[stuart_clark]

I live in stockton on tees thats near middlesbrough for people that dont know the area, and it is very price sensitive! there are loads od splash and dash in this area and that includes some NCCA members unfortunatley!! I have been cleaning carpets since september 1990 and i started out very much the same to cater for the budget type quick and freshen up cleans,cleaning carpets from about £10.00 and suites from about £20.00 but that was in the bad old days over ten years ago!!I joined the ncca,woolsafe,IICRC and got as many qualifications as i could then learned to market my business,it still is only a two man business but thats the way i like it,as for the yellow pages not working i couldn't disagree more!! yes we have had a few flat spots over the years but what business dosn't  ? the new directories were delivered in january the adverts that i have placed are in two books which cost me about £3,500 for the year they are a bit Joe polishy type but its always worked for me,We charge about the highest prices in the area apart from servicemaster and rainbow and in four short months we have taken just over £36,000 and that is mainly from yp  regards Stuart Clark

[Steve Chapman]

Horses for courses then! 
regards steve

[Vernon Purcell]

You are all chaseing the 25% of people that have their carpets cleaned professionally. Try finding the other 75% that are out there, not many people are chasing these people
Vernon

[craigp]

but we all occassionly do work for people who have never had carpets cleaned before, so we all tap it somtimes

[IHC]

Hi new member found this forum very good. I have been in the carpet cleaning business for nearly 4 years and found a small amount of work through YP, this last year went bigger in YP and have found it rubbish too many people ringing around for quotes they just want cheap not quality.
Now when the rep rang a few days ago for next years sign up he was shocked when I said NO WAY; but I fell about laughing when he told me he had figures that I would get a return of £25.00 for every £1.00 I spent with them. I told him that if he could guarantee that I would invest several thousand but I couldn't stop laughing .
I am learning so much from your site and hope to diversify soon into the window cleaning using the pole system and I am heading for the van based system with Gardiner any comments..

Thanks for all of your comments keep up the good work.

Ian

[Scott Martin]

Finally binned them after 5 years.

Spend around £1500 per year with them and get nothing in return. 3 Jobs last year.

Rep would not listen so had to hang up on him. Do you ever notice you get a new account manager every year who will make things better for you!!!!!

Now Customer Serives on the case to tell me the account manager and the previous ones did not help me correctly and my account has been passed to them so it works the way it should....................

Told them to go away, leave me alone. I would be better handing out £1500.00 to Joe Bloggs in the street and would prob get a better return.

Cheers

[Spot On cleaning]

I binned them after two years. First year introductory £99 offer then £1000 to go into two directories. Result was rubbish.

I worked ot that for £800 i can get one hundred thousand A5 double sided glossy leaflets in full colour. If you find the time to post them, and people like your unique design of leaflet, it's your own personal advert on their doormat.

And if the response rate was even as low as 0.5% this would work out at 500 jobs per year..... hopefully

500 hopeful jobs divided by say 48 weeks = 10.48 a week

Imagine 500 jobs worth on average £60 each.......£30000  :

All it takes is effort, or am i living on another planet

Dave

[colin.k]

I was talk into a large add with yellow pages . must admit it looked great. among the rest of the box standard adds  response from this  add         3 enquires. big is not always better ,
generally as a consumer i avoid large adds as i now they will be more expensive. It is the basic mind set of anybody with half a brain.
when i told  the rep of my response from that add. His response was, OH REALLY??
 this was in the wakefield ,huddersfield area.

[Terry_Burrows]

yes reps always say that,I just hope we have not wasted our money,we are in yp and the BT book we have had 2 jobs from the BT book both books have been out for 2 months we do more adds than this and its very slow to pick up

[Dave_Lee]

Not gone in YPs this year so saving £300 per month, still getting a reasonable number of jobs per month from the free listing though, so maybe more people are looking there for a local number instead of being totally confused by the big ads!?
Dave.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

makes me think if it's worth advertising next year! I think I'll go for leaflets around my area, I'll give both a go and then decide when the rep comes round.

Shaun

[Phil Marlor]

Do you ever notice you get a new account manager every year who will make things better for you!!!!!

YEP!!!

Phil

[colin.k]

well, finally gave yell.com yellow pages. 118 247(that did not work either despite only two of us on it in my area) busness pages, the old boot.
dont the sale consultants change there mood when you eventually say no" your crap dont wont any more adds" " rumour has it that they can grip
tighter than a limpet mine or a silverback gorilla to a customer. well got rid of my silverback  dowt he,ll be back in a hurry.
now down to some serious mail drops they worked better than yp.

[Steve Chapman]

Do what i did if you want a better return, ditch the yp, (i was spending about 2500 a year) and spend the money you save on having someone rep for you part time in selected areas,

 even if it's one day a week, it's better having someone speak to potential customers who can answer they're questions than having a tiny piece of paper in a book, with loads of other ads, on peoples shelves doing nowt.

regards
steve

[mark_roberts]

Have you all ever considered that maybe its your ad thats crap and not YP.  Three calls in a year   Maybe your number was wrong??

If YP dosent work why is my book about 4 inchs thick with probably the same businesses in it each year.

Everything works you just have to MAKE it work for your business.

Mark

[craigp]

can i see your ad mark?

cus im going in next year, spending 2k, so hoping i get it right :

[stevegunn]

Had a couple of expensive ads with poor response now under Ncca corporate section £165 get lots more enquires.

[mark_roberts]

Craig

To to your local library and get the Belfast book.  Its in there.

Mark

[COLIN BRIGHT]

came out in middle of march
cost £2800

so far done £2728

i think that is a good return so far

[colin.k]

the question is, is my add crap ,the answer from yp is no .
what is it people see in a add. what appears to be great to one person. maybe rubbish to anyone else. it would be a funny old world if we all thought the same as you seem to imply, but anyway even the so called CRAP ONES would get a average hit. Over the course of 6 years, have seen many good adds dissappear. having phone these people,the answer  they gave is the same, it is not fuctioning.as it should, money under false pretense. YP tell you that there are  on average of 33 calls per month. what they dont tell you is that these averages are work out over several trades not just our own, which in my opinion is totally unfair.If your washer breaks you have to get it fixed,roof leaks you get a roofer,blocked drains you call out a drain cleaner. these are nessasary trades,  yet our averages are taken from these
just as a last thought i have had 17 calls in the last three months on a simple line entry with bt. so would you like to explain that to me.
by the way my add was designed by yp themselfs. so in affect you are saying they have crap designers