This is a reprint of a post I did a few months ago.
Regards
CMS
OK..........this is how I do it. Firstly, don't bother wasting your money advertising. In 24 years I have never won a contract through advertising. You MUST walk the streets and 'knock on doors' but I have a strict method of doing things.
1. I go to a reception and say this (word for word) "I work for a cleaning company and we'd like to do your daily cleaning. Is there anybody I can write to initially about this?"
Now then, let's look at what has happened here. Firstly, the receptionist would have been on her guard because she has to act as a 'goalkeeper' and keep the reps away from the decision maker. Then as soon as you say you want to write she starts to relax and you don't have to say any more than you have already said (don't spoil it by trying). I would stake my life on it that within thirty seconds she is offering you a compliment slip with the decision makers name on it. Put it in your pocket and move on. Total time less than a minute.
2. At the end of a day walking the streets you should have in excess of 100 compliment slips, in fact you can get that in 3 hours. Send an introductory letter to the decision maker on each compliment slip (a good mail merge/database manager like Act! can do this). You must keep it brief; just a short introduction, say why you are writing (that you would welcome the opportunity to quote) and, most importantly, that you will call him in a couple of days to make arrangements to visit. And make sure that you do.
From 100 compliment slips you should get the opportunity to quote for 10% of them. I can convert half of these into contracts but I've been doing it a lot of years. If you work on a conversion rate of 10% of your quotes you should get 1 new contract a week (100 compliment slips = 10 quotes = 1 contract).
You must keep collecting the compliment slips, maybe 200 a week then you will have a constant 'pipeline' of intro letters/quotes/new starts. But remember, as soon as you stop collecting compliment slips the pipeline will dry up!
Also, make sure you maintain your database properly. As has been said before, keep a record of 'renewal dates' etc.
Now I'm going to tell you about something that I do that I bet no-one else on here does.
I presume that like me you will keep your quotes on disk somewhere.
REQUOTE EVERY THREE MONTHS! - automatically whether they have asked for it or not. You can knock up a short covering letter to say that you are requoting incase the clients circumstances have changed.
You MUST maintain your collection of 100 compliment slips a week which will give you 10 quotes a week. After three months you will be sending out 10 new quotes a week PLUS 10 requotes that you did three months ago. After six months you will be sending out 10 new quotes a week, 10 three month old quotes a week and 10 six month old quotes a week.
The Conversion rate is less on requotes but it does happen. Your original quote may have been declined BUT three months later it could land on a guys desk when he's had a really crap day with his cleaners.
I used to convert 50% of new quotes and 10% of requotes.
BUT KEEP THAT PIPELINE OF COMPLIMENT SLIPS GOING - IT'S A NUMBERS GAME. IF YOU DON'T GET THE QUOTES IN YOU WILL NEVER GET THE BUSINESS IN.
Good luck.
