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Carpet Dawg

  • Posts: 2968
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #20 on: May 29, 2012, 06:29:07 pm »
Well the main differance is that your setting your own price (not a heavly discounted price), the customer can take it or leave it.

For a company like this to work it'll need thousands and thousands of pounds spent on marketing and advertising. TV ads, PR, online etc
The owner will need to spend ALOT of money before seeing any gains. Lets be honest, how many £1000+ jobs do cleaners do?

Hope Mr Rafiq knows what he's let himself in too!

Tony

Hilton

  • Posts: 5572
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #21 on: May 29, 2012, 09:21:49 pm »
How much does Groupon spend on TV and Radio...

Carpet Dawg

  • Posts: 2968
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #22 on: May 29, 2012, 09:35:41 pm »
Large capital investment is needed to stand a chance of moderate success/ on something that "may" yield a profit! << Thats what I was getting at.

Groupon spends large amounts on google adwords. Other websites like itison, social living, kgbdeals all advertise on tv aswell as google adwords.

Groupon started the ball rolling, a market leader. Their success was mainly word of mouth via sites like facebook and twitter (viral marketing) since it was such a new concept. But they still spend hundreds of thousands on adwords.

Big hairy balls are needed!

Warren Aldridge

  • Posts: 260
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #23 on: May 29, 2012, 11:07:22 pm »
It wont work. I used to do the same thing but for 50% fee.

It worked but only in areas such as London. Other areas such as South Wales didn't work at all and ended up costing me a lot of money. But even in London and at 50% kickback there wasn't money to be made after paying telephone staff and advertising.

I cant imagine how difficult and expensive it will be on a national level and at only 10%
They would only get about 9 quid back on average per sale, for the first year or two it would probably cost him £30 to get that single sale.

Ian Gourlay

  • Posts: 5746
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #24 on: May 30, 2012, 01:18:28 am »
AJB

I found Company check link very interesting this afternoon most informative site regarding Company searches without paying I have seen, very very interesting what I found out locally and nationally , and perhaps an excellent reason for not being Ltd 

Although it does give you facility to close down and start again

Very informative and with Director Search you can trace a Company even if you do not know the name of the actual Limited company.

Anyway the Company mentioned is not worth giving £500 Credit to.

I think it will work because the secret of  making money on line  is lots of little rods in the water all bringing  in a little bit each week

50 rods times £20 per rod = £1000.

Start a new rod per day


Hilton

  • Posts: 5572
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #25 on: May 30, 2012, 08:48:59 am »

It wont work. I used to do the same thing but for 50% fee.


It did not work for you because no one is going to give you half their earnings, you didn't deserve to have it work that is a blatant rip off IMO.I'm gobsmacked anyone signed up with you under those terms, still there would be no need for the word gullible if people weren't.

Anyone carrying out a quote for you under those conditions would have had to have upped their prices to cover the lost revenue. No one wins, not you,not the customer and especially not the poor sod who took on the work.

This company as I understand it, are taking 9% which is reasonable, good luck to them hope it works for them and the people who sign up. No doubt we will all hear pretty quickly if it doesn't  ;)

dan paton

Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #26 on: May 30, 2012, 09:26:10 am »
Quotes are delivered to you by sms, text or fax and you send us a quote including our fee within 24 hours. Customers chooses a quote.
    two ways of reading the above . do u send a quote with their fee added to the quote . or do u pay a fee everytime you quote ?

garry22

Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #27 on: May 30, 2012, 09:49:16 am »
Quote
The Service Provider agrees that throughout the term of this Agreement it shall not, without the consent of the other Parties (such consent not to be unreasonably withheld or delayed) whether directly or indirectly on its own or jointly with any third party or through any other member of its Group, work directly for the Consumer on a Job not arranged through CleanupBid.co.uk.
The provisions of this clause 33 shall survive the expiry or earlier termination of this Agreement for a period of three (3) years.

This should be enough to put anyone off. What a bunch of chancers.

I was told by a lawyer once that any restraint clause over six months was on very shaky ground.

