[feldon]

As someone who is looking to start up in the not too distant future I am doing lots of research first.  I have certainly learnt a lot of advice on here and have received lots of good advice, one common piece of advice is not to give up full-time work first. Now whilst I am taking this one board and I will certainly try to keep my job for as long as possible, I am also looking at other ways of making money, at least untill the carpet cleaning takes off.  I am looking to gain my customers via leaflets and to this end I have been looking at leaflet distributors, who in my area charge about £40 per 1000.  Now it occurred to me that in the early days and to save money I could do it myself, then I thought what if I delivered non-competing leaflets, no more than two others and charged for delivering them.  Apologise if someone has mentioned this before, but has anyone tried this, was it a success? : :

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I would personally just deliver yours and yours only the response will be far better, get dressed up and talk to customers when you are delivering offering them a card although you will give thema leaflet anyway that's a bit of bullpoo for them but they love it.

Call it meet and greet, then after you have done 5000 leaflets in the areas you think will work the best do it all over again and build up a trust that you are going to be around for ever.

Shaun

[mark_roberts]

After delivering 1000 youll soon realise why we all pay for others to deliver.

IMO keep your day job as many established cleaners are feeling the pinch never mind new starts.

Mark

[clinton]

I did a hundred before xmas and wont be doing many more :

Geting someone else to do them

[Ryan Smyth]

You are just a ray of sunshine Mark,give people a chance i assume you had to start somewhere,i dont think hes from Ireland so im sure he cant compete with you

Ryan

[Ryan Smyth]

Pesky new starts....why i oughta.....

Ryan

[Ian Rochester]

You need to be careful if doing this, once you promise toproviding a service to deliver someones leaflets then the onus is on you to do the job in a timely manner.   They will have different priorities to you, will maybe want them delivered in other areas to where you are looking, need them done before a certain date, etc.

You could well end up becoming a full time leaflet distributor before you even get a chance to become a carpet cleaner.

Mark is right though, the whole country is feeling the pinch at the moment and the cleaning industry is no exception.   Starting out in carpet cleaning involves quite a large sized outlay compared to other cleaning professions.   

Forget the promises the manufacturers make about what your potential earnings could be, they are pretty much pie in the sky.

At the moment the vast majority of our work is from repeat customers or recommendations, there is very little totally "new" work coming in.

£40/1000 leaflets is quite high, undercut them and become a leaflet distributor!!  A company near us started up doing this 4 years ago and now employ over 250 staff and are looking at opening another operation in Glasgow.

www.amaro.co.uk/Pages/home.htm

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

I have delivered hundreds of thousands of leflets over the years, it was how I built my business.

It's hard work, very boring after a while but good for fitness.When I was still playing football it improved my stamina 

Delivering more than one leaflet will halve or worse your return.

Carpet cleaning is a very difficult business to get established in, even in good times .

I would certainly advise not to give up the day job in this present climate.

Cheers

Doug

[derek west]

i believe in 100% commitment, having a job and trying to set up another business is something i don't think works, you get home from work, your knackered, theres money in the bank, "aaaahh fck it, i'll do them leaflets another day"
my advice would be save save save, research research research, and in a couple of years (or when you get made redundant) (which ever comes first) when the country starts getting back to normal, quit your job, buy the best kit possible and "GO FOR IT"

derek

[clinton]

Doug

Did you get my mail

As ian said in his last post not much new work and am the same,just geting my regulars and recomds.

[gwrightson]

Feldon,
good luck with your venture .
You have and are doing the right thing in your attitude towards the industry by learning and seeking advise!! 
In Answer to you question , yes you will need to try and have another income if possible in the infancy of your business. Why ? because it makes life alot easier when things are slow,( and they will be slow times especialy for newbies) and unless you have an unlimited amount of cashflow ,Ignore Derick,s reply , because it doesnt matter how much commitment, how much time, how much effort you put into it .it is not going to line your pockets with gold!!! 
Sorry Derick, your comments save ,save save, research,research are Bull **t Why you say this beyond me    
The way to learn , wether it be the hard way / easy way   go out and do it , you,ve done the right thing so far , get another income if possible and go and earn some money c/c , amazes me why their are so many negatives , all doom and gloom flying around at the moment. their is , always will be plenty of work for every one if your prepared to get it. simple.

