[Shaun_Ashmore]

If you had to draw a circle of your service area how far do you go?

Me I'd say 20 miles, what's yours?

Shaun

[Mike Halliday]

85% is within 3 miles, the other 12% is within 5miles. the other 2% in a town 10miles away but it's 10miles along an easy straight road (takes 10mins to get there)

but 1/2  mile away from  my house is Hull which is a big town, I did about 10 jobs there in the whole of last year, it takes longer to get into town than drive 30 miles across country.

[Andy Foster]

In Nottingham on Wednesday - 45 miles from home
Cambridge in June for 3 weeks - 133 miles
Basingstoke the other week - 170 miles
Stoke yesterday - 17 miles

Not sure what to class as local any more!!!

 

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Andy why so far away?

Shaun

[spindle]

been to bury st edmonds 160mile round trip.........
charged £100 for the travel .....job was worth £300..........

but on average 5 miles........most of the work within 3

[Mike Halliday]

Shaun you started another topic on the future of the internet, both these topics are linked, if you want to only work in a small area then you can't rely on the internet to gain business.

the internet is open to the world, although you can use certain words to limit the areas you'll never get it down to within 6 miles of your home because the amount of internet users is relatively small, you need to cast your net wide to gain maximum benefit.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Not linked on purpose but I can see what you're thinking. I see the internet as a cheap advertising medium but I envy the way that Doug and Spencer get most of their business from it.

Leaflets can localise your work if you have a good distributor that goes to all of the areas you want at an affordable price I have 1 company that will do them for £17 plus vat per 1000 and teh other won't flinch from £30 plus vat which would do the other half of my area.

YP is a dinosaur now and although I get enquiries from the net I feel that they are programmed into buying cheap just like they would price match on kelkoo.

Shaun

[Andy Foster]

Hi Shaun

All pressure washing jobs when I go far afield, carpet cleaning is generally much closer - 25 miles radius I guess.

Andy

[Jason Hedges]

Depends on the size of job or ticket price. Most jobs locally within 10 miles otherwise travelling costs added. If they're happy to pay I'll travel.

[mark shannon]

20 Miles but same as Jason will travel for right price, but rarely have to.

[Ken Wainwright]

From my base in North Worcestershire (about 3 miles South of the B'ham border), most of my work is within a 10 mile radius.

However, this year I've worked in Barking Essex and Torquay Devon.

Today I travelled to Kenilworth, about a 40mile round trip, for a voucher I put into a cancer charity auction. On top of the £150 voucher, I also had an extra £71 of work so it even covered my costs. Madam also owns an upmarket hotel in Leamington Spa, so good contact made. Hopefully neighbour referals to follow too.

I feel that it's important to have your "bread and butter" in a compact area, but need to be flexible depending on your location. Although I live in a large shire's village with a population of only 3,500, my catchment area of about 10 miles radius must give me a catchment approaching 1 million people. Many others though will only have a catchment of, say 100,000 within a 40 mile radius

We're not all singing from the same hymn sheet on this one.

Safe and happy cleaning
Ken

[Straker Cleaning]

From mine to Westminster is 11 miles in a straight line .........work to left of that route, in SW London but not really into SE London though  :
Have some good customers in Hampstead area so i would have to say 20 miles is normal maximum radius.

[spencer davies]

If you optimise your website for the targeted areas you can be no#1, near of far, it makes no difference.


Regards


S

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

I have worked in Essex, London, Kent, Herts, Cambs and Suffolk this year but only travel if enough money in it, just passed on a small job in Dagenham, approx 30 miles  because not cost effective.

Cheers

Doug

[Mike Halliday]

unless you live in the highlands of Scotland, some areas of the lake or Peak district, and work more than 10 miles from you home on a regular basis then you are doing something wrong, more than likely the problem is your marketing.

most of my work is in Beverley & villages  an area of 30,000 homes.

 2 Chemdrys, 1 Servicemaster, 1 rainbow and 3-4 independants also target this area. I don't know about the others but I do very well out out of this area.

if your preferred type of customer lives near your home then why travel miles away to serve what lives on your doorstep?, its just daft.

[Straker Cleaning]

Can travel to Hampstead and do a job 2 or 3 times the size of a majority of my local ones 
Travelling to certain areas with higher concentrations of larger homes, wealthy residents or prestige offices, has to make sense 

[Mike Halliday]

your right Chris, the only reason to travel is if your desired customer does not live on your doorstep.

if you live on a crappy druggie invested council estate, don't look for customers on your own doorstep, travel to the better areas,

unless you target (the often overlooked) crackhouse market

[liahona]

I tend to travel more than most on here put together.  As Mike has said, if your market is close to home then why travel.

 Its just that my preferred market or clients are all over this country and a few other countries as well.

In the states where I had more choice of where I worked geographically I pretty much worked in about a 20 mile radius area.  Although this area was about 15 miles away to get to.

But I still go back there to work sometimes so if that counts then I work 6000 miles away.

Best, Dave.

P.S.  Missed your post Mike.  Dont knock crack houses, they are very lucrative to clean.

Hard to get, but you can get a fortune for cleaning them and re-odorise them.

[Dave_Lee]

My areas outer limit is 10 miles to the East of Sheffield.
Dave.

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

I work anywhere from North London (going to Islington on Thursday) down to Bognor Regis - but obviously only if it is financially viable to do so.

My office used to be 25 miles from where I lived, so travelling has never been an issue.


Steve