There has been some very aggressive marketing going on lately near where I live.
Flyer's everywhere, through the door, on shop counters, and in shop windows.
This flyer in full colour was for a firm calling themselves 1st Choice Window Cleaning.
Sure to be near the top of the yellow pages list with that name.
I took my hat off to them, they are certainly making a good effort.
I have been thinking of passing on some local work and had been thinking of contacting them.
Well I met them today, two young guys with a well lettered car and I got talking to them. They were trad, not a scrim or micro between them, although to be fair the tea towels looked quite clean.
The elder of the two told me that they had already built up a customer base of 1300. Very impressive. They had come to my village to clean a couple of old council houses. I asked how much they were charging, they told me £4.50 a house. Now this work is my least lucrative, and due a good price rise. I charge £6.00 WFP, but this is made up for to some extent by being on my doorstep and very compact.
With a 1300 customer base, how the hell do you find time to travel 3 miles for £9.00?
I told them that their pricing needed urgent revision. They said that they couldn't charge more because a company called new pin cleaning was undercutting their prices.
I despair, I really do. 1300 under priced jobs is a hell of a big rod they have made for their own backs.
When are newby's going to learn, you don't build a successful cleaning business by undercutting everyone else.
They got the marketing right, and forgot to research the pricing of local jobs.
I tried to direct them onto this site, but only one had a PC, and that has no Internet access. Dai