Geoff.
ps  Not disagreeing with derick regarding best kit poss

[Ricky M]

just looking at my Jan job sheet and out of 30 jobs only 6 are new clients 2 services for services(NO MONEY) 2 that moved from Dec Re: parties  2 spot/Stain treatments so that leaves 18 regs or clients on CP with me . £172.50 is the biggest job ( special needs home could poss be treble that tho !?)  smallest job £30

So I most agree with the majority , not much new work coming in at the min but Ive No web site an only put out 9k leaflets in Nov-Dec , small ad in Yell pages and BT book .

It might not be the best time to be a new comer to the industry but go with your heart , i.e. if you want in that bad go for it with eyes open as going into anything new there is always a risk of poss failure.
GOOD LUCK
Ricky

[derek west]

can i just point out, that i would never tell anyone to ignore someones ideas, neither would i say anyones advice was bull.
yes! i sometimes disagree with people on here, but that doesn't make me right or wrong.
feldon
listen to everyones advice then make a calculated guess as to what to do. my comments were from my own experience which is doing ok, so there not bull in my eyes.
derek

[gwrightson]

Derick,

I say it as I see it , ( sorry if you took offence )  but then again I am a yorkshireman

we say what we mean, and mean what we say  .

    well most of the time

Geoff

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Clinton, got it this morning thanks, I am working on optimisation, things will get better.

Cheers

Doug

[richy27]

i think a lot of people would think twice about starting any new venture in the present climate you can turn this on its head and use it as a good thing it will make you more caucious on your initial investment you are more likely to get a better deal on advertising equipment at the moment as long as you not planning on borrowing vasts amount of money to start why not go for it. I started up my own business few months back although its slow i expected it to be but i had a good dec and few things in the pipeline this month it will just take time. when i set up i had saved up for a long time so i was able to buy most of my gear out right so i have no heavy monthly outgoings. so if the van is sat doin nothing apart from advertising its not costin me.

You do need money though to advertise but be carefull and see with a lot of things very easy to get sucked into expensive methods when sometimes the cheapest and simplist seem to work better.

I agree with derek take everyones advice think about and use what you feel could work.

My theory on other income is this i am lucky enough to have a part time job milking on a farm evenings 3 night a week pays my advertising bill. if i need to advertise more to get goin then i will just do some extra work there.

its very easy to get put off but its all down to economics how much as an individual do you need to earn to be ok.

Hope that helps

[feldon]

Thanks for your replies.  A lot of you are saying how quite it is, and not many new customers, but is that not the time of year, January and February are quite months for many industries.  Thats why I am looking to start up / launch in April, but I will keep a close eye on how the economy is doing and if need be I will delay till later.  

How many of you are saying you are not getting new business though and relying on existing customers and then say you have not done much marketing.   I am looking to put out a miniumum of 15,000 leaflets a month, and then repeating to the same customers every 4 - 6 weeks (stong advacate of Mike Halliaday) and I not expecting a significatant response untill month 3, as I suspect 1st drop people throw in bin, second maybe look at then throw in bin, but third drop some will hopefully start to recogonise leaflet and will start to act upon, I am basing my business plan on small response to leaflet drops ie. 0.2% - 0.3% per thousand, building up over a 3 month period.

My idea to drop other leaflets as well as mine is because I aim to get a leaflet company to drop my nearest town and I will drop around 5000 per month around local villages, I thought I might be able to earn about £80 - £100 per week to help out initially, I have no intention of setting up a leaflet disribution company, but I have experience of leaflet drops of 1000 per week, so I do know how soul destroying it can be, but I also know it can work.

[Mike Osbourne]

I quite often deliver another leaflet and haven't noticed that much of a drop of in response. However what I'm doing is working with other companies that are delivering my leaflets too, thus reduce time and cost.

It's a bit of a pain logistics wise but saves a lot of time.

There's no need to rush into who you do it with, take some time to think about it.

Whilst they defo should be non competing there is a lot of value in doing it with a company that may deal with the type of customer you aspire to. When you get friendly with them and get chatting, cross promotion opportunities abound.

I think it would be a mistake if you didn't start off by delivering your leaflet solus by yourself, not because of end response but so you have a benchmark for everything else.

If you are really really smart you always have two versions of the same ad on the go. This is the only true way to know which is working better. A printer can do this at no extra cost.

[sherco]

I delivered 50 leaflets 3pm today on the way home and just got in and got two calls on answerphone from the estate i delivered too. 

[Mike Osbourne]

Smug bastrd!