[gmccleaning]

Any new ideas,quotes,help to try and give my business a good start to the new year( april to april i work).Thanks very much

[Ian Gourlay]

I am puzzled why you want new ideas.

If you search through past postings you will find loads of ideas.

Why try to re invent  the wheel.

[stains-away]

If people were happy following the herd then you wouldnt go on a boat for fear of falling off the edge of the world, perhaps Audis advertising campaign would be headed by "Fortschritt durch noch stehen" (progress through standing still), but then they'd be selling galvanised ox carts so would it matter,ah well, im off to rub 2 flints together and drag another sheep in the cave, its cold out, Andy

[therapist]

The main reason that M and S lost so much market share...............was by continuing to do the same thing they did 20 years previously.

by re inventing themselves..........they are, on the up !

rob m

[Ian Gourlay]

OK

Rob, what new idea have you got to offer..

[Spot On cleaning]

Rob

You are absolutely right, businesses reach the top and if they choose to rest on their laurels, some eager new business will take them by surprise.

When i was employed by pirelli, we were on courses all the time covering things like time and motion, total preventative matenance and quality improvement groups to name but a few. At the time i, like my fellow workers were not interested that much in any of this because we all felt we should be on more money, but this idea of working smarter is something i tend to do now for obvious reasons.

But by and large, one thing we all have in common is our inability to change or want to change. You have also got to diversify your services to stay one jump ahead.

A classic example i would use is the old rice pudding in a tin. Today they have rebranded it with different flavours, chocolate bars became ice cream, action man was modernised, barbie's ken is being killed off because the name Ken doesn't fit in with todays kids (no offence to all the Kens out there).

As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies, or opposition in our case closer and keep an eye on what they are doing.

Dave

[Ian Gourlay]

I do not dispute any of that.

But none of you have come up with anything New.

Andy I can understand as he lives in same area,

All I am saying to GMC is search through the Forums and you will find  some ideas.

[stains-away]

Heres one, discussed last week in general cleaning issues that i have used (i cant work out how to put a link in to a thread), that worked for me when i first started at Christmas,I put  a voucher into the school xmas raffle, maximum value £100 as a prize, the raffle was drawn at the school nativity play, where you will find parents, grand parents and family of the children (80 odd children managed to fill a hall with over 350 adults), the draw cost me an hour and a quarterish in time and some chemicals, since then ive had 4 jobs through people at the school and this week ive booked a further 2 from them,okay, its nowhere near xmas yet, but, throughout the summer schools have fetes, fundraisers etc, plus its not limited to schools, there are a load of local organisations, clubs, charities looking for prizes etc, pick a few with good local coverage and for a few hours work you could gain some new customers,its no more work than doing a 3 for 2 or percentage off offer.
As i have said before, I dont see anyone working locally as competition,its up to me to make sure my business is a success, 80% of carpets dont get cleaned, if 1% of this figure could be educated into getting the job done then we would all be using rolls royces as work vans to pull our 18 carat gold machinery around in, what annoys me are the £10 a room £30 a 3 piece brigade working within the area devalueing the service, but if thats how they see the way forward for their business good luck to them, Andy

[Steve Chapman]

I've done something similar the last couple of years, just print up some vouchers for carpet cleaning and donate them as a prize at fetes mostly at residential homes and schools, all you have to do then is stand by with your diary and book in the jobs, plus its a good afternoon out.
On average you will book in 4 or 5 jobs straight away , but loads take on your cards and leaflets, plus they know who you are, so are more likely to call you.

you normally get free grub & drink out of it aswell
regards
steve

[Mike Halliday]

if we agree there's nothing new in marketing then what we have to do is the old marketing in a new way.

 we can all send out sales letters that end up unopened or are opened by a secretary and not the decision maker, so how can we guarantee that our sales message is opened by the person we send it to.

what i do is go into town and visit a shop called 'bookworks' they are a chain of discount book stores, there I buy 20 cards for a £1, they have various themes the last ones I bought were of amusing old fashioned 1920s fat ladies modelling swimwear

these cards are fed through my printer and I print my normal sales letter on the inside cover.

when they are put in the cheap envelope you can see that it contains a card inside, my wife hand writes the name & address in her very feminine handwriting and i send these.

