[clinton]

I would maybe think of pulling out of the bury times wayne as we have the same one here in stockport(the stockport times)Its also full of half price this n that and even with you saying your quality wont really help mate.

[wayne zabel]

I will probably keep adverts in the papers until Xmas and have a rethink after that.I also have ads in about 3 A5 glossy magazines that get pushed through doors monthly which I have got some good responses from in the past.

I think your right about the papers,it seems the only ones phoning after reading them are price shoppers wanting cheap work.

Like you said I just have to keep hanging in there for a few years to get established.I have been doing better than I thought I would but the last 2 weeks have been dead phone call wise where as before I was getting regular calls/queries.I suppose its the vaugaries of CC which I will have to get used to.

[markpowell]

What paper do you advertise in wayne ???Bury times etc?

Yes the Bury Times and the Prestwich Advertiser which is full of cheapo CC offering to clean 2 for £35 and beat any other quotes.I have started a new advert last week saying I might be beaten on price but not quality,yet to have any calls from that one

Wayne,
Every carpet cleaner in the uk is up against these half price cleaners etc, dont waste your money or time competing move your marketing spend onto something else, postcards, website etc
Mark

[robert meldrum]

DEREK

Read your posts and I think you'll find it was you who was criticising offers and Mike who agrees with offers from his pretty extensive experience in this marketplace.

If you subscribe to the thinking of any marketing programme, seminar, business school, or anything to do with prospecting for customers you will always find they always suggest you have an " offer " included in your advertising. The purpose being to CATCH ATTENTION rather than make your service appear CHEAP.

Even M & S have offers as do Harrods etc,etc. It gets the phone ringing or in their case people through the doors.

[Mike Halliday]

mike
not sure where you get snobbery and pride from but if i don't believe they work then i express this on a forum, thats what forums are for, different opinions, right or wrong. and i'm not saying i'm right, but from my experiences to date, they only cost me money rather than generate more money.

makes me laugh how a lot on here haven't got the time of day for price shoppers then deliberately encourage them to ring with offers. don't make sense.

would you really fall for 20% off without checking to see if it was genuine or not by comparing other prices elsewhere?

anyway my point is we're in the service and maintenance trade which is completely different to retail. we all know carpet cleaning can't be compared in price like a samsung tv can be. so for me personally, the idea is to sell your USP rather than offer discounts on invisible prices.
i'm sure discounts work for some on here but wayne needs to hear both sides of the coin so to speak. just giving my side.

ps....we can get all snobby about it and say how we don't believe in offers but we all believe in making money and if an offer can'T be used to create more income then we should swallow our pride.
works both ways mike

Derek I get the feeling from your post that you think my post and the snob & pride comments are aimed at you, but they are not, my opinion that some carpet cleaners think that they are too  good to use offers comes from yonks of talking to carpet cleaners and reading these forums. I see the same comments time & time again how all you need to do is do a good job and the phone will start ringing and you'll be snowed under with work....you don't need offers just do excellent work.

we are disagreeing on this but thats because we are both intelligent knowledgeable bloke who have different opinions on the subject it make neivver of us right or wrong . ( although I think you are a little bit wronger than me )

[clinton]

Wayne another paper is the manchester evening news and thats also part of the bury times now and they do offers for placing an advert..

[derek west]

bob
totally agree if i was in retail,but this is the service industry, this is where my opinion differs, i honestly don't believe offers work anymore better than if you can grab there attention with something else and therefore deviate yourself from the price issue.

wether it be drying times, quality of work or something else i'm actually working on.

i honestly believe if you sent out 2 different leaflets (diff phone numbers), one with all the offers guys do on here and another which spoke about quality at a reasonable price.
lets say 10,000 leaflets to the same houses on the same day.

i'm confident that both leaflets would get the same responce rate.


but, the ones without the offers on would be easier to convert into well paid jobs.

leaflets are a lottery, if they weren't, the returns would be far greater.


just my opinon.
not saying i'm right.

mike
totally aimed at me then, i am one of those guys that thinks, well actually no, not totally, yeah i think a fantastic job is important to retain a customer but its also down to how you chat to your custies while your there, my wife laughs at the amount of SAE's we get telling her thanks for an amazing job and your hubbies a nutter.
and yeah, you probably are slightly righter than me only slightlier though.

ps... is wronger and righter actually a word

 

[wynne jones]

Well I've just finished for the weekend being so busy.

If there's someone in your town busy, what's your excuse?

Oh and by the way, my leaflets have offers on them, even in nice areas.

[Ian Gourlay]

Any service-related trade/industry that markets itself on being cheap, cheaper or cheapest is on a hiding to nothing !

Feel free to disagree with me but you will never change my opinion on this.

The carpet trade does that all the time

Belgium Wilton £9.99 a metre

Berbers £4.99  a metre

Bedroom Carpets £3.99

Some of these adverts make it hard to charge £5 a metre to clean a Carpet

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

That's not my idea of a service-related trade - carpet retailers are selling a product, yes they provide a service by fitting it but that's not my point.

I'm talking about the likes of us, predominantly selling a service not a product.

The underlays I sell cost as much as some of those carpet prices you have quoted Ian.

[peter maybury]

We have several such companies in South Wales. These companies are only selling on peoples greed unfortunately people are not bright enough to phone around and get comparison quotes. If they did they would realise that companies that advertise and provides a good service do not charge any more than their half price offer for a lot of poop. The fact is that these firms do take a lot of money because peole are so easily mislead. All it takes is a total lack of conviction in what you are doing and for the money to be more important thanthe way that you get it. How can anybody permanently advertise that they are cleaning for 1/2 price but they do.
I think as things are there are going to be even more resorting to this way of business.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com

[Mike Mahoney]

Hi wayne,

It Mike from the oven cleaning Co.
Just popped over from ' general cleaning issues ' to see how the other half live.

This is a no brainer this mate, do not go down the route of half price then inflate the original to compensate, many oven cleaning companies offer such services then say, well we normally only clean one side of the door or we only clean one shelf for the original price.

Instantly the customer is aggrieved and on the back foot.

In my opinion people would much rather use someone who sticks to there guns on price but guaruntees a good result.

As has been stated by many of your CC buddies, if your carpet is dirty and needs cleaning, it needsd cleaning, they are not going to replace, so they want a good job done, not a cheap one. People call me and say £45 to clean an oven, its not that dirty. I just give them the number of some of the other oven cleaning services around greater manchester and forget about it. I usually get the call back, WHY ? because I dont discount and I dont compromise, I set the stall out from day one and I stick to it, even when I need the work.

This is my third Christmas, its tough times to get every penny in, think about a bounce -back offer for the spring or summer, but stick to your guns mate,  the two jobs you have done for me have been spot on, more to come.

MCM

Lancs Oven Cleaning Co.

ps. have you seen my new site.  www.halfpricecarpetcleaninginbury.lol