Ian Gourlay

  • Posts: 5746
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #28 on: May 30, 2012, 10:50:41 am »
As they only have £2 they could not afford to take you to Court

But Hey I fogot they will then have £500 of your money plus other Carpet Cleaners who decide to take a chance on being paid

Ive got enough bad debts from property companies

Warren Aldridge

  • Posts: 260
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #29 on: May 30, 2012, 10:59:04 am »
Hilton I've had large truckmounted operations do it who just wanted to keep an extra truck running and get some feet in the door to gain a database of customers who pay full prices. They dont do any of the quoting. I did. Sure its expensive but I dont understand why you say everyone loses. The client got their carpet cleaned, the cleaner got a new FULL PAYING quality client elbeit for half the value which wasn't cheap in the first place, I paid staff to take calls and manage quotes. So 4 people get paid here, that's economy for you.

To me, cleaning is the easy part of this business.

It still continues to work, but as I said only in certain areas. No one is complaining.

The one guy got hooked up with a property maintenance company that I arranged and now gets loads of work through them, his initial job that I arranged was for a lobby in a block of flats, for £100. ( So £50 ) last week he did an entire terrace of stair cases in central London for £1300 before that was a showroom for £280. He has made over £1500 in 3 or 4 days and deals with them direct now, no doubt will continue to make good money. Sounds like a major score to me mate.

Wish I took that first job myself.

Anyway as said I don't do it any more, I just plod along with the one guy as more of an overflow if I'm busy.
As said in other parts of the country it worked out too much for me to keep going, customers didn't want to pay decent rates and so as you say 50% wasnt worth it.

JandS

  • Posts: 4327
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #30 on: May 30, 2012, 02:27:09 pm »
So if the customer rings you back 12 months later
for work doing you got to put it through them before
you take it on so they get their cut.
I don't think so and they'll never know anyhow.

John
Impossible done straight away, miracles can take a little longer.

garry22

Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #31 on: May 30, 2012, 03:02:14 pm »
Apparently it's very popular in Lahore and most of it's visitors are in Pakistan!

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.cleanupbid.             co.uk

Warren Aldridge

  • Posts: 260
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #32 on: May 30, 2012, 03:26:40 pm »
So if the customer rings you back 12 months later
for work doing you got to put it through them before
you take it on so they get their cut.
I don't think so and they'll never know anyhow.

John

They dont ring me back, they ring back the cleaner. Its all done with tailored websites under the name of the cleaner.
The website they find while looking for a cleaner will be "John's Carpet Cleaning" but my number, they call me and I arrange the whole job and book it into your calendar online. Once you get to the job you take it from there. I never hear from them again. All the referals and repeats go direct to you. All I take is a cut of the first job for half the amount I quoted the customer, the rest is 100% yours. You would obviously have to supply your own card and that kind of stuff when you arrive.

The websites have pictures of your van and your before and afters, a story about you and it sells you.

peter maybury

  • Posts: 916
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2012, 11:31:01 pm »
The deal that Warren was offering was quite feasable, as I have said in many posts before there is a lot of you that do not live in the same world that a lot of us do. There  are a lot on here that charge a lot for a very little. There are some of us that live in very competitive areas where there is a lot of very good competition. We have to work hard and supply a first class service at very competitive rate and be very productive. Paying a one off payment of 50% then having that customer after that is a sound investment.
What is a productive marketing stategy in one area is not in another. You could still get your costs back and more Warren if you ever want to talk about it.
Peter

Hilton

  • Posts: 5572
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #34 on: May 31, 2012, 09:04:12 am »
Problem is by his own admission it did not work, if it was feasible it would have done.

Warren, if TM operators were desperate enough to give you half their earnings just to keep the TM's going then they have bigger issues with in their business's to deal with and probably wont survive, if they give you 50% that's a direct hit on their botom line and is not sustainable, they will see that.Therefore the work will suffer as will the quality which of course will impact on the customer...No Win No Win situation.

If you had done 10% or even 25% I could see it could have worked, perhaps you should revisit it given that you have had the experience of trying at 50%, I could almost guarantee that the response would be different. ;)

 

Ian Gourlay

  • Posts: 5746
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #35 on: May 31, 2012, 10:04:12 am »
I do apologize for keep butting in

Never having worked for one I do not really know, but I gather  cut price operators like Homecare operate on a 50% basis

I can see that the cost acquiring new clients even at say £3 or £4 a metre can be as high as 25% if you use all the marketing tools plus the cost of manning phones etc.

If you are just relying on Free Marketing ie Internet you are just working on chance they pick your all dancing and  singing web site

In my opinion 50% is quite reasonable for a Marketing Company to charge.