I believe the secretary will hand this directly to the named person ( would you open a card for someone else?) or the named person will see its a card and open it themselves.

in the end at least you are standing out from the letter crowd .

Mike

[Phil Marlor]

Get yourself some of those Gold sticky lables with you company name/tel no. etc and every time you do a job ask the lady if you can stick one on her vac or the inside door under the sink.

Its not a new idea but your in their face at all times!

Another good idea is put your name on your posts then I can call you by a name!

Rgds
Phil

[therapist]

Ian

There a few, genuinely, ' new ' ideas, which I know, is what you were suggesting, but there will always be people who are new to running a business, without the extensive experience, knowledge and training, some of us have aquired, over many years, so for those people,  there is a thirst for, what to them, is ' new '

One of the most important ideas and it's far from new, I already posted elsewhere, this morning, concerns the most valueable asset you have, is your customer list.

Provided, of course, that you are good at what you do !

rob m

[Spot On cleaning]

Rob

Very true, but if you start off too cheap in the first place, the customer will always go cheap, and the next time they need work done, they will go with the next leaflet pushed through their door because........they are cheaper still than you are.

I think price over quality is paramount to some people. As i said before, if you offered carpet cleaning for next to nothing, they would bite off both arms let alone the one.

The person who owns my local cleaning shop where i buy everything from was telling me the one day about a splash and dash cleaner who offered a rediculously low price for cleaning, and could do a suite in around an hour and carpets even faster. Apparantly he had boys working for him, and they were doing quite a few jobs a day.

After having work done by this firm, you wouldn't want them back again or recommend them, but as he said in a few short years, the guy made a serious amount of money and could retire on his proceeds.

Dave

[Ian Gourlay]

Andy,

Yes I read that idea in General Cleaning, and well done for doing it.

But its not new, its taught by Ashbys and Alltec, Joe Polish also have a version..

I paid a Marketing Consultant for a day six years ago Total cost £300 and guess what his big idea was.


But at the end of the day its doing it that made you a Winner.



Mike not knocking your idea but you told us about it must be three years ago..

Rob you are right.

All I am saying is searh the boards and you will find most idea.

But I do agree with Mike the secret is putting a twist in the idea and that is what he is good at.

[Mike Halliday]

I can't have told you 3yrs ago I only thought of it last month

are you thinking of my postcard Idea? it was the same thing but I used wildlife postcards, the only thing with postcards was you couldn't fit much info on them, but they did look nice!

or was it the cannabis leaf  paper that I bought and printed my sales letter on, it had the headline 'have a smoke on me, while you read this letter' that Idea bombed :

Mike

[Ian Gourlay]

Mike,

Sorry, Congratulations, that could be a new idea.

I thought you were putting postcards inside the envelope.

But reading again this is a folded card.


Did not know about Canabiss idea, but I have tried

 Have a Cup Of Tea on Me.

with a tea bag attached.

In the states they send a dollar bill, but I do not think a 50p coin would work the same.

I think I will shut up now

[AJCleaningServices]

The main reason that M and S lost so much market share...............was by continuing to do the same thing they did 20 years previously.

by re inventing themselves..........they are, on the up !

rob m

The reason M&S on the up is because they stopped targeting "aged customers" and started to marked younger audience.

Regards,

Arthur

[Alan Brooker. Aqualink Carpet Care]

I've got it. Fresh from Africa. Rub mud into all the soft furnishings, allow it to form a crust, aggitate and vacuum off.
Throw in some statistics, a free demo and hilight the environmental benefits. GENIUS :

Anyone interested in buying a franchise?

Reinventing the wheel
Alan

[spinnaker]

I'm in

How much?

[therapist]

The Dollar bill could be replicated here as we still have £1 notes in Scotland, a little more than a Dollar, but we charge more for our services than Americans

rob m