half.
Len
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Booked solid for next week now, i look at it in this way, as long as i have work for the next 2 days im happy, no matter what time of year it is.
I have had the best year ever the credit crunch/recession has had no effect on business at all.
Mark
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Had a quieter autumn than normal up till about 2 weeks ago then BOOM... but have recently put steps in place to get a few more customers, so hopefully not sitting on my backside in the first 2 months of the year like usual.
I've got the next 2 weeks almost fully booked up, only about 5 free days left in the diary before Xmas, which is a relief after spending half of September and October looking at blank pages.
For me, it normally dies off a little into September after a busy summer, then gets steadily more busy up to Xmas... but hasn't followed that pattern at all this year. Loads of jobs have been low-value but for decent clients, rather than crap jobs for crap clients.
Funny old world.
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Same here jim
There has not been a pattern in my work either this year :)
Maybe thats how it will unfold the same next year :)
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Yep same here fully booked till March 22nd ;D
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mark
are you honestly saying that, if i got my wife to ring you and pretend to be a custy who wanted some carpets cleaning, when she asked "how soon could you do it" your answer would be, not until the 23rd of march 2009, and i'm guessing the waiting list is still growing?
unless your charging a £1 a carpet, or you only do 1 job a week, then i take my hat off too ya mate, thats phenomanal.
does anyone else have trouble swallowing this, or am i a naive newbie.
FULLY booked up, seriously?
yours
sceptical derek
ps, if your fully booked up, i'm guessing thats sort of £1500 to £2000 a week, gauranteed for the next 4 months.
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;D i found a bit exagerated
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He does have to pay for his new Truckmount :D :D
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'fully booked' to some is part time to others.
someone will say they are fully booked, then in another post say they are home for 1pm every day.
I''d be fully booked a month ahead all the time if I only did 1 job a day and went home at dinnertime.
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1 job a day ;D
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Got 2 on today 10.30 start,1st job 80 odd take hour or so,2nd job 2 bed house,got to wait for the call to say removal men have been ! 1 bed room stairs land and lounge £116.Then thats me until monday,one job so far monday lounge and stairs £100.Then will hopefully be putting my new heater motor in the van ! no fun went in feb this year and not got around to sorting it out,think i am cming down with something,having wet feet and jeans ,did a sofa yesterday and my jeans were soaked ,getting into a cold van with no heat afterwards was not nice.
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;D ;D ;D
Sorry lads just making the point you have to take what people say with a pinch.
Booked a week in advance.
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Got two jobs next week, lounge carpet £70 then another lounge, stairs and landing and one bedroom £140 and tiled floor in kitchen/utility clean and polish, remove one broken tile and re grout £150.00. Then tiling rest of the week.
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in the 6 months ive been trading ive never been fully booked, not even for one day.
am i bovvered?
am i f**k :)
derek
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Mark
How are you finding your new set up ???
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I've got a space at 4pm on the 15th and the 2 days knowone wants Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd in the afternoon.
Shaun
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Clinton getting new setup on Thursday.
Derek with your positive attitude you'll have more work than any of us (even Shaun) after a year or two.
Find allot custys want weekends scared to take time off.
Mark
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Mark
Sorry thought you got it leas few weeks ::)
Be good to know how you get on mate and am sure you will be getting your outlay back in no time mark :)
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Cancellation for next Saturday afternoon, woooooh is me ???
Shaun
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looks like shauns on one of his many wii fits next saturday, might come round and woop his ass.
derek
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;D
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13 jobs booked next week (mon-fri),3 a day except tue , just 1 but its a 9am til 1:30pm but need to take new baby to see some of the Mrs family in the afternoon .
13 jobs = £930 not the best but put the prices up with the regs is going to be a slow process
I posted some time ago saying that i have lots of bookings for next year and was hit with lots of " O yes we belive you NOT ! " and all that crap !!!!!!
I do and DONT see why folk dont belive , Ive now today got 247 ;) jobs pre booked for next year with this system ive adapted to marketing my lil CC biz and its a non aggressive . in the run up to xmas Ive got 48 jobs pre booked inc the 13 from mon and most are recos & regs, however I dont have a web page JUST yet & no yel., just yel pages bt book and had 8k leaflets dropped and recos .
I recon 33% of my new work is reco . and my regs reco me for there gain !
LAST YEAR IN DEC THE BIZ TOOK £1586 FOR THE WHOLE OF THE MONTH !!!!!
but I was just a helper watching and learning ( STILL LEARNING )
I spend 7 days a week working on my biz and developing .
***********My clients market my biz for me************
A very ped off Ricky
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Yes exactly. ;D
Nice size advert in YP, 4 web sites out there with 3 in the first 3 pages and we don't even get enough enquiries to fill up the next 2 weeks never mind actual jobs converted.
As for 22,000 leaflets going out, somethings not right as most believe in 1% return in enquires. Thats 220 enquiries. Convert 50% to jobs and that should be enough to keep someone buisy for a whole month. ;)
Good to see all you guys are really busy, you can all turn your phones off now for the rest of December. I have got to know loads of cleaners around my area and none of them ever say they are booked out for weeks, ever. Christmas is never the best anyway, Give me a July and August anyday over Xmas.
Its seems really strange to me that customers book so far in advance as most only book 3 weeks out at a max. Most dont no what they are doing next week let alone 1 or 2 months out.
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Neil, no one belives in a 1% return on lealfets, like you say that would bring in a vast amount of work. its more like 0.01% which on 22k lealfets would bring in 22 enquiries/jobs
Ricky, if you want people to believe you don't say......
this system ive adapted to marketing my lil CC biz and its a non aggressive
..........in the amount of time it took to type that you could have just told us what it is. as a guess you proberbly tell the customer their carpets need cleaning yearly so rebook each job as you leave.
