[the red carpet]

I know this has been covered loads of times before,
but just thought i would ask if anyone has found a reliable way of getting them out recently?

I have been playing around with different leaflet designs over the last 7months, and have now found one that will bring in on average 2 jobs per 1000 delivered, my average job value is £103, so if i can find a way to get 20,000 a month out i should be able to pull back £4120 a month from leaflets.

This coupled with my other advertising, internet, postcards to old customers, yellow pages, van signwriting should leave me with a nice little wage each month

But how on earth do i get 20,000 a month out

I obviously cant do it myself as wouldnt have the time.

I dont fancy the local newspaper as i have heard nothing but bad things.

I tried a firm called "letter box distribution" in barking, they just didnt post them just kept giving me excuses so i took them back.

I tried a small firm of local retired guys, worked well to start with but slow and then disapered with 3000 of my leaflets.

I tried giving 4000 to a firm in leyton called "leaflet distribution company", that ended up bringing in 2 jobs.

And have just tried another 4000 with a local magazine "property mart" run by "archant" wich has so far resulted in 1 quote.

I think theres only 1 more company local to me that delivers leaflets, but im put of trying them by my past experiences, i will give them the benifit of the doubt and try them soon but i just feel like im throwing money down the drain.


The only other things i can think of are
Royal Mail
or
Employing a leaflet boy/bucket boy, someone i pick up in the morning, get him to help me setup and pre-spray etc. And then get him leafleting the local roads while i work.

Anyone got any experience or advice on the above?

[davep]

Hi, im looking to get started carpet cleaning soon, at the moment i am a Postman.   I could deliver 500 leaflets to semi detached houses in 3hrs max, so if you spent 2hrs a day over 7 days then you could get approx 2500 done. .  Would keep you fit as well!!   

A Postie would recieve about 1p per leaflet (after tax) for delivering leaflets, so you could always approach a couple (who would cover 400-1000 calls depending on area) and see if they could help you out?

[Spot On cleaning]

Red

I can post 1000 a day with my wife if we pick the right area. When i first started i used to take my five kids with me to post. In those days their wages were very low. All they wanted each was a winnie the pooh magazine every fortnight, but now they have learned so i have to give them a tenner each.

What i try to do is keep 2 days in the week to post then work the weekend
if choc a block as on the new estates, your presence is noted by people as they see the truck mount running and go and take a look. I picked up a £180 job the other week on a Saturday because of this.

Our new leaflet seems to be working and people are keeping them as we are having calls weeks after delivering them. I know what you mean when you say that if you could put out 20000 a month you would earn x amount of money, but we all work on probability. Just put out what you can.

Out of 5000 leaflets which cost me £99 we have made around £6000 so really i should be out there more often posting, but you cant always make the time.

Dave

[craigp]

exactly the same as that Dave, i had a good few weeks getting out leaflets, got loads out !

this is my second week i'll not get out a single one, just to much on, so i'll pay for that soon with a slow period, but i'll get a load of leafs out again.

i.ve tried a few distrubution firms too, never get the same response.

i just do get out as many as i can myself

[davep]

Hi Dave, any chance of a look at one of your flyers?  Sound good!

[the red carpet]

Sound great £6000 from 5000 leaflets wish i got that, i pay the same £99 for 5000 and get a about £1000 back so i need to be doing this every week to get a decent income.

[Spot On cleaning]

Red

Do you offer a discount on your leaflets or change them around a lot? This is the first professionally printed leaflet i have ever had made and touch wood it seems good for us. I have just designed another one as well with a cut out £10 voucher to see if it works.

The letting agents are good at the moment as we are working for five regularly. Have you tried these? We sent out 140 letters with one of our leaflets in to them. We did this because many estate agencies are run on a franchise basis, so just because you work for the  one, write to the others to let them know you are working for one of their franchisees. They talk to each other so that once they know how good you are you are hopefully in with them.

In other words we work for an estate agency, but there are a further 8 offices trading as the same name, but independantly owned. Hope i have not confused anybody with this.

Dave

[the red carpet]

I get 5-10 thousand a time and usually change a bit and monitor responses, got in with about 5 of the local estate agents one very big one, and getting work of them here and there but not enough to make much difference.

