got to set myself some targets.(wfp one yr, previous 1 yr before ladders and 2 yrs previous on ladders w/cing for someone else.
I'm a one man band averaging 100-120 (a bit shy about working in rain) aday picking up some good work lately, tried all sorts of advertising but found word of mouth, reccomendation the most succesfull.
tried an experiment of working with a friend one wfp the other downstairs trad thought was a disaster and decided to stay a one man band and keep refining my work take on better throw away or sell the not so good work?
Any advice guru's please.
tar lee
Sounds like you've made the right decisions so far although that average needs to come up a bit. It will probably happen naturally as you get the better work and pass on the poorer paying stuff.
Advertising in Yellow Pages and Thompsons has had mixed results. I've picked up half a dozen nice jobs from them and some other OK work which more than pays for the advertising. However, I've no way of knowing whether I would have got those jobs anyway with a free one line entry.
Canvassing is always the quickest way to bump up your workload but if you aren't comfortable about that then leaflets will help - though more slowly. A lot of people dislike leaflets due to the low rate of response - typically anything between 0.5% and 2%. However, I take a different view now that I've done leafletting from time to time. If you design a reasonable, properly spelt leaflet saying what you're about without over complicating things, you will get some kind of response. Although it's difficult to put an exact figure on it, each leaflet you put out will earn you maybe between 50p and £1.00 per year. This assumes that you don't follow up shortly after with canvassing when the return would probably be rather higher. So when I go leafletting, I no longer think "99% of these are a waste of time". Instead I think each time a leaflet goes into a letter box "I've just given myself the opportunity to turn over at least 50p extra for the year". It doesn't sound much but you put out 1,000 leaflets (over a month perhaps as you're busy window cleaning) then each month you are giving yourself the chance to increase your annual turnover by £500. The beauty of doing it yourself is that you can target the properties and avoid the ones you don't want to clean (such as bad access). Put out 1,000 leaflets a month for a year (not too difficult really) and that's 12,000 leaflets giving the probability of £6,000 extra (assuming you don't have a full workload). Of course, this is just from the immediate effect of the leafletting. It gets better when you start actually working the jobs that you acquire. In nicer areas, try working Saturdays so more people see you and your (hopefully) signwritten van. I used to canvass years ago but prefer leafletting now. Leafletting does tend to acquire work in a less compact manner so to a certain degree, you gamble on getting more work nearby. It's not really such a gamble though because you don't have to stick with a job if it's your only one in the area.
I've done more leafletting in recent weeks and got no response at first. As the weeks have gone by though, a few calls have come in. I've picked up several nice jobs and a few OK ones from it.