Perhaps NCCA could adopt a similar model for jobs provided. This would generate more income  to be put back into the pot , keep membership fees reasonable and have funds to create more brand awareness

Warren Aldridge

  • Posts: 260
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #36 on: May 31, 2012, 06:57:46 pm »
Hilton, honestly this is the last time I'm going to talk about this because quite frankly, you don't know the costs involved nor do you understand the client. Your argument is based on your thoughts and has nothing to do with facts.

People that have contacted me are mainly successful commercial truckmounted operations and are looking to tap into residential or boost residential tickets. It hasnt worked in a particular region because we know my sales staff hadnt been converting calls, we think its locality issues. But dont worry about the state of the said businesses, they didnt build up to running 3 trucks without having marketing skills of their own.

I have today formulated a new strategy for this region whereby we cut out my office. With this step cut out the cost to the cleaner is dramatically reduced because my costs are reduced. They now are just paying a small set fee because they manage their own calls and quotes. This is what we are now doing and again everyone is happy.

Because I dont know you this isnt addressed to you personally but so far the people that have given me the most grief about this have been quite small time and the same people who moan about being quiet all the time, the ones that contact me have all the toys.

My initial statement was about cleanupbid because I dont think they will make it with such a small kickback given how much his costs are going to be. And also by going national he will run into locality issues as I had.


Warren Aldridge

  • Posts: 260
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #37 on: May 31, 2012, 07:07:43 pm »
Ian

I think TACCA and the NCCA have such a great opportunity for this.
With the funds they could completely overhaul the websites and enable online bookings etc or have central reception who manage the whole thing liaising direct with cleaners and clients.

They could in fact go a step further and actively pursue work via telesales.

Only problem I see is its open to corruption with particular cleaners benefiting more than others and it not being fair

Ian Gourlay

  • Posts: 5746
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #38 on: June 01, 2012, 09:22:28 am »
Warren I agree about the fairness issue . In away its a bit like barbers chairs, taxis and direct sales companies in if they want to starve you they will.

But as you know there are a lot of people who do not like marketing  so in my opinion it would be a fantastic opportunity for NCCA   which is a democratic organization with directors elected by members , so if they were not fair they could be thrown out if members  voted

TACCA is still evolving and who knows might be first off the block .

Hilton

  • Posts: 5572
Re: On the subject of carpet cleaning leads
« Reply #39 on: June 01, 2012, 10:04:05 am »
Hilton, honestly this is the last time I'm going to talk about this because quite frankly, you don't know the costs involved nor do you understand the client. Your argument is based on your thoughts and has nothing to do with facts.

People that have contacted me are mainly successful commercial truckmounted operations and are looking to tap into residential or boost residential tickets. It hasnt worked in a particular region because we know my sales staff hadnt been converting calls, we think its locality issues. But dont worry about the state of the said businesses, they didnt build up to running 3 trucks without having marketing skills of their own.

I have today formulated a new strategy for this region whereby we cut out my office. With this step cut out the cost to the cleaner is dramatically reduced because my costs are reduced. They now are just paying a small set fee because they manage their own calls and quotes. This is what we are now doing and again everyone is happy.

Because I dont know you this isnt addressed to you personally but so far the people that have given me the most grief about this have been quite small time and the same people who moan about being quiet all the time, the ones that contact me have all the toys.


Warren, you might not want to comment further but I can't let your assumptions above go unanswered, I am fully aware of the costs invlolved in such an operation and do know the facts which is I why I commented in the first place.

We ran a similar operation many years ago, no where near 50% I grant you, we did it on a sliding scale on the value of the job, it was very successful and we had calls coming in from all over the country, ( and abroad) pretty much along the lines as currently being advertised on here under 'Spick & Span'.

It run away with us and grew too large to control and we started to get prospects being let down by cleaners we had appointed, in the end we took a decision to drop it but with the right resources and at the correct fee's it is very much viable and we might revisit some time in the future which is what I trying , probably badly, to convey.

I have to say you have confirmed what I was pointing out by now going down the route I mentioned above at a lower fee and at lower costs precisely because the 50% did not work.

Your right though I dont understand your clients who go out and buy all the 'big toys' only to find they do not have the batteries big enough to operate them, I don't buy 'they wanted to dip their toe in the domestic market' nonsense, sorry. If you have three TM's and can only run two, then sell one.

But hey good luck with it  ;) I really mean that, which is why I commented earlier about being behind people who take risks and earn out of it, my initial pop was at the naysayers who knock anything that seems out of the ordinary, I just sort of got distracted by your 50% charges, I'll be quiet now, promise  :-X