[carpetclean]

very strange yellow pages and thompsons as one year you may do well and the next nothing. just to mention though that these people want your business so its good to proctastinate especially thompsons last year i was given 3 adds for the price of 1 and this year i kept saying my budget was tight etc and they gave me 4 adverts for the same price. also you may bear in mind that some people check the flyers agains thompsons and y/p  to see if you are in there not all people do this but some. personally i think its worth doing them as the money spent is a tax right off.

[Neil Grainger]

Red-James

Last year was my first year trading and started in Jan. Jan last year I did £500 and Feb £600. This year it has gone up Jan £2500 and Feb hopefully will close around £3000.

I know some guys on here will say this is rubish but it seems to be only getting better for me and hopefully it will for you as well.

Sometimes I am lazy and dont put the effort in to get the business in and just wait for the phone to ring. This is the biggest problem for me and  I am just trying to motivate myself more to work hard all the time on this.

I think Yellow Pages is a must because it gets your name out there, if only for the reason the Customers think you are a more reputable company if you are in their.  Had lots of them say I checked YP to see if you were in their after receiving my leaflet.

Not so happy with Thomson though and may not renew in June because of the Biggest at the front system they use. How can you grow if the biggest are always at the front! Seems crazy to me that Thomson operate in this way, they must have lots of custys that just go in for one year and then leave.

Running my own business has been the most worrying thing I have ever none but it has also been the best.

Regards

Neil

[Spot On cleaning]

I agree with you, you need to keep motivated all the time. I see from your website that you use Extracta equipment, and i was wondering if you went on their course and bought their guide. It was a bit pricey, but some of the things they said in it makes sense, such as the 2000 - 3000 a week in leaflet numbers required to get x amount of work in return.

What we found was if we put say 500 a week out, eventually in say 4 weeks or so we would get a bumper week, then normal, so i think their right. Yp is good as a tax write off, and does'nt do you any harm even if you make your money back.

The biggest problem is keeping customers as there is not a lot of loyalty with customers. They loose your No, then the next cleaner who posts a leaflet gets the job. To be fair, this was one of the reasons that i went over to a tm, because there is a lot of competition, but not many of these. I now am more confident with the bigger commercial jobs and the customers like to see it.

Best wishes

Dave   Spot On

[Spot On cleaning]

One other thing Neil, if the fact that your customers wanted to see if you were in there, a dedicated business number gets you a free one line listing.

I am not in there this year, but will go in next year, just to see, but from Jan of this year i am looking at statistics in more detail as to where the most work comes from.

Dave

[The Great One]

Hi

 Sorry guys wasn't clear enough.

I have been trading for just over 2 years but my work has been mainly LA's, so didn't really need YP.

Decided late last year to do more domestic so thought I would give YP a try out.

In the beginning the rep wanted me to spend £4000. My reply to that was that I would need to clean 4 grands worth of carpet just to pay them, before anything for myself.

So I went for a £680 ad at £15 P/w instead of £100 p/w for the £4000 ad.

I have had about 8 enquiries of which 3 have resulted in actual jobs.

The cost works out to about £68.15 p/m and started in jan, so 2 payments have been made. my 3 jobs have earnt me about £150, so I am looking at 10 whole pounds profit.

Wow! mega bucks!!

Regards

Martin

[Ian Gourlay]

And you worked for Free.

[andrew chrysler]

Yellow Pages £2600....... yes, OUCH!

My local radio station will do 6 months advertising (with 40 half minute ads a week) for less than that.

In YP you are one ad amongst loads. On the radio, you are the focus of attention when your ad is playing (unless the client is driving............)

Get a catchy advert with good sound effects, you will be amazed. My wife moved her advertising to local radio from the local paper 3 years ago...... result, same advertising spend, three to four times as many customers.

But do it now, before your competitors catch on!

[Ian Gourlay]

Andrew,

What business is your wife promoting on Radio.


Bugular Alarms, Car Valet or Caravans.

Supprised you have time to go Boating.





How do you control the quality in  your Valeting I believe you employ staff .


How do you stop them setting up in competion

[andrew chrysler]

Hi Ian.

My wife's business is none of the above, it's a a Children's Day Nursery.

Good staff + good wages + good supervisors (senior staff) = good quality and time to go boating.

That's the theory, anyway. Usually it works, but the caravan park has been established 39 years and the day nursery established 12 or more, and there wasn't always time to spend on "Mid Life Crisis IV" (the boat)

I gave up the burglar alarm business a few years ago to concentrate on running the caravan park, now that is running smoothly I got a bit bored.

Next on the agenda is Oven cleaning and then Carpet cleaning. Then again, a nice summer could see me on the boat so much that I can't start these till autumn!

If the car valeting staff want to set up in competition that's up to them...... give up a secure wage, paid holidays,  buy their own van and kit, get an accountant, pay their own tax.........

If they are that keen, I'll sell them the van and kit!