[Ian Gourlay]

Dave,

£6000 from  1000 leaflets  sounds incrediable.

Your tracking indicates  all these jobs came  from leaflets.

Or are you including repeat  work.


Everybody
I have times when  5k leaflets hand delivered  SOLO  brings in nothing.


On distribution,

Does anyone know if Minimum Wage applies to Pensioners.


If you use a Pensioner  at what point does holiday  pay and NI kick in.

How many  hours could say a Mum wanting to work around the kids  work before NI holiday   pay kick  in  if this was their only job.


If you have people on  Casual  contract how do you  calculate  holiday pay.

[Derek]

I have to say I am amazed at the amount of leaflets that must be circulating out there...I have to say also that I agree with John, every leaflet that comes through our door goes into the bin...unread...they are an unwanted irritant.

I have never used leaflets in the years I have been working as a carpet cleaner with the exception of information leaflets I give to each customer when I complete a job

Ian
Part-time workers must now be treated the same as full time workers with equal rights. Those over retirement age still need to be on the books and a tax code sought, National Insurance employers contributions are at a reduced rate over a certain level of earnings (I think its £5000.00 a year) but they pay nothing

[Ian Rochester]

If you pay them over £92.50/ week then you will be liable for employers NI contributions, unless they are classed as self employed.

Ian

[Ian Gourlay]

Derek.

You  are ina Fourtunate  position,and have built  up a customer base,


I am amazed you do not  need to replace  25% of your customers every year.

Or  perhaps in your case 10%


Do you use  referal  marketing?   to do this.

[cleaning co]

hi things must be bad out there  in the last two weeks i hav had two flyers throgh my door from two independant carpet cleaners and they are based 40-50 miles either side of me  apart from homeclean who had cleaners all over the place  i hav never seen this before in over 10 years
gary

[Adrian Makel]

i employ a lad on a part time basis 23hrs per week.i only use him on large jobs filling emptying machine the rest of his hrs are made up delivering leaflets.works fairly well.

[cleaning co]

spot on, is that a typeing error ?    because if it isnt id go out and buy meself 5 more vans and sit at home taking bookings 

[Spot On cleaning]

Ian,

No its around £6000 for 5000 leaflets not 1000 leaflets. I wish i could get this money from a 1000 but sadly i can't

Gary

No spelling error

I would not want a fleet of vans on the road. it would be a hassle and if the worked suddenly dropped off, i would be hanging myself. Part of the pleasure for me is the meeting of people. I will leave all this for the fast trackers. After working for twelve years in a factory, the freedom is more important than the money, and thats a fact.

Dave

[Ian Gourlay]

Dave still incredible  from 5k


Read put out 1000 a day at the top missed 5000 in middle

[craigp]

i say, complete estimate mind, best i can get is £1,000 out of 5k leaflets. but normaly less. like £600 ish

[Spot On cleaning]

Craig

All of us have had flat times at some point, and the area i am from is quite a difficult one to get money out of the customers, so i usually target Cardiff where the clientel have a higher disposable income as well as Chepstow etc.

We have just got an 0800 number to try it out on a new leaflet. At the moment i pay for calls anyway as they are diverted to my mobile so a couple of pence on top for the freephone is not going to matter.

Do you have any local directories in your area? Down my way there are a lot of them floating about that cover the good areas, and i wonder whether people use them in favour of the big directories. I was working in a customers house the other week and they had a brand new local guide with only one carpet cleaner in it so i may try this one out. In the well known one there are four carpet cleaners advertising.

The well known one covers areas in England as well so may be worth while looking at.

Dave

[craigp]

it's not a flat time for me, in fact since christmas i done good,

last year was poor, but then i was in no directories and only put out about 20k leaflets all year.

i think upto a £1,000 for 5k leaflets not to bad.   

maybe some others can let us know there stats for 5k to compare,

it may be more cus i spose i put out 5k last month, and i earn more than that,  but then somes from repeats. hard to say with looking through my books and i cant be bothered do that

trouble with those little directories, the only one i know, only goes to "pubs and resuarnts"