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it really depends how you put the leaflets out, i had 22,000 go in my local newspapers, had about 8 calls!!
however, i can spend a few hours putting out 5-600 and i will get 4-5 calls sometimes
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Exactly Russ ;)
You're only putting them in houses you want to work at, which is obvious but unattainable with blanket-coverage methods such as papers.
Secondly, you're presenting your message on its own, so it is taken on its own merit. That's in stark contrast to the pile of crap that falls out of a newspaper, or the "junk" that comes with your post, both of which are filtered off and thrown out much more readily than a single flyer that's left trapped in the letter box (i never push them through ;) )
It's just a shame it's so labour-intensive, you can't realistically expect to be able to put out enough leaflets on your own full-time because you wouldn't be cleaning any carpets!
Guys like Mike are lucky to have their own trusted deliverers, I think that's honestly the only way to get it done properly and cost-effectively in a high enough volume.
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Derek all of the Wii's have gone to Santa, if I'm a good lad (which I always am ::)) then I should be getting one from Mr.Claus.
Shaun
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Will put my wii under the tree tmor and all the other stuff that comes with it :)
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Ricky
Do you have a background in sales / marketing ?
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ive come pretty close to putting my wii under the xmas tree a feww times, but i don't drink as much now so its usually out the back door. ;D only with stella though.
derek
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Firstly a lot of what you read on these boards is bravado and total crap. As mike says some do in one day what some others will do in three hours.
In 9 years Ive never been booked solid more than two weeks in advance. Sure theres commercial contracts booked every 3-6 months but residential will not wait for more than a week or so no matter how good you are. Also what about stain removal accidents for regulars. They wont wait either.
As long as your meeting your weekly/monthly target does it matter how far booked you are.
Mark
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Have to agree in principle with the above although I have actually 2 to do week after next that were booked in late October.
Like he says most of them want it the following week or will usually wait for the week after, any longer and usually you get the old "I'll get back to you"
John
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Carlton care , 12 years both sides and recruiting .
mm talking out the back of eh . LOL all the way to the bank !!!!!!! ;D ;D
oops watch me over stretch next years add budget an go PO ;) ;)P
mind u no debts loans or leases ere so erm erm yes wateva
Ricky 8)
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It's interesting to hear what you guys are saying here,according to the news here,England is in a bad state,and everyone wants to come to Australia to live.I know my nephew has his own plastering business,and is only getting one or two days a week there.
anyway good on ya, keep up the good work.
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What's the economy like in Oz at the moment? I thought the credit crunch was global?
Shaun
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There's deffinetly been a slow down,a Co. i subby for,turned away around 100 jobs last Nov,but this year,stiil had spaces.interest rates dropping again today,they need to IMO. Must go do a job see ya.
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interest rate drops are ok for the lower earning people, but it also affects the better off too, if you had 100,000 in the bank your probably a few grand a year worse off, so they will be cutting back on things, which are generally more expensive jobs. but will get more jobs from lower earners, all swings and roundabouts (in theory, well thats how i see it ???)
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It's easy to respond to a post like Ricky Thomson's with the usual " Yeah, sure, etc " but, what if he's developed a genuine method for generating an increased amount of work, from the customers he's dealt with ?
There are obvious ways of doing that, but thinking about it, is not the same as doing it !
Marketing is all about DOING not DREAMING and I've been guilty myself, for years, of failing to put ideas into action. My problem has always been looking for the next good idea, instead of just doing it. Maybe Ricky is a DOER rather than a THINKER
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Anyone who has been in the recruiting game understands the importance of referral and repeat business, well the better ones do. ::)
But more importantly they bring with them the skills to elicit them.
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Carlton , your very rite about the DOING its some times just knowing how to start or where to start
the primary idea :o
if mine grows at this rate next year and I can say it was a triumph with each of the 4 goals
archived then I will gladly talk to you about it as long as your 50 miles away from me ;)
Mike, 470 ish hired from £150 per week roles to £52,000+ roles and I cant spell can only just use computer, and my Writing is only just legible but long hours, 7 day weeks took me where I needed
Trying to the same with this industry .
TO OFFER A SERVICE , TO TAKE BUT TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK YOU WILL GAIN 3 TIMES OVER .
Ricky
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Good for you mate!
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Oh dear dear... it's like ego spagetti. This time next year we'll be millionaires :D
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just nailed a £300 quidder tonight, WOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
sorry.
newbie.
we're allowed to get a bit excited.
derek
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Sounds good derek :)
What you doing for them mate ???
The viking on you mate soon :)
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Domestic or commercial?
Shaun
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domestic 4 bed.
viking lager all round.
only while stocks last.
derek
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Derek
Its a good job under your belt mate :)
You can always send us a crate of the san miguel :D
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in this weather? brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
fosters super chilled.
derek
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Now your talking derek ;D
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Carling Premier is the way ahead.
Or even Hoffmeister!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I used to like them cans of Long Life, can you still get them?
John
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Currently drinking cobra from a can, not bad, 5%, quid a can!
cant be bad.
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a quid a can , don.t you were in a recession
John
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there were cheaper drinks there, but, just like one of my customers, i went for quality over cheapness ;D
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:) I'm on meths tonight
John
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fabric restorer with a fibre and fabric chaser, pints of course, and a micro splitter for the ladies, ;D
derek
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and some nice de-odoriser, m-power cocktail nightcap
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John
I have heard you brew your own traffords finest ;D
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Must be earning some money Derek, I've just had to throw one of the kids on the fire, made sure I took his wages off him first though.
Shaun