[Ged]

i have a number of clients who like to have their paving cleaned each year. am considering offering reduced price cleans in exchange for comitment to yearly repeat work. so as to drastically reduce advertising and getting a head start filling the diary  for the following season.  any thoughts folks?

Ged

[steve doyle]

Interesting idea ged,

I dont think you should offer discount for current customers who use you yearly, whats the point,your just losing money?
these customers i would just phone march time, "to book them in for the same time as last year-because you are getting lots of work coming in for around that time".. in the diary job done!

The ones to offer the discount to is your customers who dont have it done yearly, If you can convert them by offering them 15-20% discount if they agree to a yearly clean then you are going to make money.

its tough tho because you need to have enough margin in your jobs, eg

1 job price £150.  = profit £130?
2 jobs @ 20% discount ; £120+ £120= £240 less costs say £40 = £200 profit

so your only getting an extra £70 for twice the work.

I think it could work ged but i would be doing this sparingly and only on jobs with plenty of profit in.
You can easily work it out by deciding, am i prepared to do this drive again for just  over half price?
On the other hand jobs are often picked up by being out and about and if your quite then any profit is welcome.

any help?

steve
 

[Ged]

thanks steve
wasn't planning on discounting current repeats. get your point about margins. this year has been very quiet so just pondering over ideas for next season. i figure better to be out with machines as much as possible even if lower profit margin per job. this year due to bad weather i think, spent more than enough days with rig parked up in garage. i notice people are feeling the pinch around here maybe due to interest rates going up and a really noticable slow down in the economy and housing market.

Cheers

Ged

[mark.laycock1@ntlw]

hi ged how do you advertise washing.

[drivewasher]

I agree with Steve on this one. The repeat jobs I get from the early days (2005)
I'm chunnering and moaning to her indoors about doing them for that price, as we priced jobs to get them. If I priced them this year they would be probably double. I can't charge double, but have started to add the odd £10/£15 on the job and the custy never flinches. I belive the difference they see is the swinginging factor

As being quiet this year I have done from March to November almost the same as last year (a touch more) still an odd job coming in, one to do tomorow. So I figured if we hadn't have had the wettest summer on record I would have done more. Folk aren't interested in the gardens if they can't sit in them

Hold on in there and don't do owt stupid youll regret in 2 years time.

I'm going to deep service all me gear, and weld some of the metal back on me van that the water has rusted off with me new mig welder

[Ged]

mark
local free press, leaflets, cold call, adverts through tesco, networking with chamber of commerce, sign written boards,

Ged