[craignozza]

Hi all,

As a few of you know we are starting up as of Sept and I've been looking into various forms of marketing triggered by the thought of participating in the alltec fast track system. However we have shelved that as cant afford it along with our other costs even if it would make us millions  .... After looking into it though I found that most of the material is from Howard Partridge - pheonomenal products / Joe Polish - Piranha marketing and wondered if anyone had actually used them?

 - Has anyone implemented different maintenance plans for domestic customers and found it beneficial to their business? Is dealing with the admin side of it worth it ie direct debit / standing order forms or do you end up chasing monthly payments from people?
- With flyers is it true that you would get more of a return on a plain printed flyer packed with direct info rather than a glossy with prices? Or is that return higher just because your initial outlay is that much cheaper?
 - Have people had problems with the concept of 'the most thorough clean or its free'?
 - With a referral scheme I can grasp that it would be successful in the states but over here how would this work - anyone done it?

I'm not after in depth detail as to how people have accompolished the above as I am fairly certain I can apply this to our business and am not into stealing anyones ideas. I just wanted to know if anyone had experience of these types of direct marketing and if they can be applied to the UK consumers successfully.

Looking forward to seeing your replies,
Thanks, Vickie (Craigs wife)

[craignozza]

Hi again,
Just thought I'd add that I have looked back through previous posts regarding these systems and have found some good info but no definate answers as to whether these marketing schemes are workable here and a measure of their success.
Thanks, Vickie

[Steve Chapman]

Hi Vickie,

I went through a phase a while ago of reading loads of Joe Polish / Pirahna marketing info and it was very interesting and a worthwhile exercise.

A couple of things i would say is though is :-

Most of it is common sense if you have a bit of an imagination and lots of the ideas have been around for years.

you will never be able to do it all, better to select a few ideas that you think you can use and focus on these & do them well,  otherwise you will get bogged down and not all is suitable for everyones business,

Also i found nearly all of it needs to be adapted to uk customers as it is very american and needs to be toned down a tad or re phrased for british customers.

A book I read recently purely for ideas was  'Outrageous Advertisng'  by Bill Glazer, probably get it cheap on Amazon.

Its helpful to get the creative juices going and written purely to give examples and ideas and then adapt them to your own business.

That being said, I think the biggest thing ive come to realise is that the most important factor in marketing is the volume you do and not necessarily what the content is....


Regards
Steve

[Ian Gourlay]

In my opinion to benefit from the systems you need to be working with a group of people , so that you compete and spur people on. As as you have joined the group you get to discus the results others have acheived in private.

I am not endorsing it but if you have not started yet go on a Discovery Day at Alltec at least you will learn more of what is involved .

Information Marketers openly state that less than 90% of people who buy the product actually use it.

[Dave_Lee]

For it to work effectively, you have to simply 'go for it' and implement the strategies.
I know many that found success by doing just that. Myself on the other hand, implemented a few strategies that I thought would be useful. I had been in this business over 20 years when I did the fast Track and already had a good repeat business.
1. The maintenance scheme does work, isn't difficult, but obviously the more you have on it, the more you have to keep your eye on it. I have been winding mine down for a couple of years now after becoming disillusioned by the number of people who, when deciding to change their carpet after a last clean to get them on for 6 months or so, canceled the Standing Order, immediately after the clean.
One guy canceled two days after the clean, then had the nerve to call me out for a stain removal visit (free of charge) knowing that I wouldn't know until his bank payment failed another couple of weeks off.
2. I have not had a problem with "Most thorough Clean etc", but in the 10 years that I have been using it, have had ,two that were trying it on. Strangely enough both were within two weeks of each other. I simply ignored their winging as I knew that I had done an outstanding job for them, and they weren't going to get away with it. I heard nothing further from them.
3. I simply leave it to customers whether they want to recommend me or not and leave them a couple of cards. I did once try and do a rewards thing, to see if they would refer more, but it made no difference. In fact it became clearly obvious, that customers are happy to refer when they are chuffed to bits and don't need any further incentive, other than feeling that they are doing you a favor.
Dave.

[Ian Gourlay]

For it to work effectively, you have to simply 'go for it' and implement the strategies.
I know many that found success by doing just that. Myself on the other hand, implemented a few strategies that I thought would be useful. I had been in this business over 20 years when I did the fast Track and already had a good repeat business.
1. The maintenance scheme does work, isn't difficult, but obviously the more you have on it, the more you have to keep your eye on it. I have been winding mine down for a couple of years now after becoming disillusioned by the number of people who, when deciding to change their carpet after a last clean to get them on for 6 months or so, canceled the Standing Order, immediately after the clean.
One guy canceled two days after the clean, then had the nerve to call me out for a stain removal visit (free of charge) knowing that I wouldn't know until his bank payment failed another couple of weeks off.
2. I have not had a problem with "Most thorough Clean etc", but in the 10 years that I have been using it, have had ,two that were trying it on. Strangely enough both were within two weeks of each other. I simply ignored their winging as I knew that I had done an outstanding job for them, and they weren't going to get away with it. I heard nothing further from them.
3. I simply leave it to customers whether they want to recommend me or not and leave them a couple of cards. I did once try and do a rewards thing, to see if they would refer more, but it made no difference. In fact it became clearly obvious, that customers are happy to refer when they are chuffed to bits and don't need any further incentive, other than feeling that they are doing you a favor.
Dave.

Dave,
What surprised me last year when I went to Pier de  Wet Refer On day   was famous trackers like Kevin Barber , Chris Bailey , Colin Bright  etc all claimed they were not getting enough referrals .
I did wonder if this was genuinely the case or they were making up the numbers

[Dave_Lee]

Ian,
The guys you mention inc my mate Colin, all work on high prices. Good luck to them I say. Obviously you can work a higher job ticket if you never quote over the phone and go out and sell your service, every time.
I on the other hand am prepared to charge less and mainly quote over the phone if the job is below say £150.
The way I see it and in my experience is that, if a customer has had a great job done at what they consider a good or reasonable price, they are all too happy to tell their friends and refer.
Now if they have  the same job done but at a price touching their limit, or stretching it a bit, to my mind they may tell their friends they have a good job done, but warn them "It's not cheap". I also think they would be less inclined to pass the word on.
I get just about, every referral job, but I know that guys charging top prices, even when referred often don't end up with the job.
Dave.

[craignozza]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies - I'm finding it really interesting reading up on all this american style direct marketing. Obviously have no experience at all of this kind of stuff hence my questions. I have however been reading an awful lot and we are going to go ahead and get the howard partridge package.

Steve - After reading your post I completely agree about choosing a couple of strategies and doing them well and obviously the volume aspect. Thanks for the Bill Glazier tip will try and track a copy down.

Ian - When we first spoke to Alltec they said that as we were decided on pursuing carpet cleaning then the discovery day wasnt necessary. As for the motivational / competitive edge that you get through doing it with a team of others I can see why it would be beneficial but I want our business to be as much of a success as possible and as Dave says just go for it. Hopefully that will be enough motivation for me to keep at marketing constantly.

Dave - Thanks for that esp the bit about referrals, kind of thought as much already. Going to wait until we have been going a bit and then implement the maintenance package, from a customer point of view I can see the plus points to this as well as on the business side.

Thanks again, Vickie

[Ian Gourlay]

Howard has a referral package

Think he is more economical than JP.

John Braun is worth a look.