Mike,
I don't work 40 miles away, far from it. We have lots of towns around us and have a website in each. Wigan- Bolton 8 miles Wigan -St Helens 7 miles Wigan - Warrington 10 miles. Wigan - Chorley 4 miles. The furthest we go it to the north side of Manchester but only go there for day jobs, or a group of jobs. So where you get your 40 miles from is beyond me.
We spend way less than £1,000 per YEAR in advertising because we've built a loyal customer base that wouldn't use anyone else (that's not unique to me btw)
The conventional business model for a carpet cleaning business is this:
When you first start out your advertising costs are high, but as time passes you retain a certain percentage of customers and gain new ones through referrals, because you do a fantastic job (also not unique to me). So if it took £800 per month in advertising to fill your diary in year one, it should be say £600 in year two etc etc, so that it is dropping as you build your customer base, so that your diary becomes filled with existing customers and the money you were spending on advertising turns into profit.
If you clean someones drive in the morning and do a carpet job in the afternoon, do you use the same van?
Simon