[alang]

ok so were ready to launch our business at the end of the month,I would like to start slowly at first to build confidence and not get too bogged down with work(hopefully) ,what would be the best approach in this case,we have a website ready to go,FB page ready,15,000 leaflets and also been quoted for the local advertiser,do we launch all at once or is it better to -lets say ,advertiser and FB first ,keep the leaflets till the following month,or any combination  of the above? we need the work obviously but IF all the marketing goes really well (may not) but if it does i don't want to be in a situation where i am overstretched, missing booked times or asking customers to wait,i'm not going to be the fastest so don't even know how long il be per job as yet
any advice please
alan

[Mike Halliday]

Do everything you have suggested at once, then in 2 weeks time repeat it, then 2 weeks later repeat it, then 2 weeks later repeat, then is 2 weeks later repeat ...( you can see where this is going😊)

You are going to get a big reality check if you think you are going to get too busy to handle the work unless you  times your marketing by 10.

This advice is based on you being sensible with your pricing,  go on Facebook and offer carpet cleaning at £15 a room and you will be a busy fool if you want to build a profitable company then you need to heavily market to the right types of people & homes

[Jonathan Evans]

As Mike  said that is a good starting point. My advice would be the same apart from.
Facebook : Use for brand awareness rather than advertising for work.

Get into as many parish mags you can.

Try Google adwords as a start to get you going.

Pick 4 areas then leaflet each area every 3 months. As many as you can eg 15k a month plus.

Keep all your client details and send letters on an annual basis plus a big mail out to the whole database once or twice a year.

Don't stress about getting too much work immediately, if you do please share the leaflet for us all.

[alang]

thanks ,i wasn't expecting huge amounts by you guys standard but to me  if i got a few rapid orders i worry about booking timings and letting people down as i may get my timings wrong then miss me next appointment,Fb will be good for us as the missus runs a pretty good business on here already and has the right client base for her to tap into,I think we can gain some traction there,and no one else is doing it in our area on -Fb I mean. 15000 maybe isn't a lot of leaflets but our town has circa 7000 properties then the surrounding areas take it to  the 15000-20000, 15 mile radius, 3 jobs per 1000 leaflets doesn't seem too far fetched does it?
if this was the case 30 odd jobs lined up would be difficult as a new starter to manage so i thought a slowly slowly approach maybe better
or am i totally off the mark
alan

[RPCCS]

Still a newbie myself, but regarding missing appointments, only take on 2 jobs per day, one am and one pm, until you get experienced enough to be able to  guess how long each job will take. I did one last week,and estimated 2- 2:5 hours for it, I had it done in 2. Another way of saving time on a job, only take your vac,sprayer,and agitator in to the property,with the solution or powder you plan to use as your pre spray. After you have vacuumed,pre sprayed and agitated the carpet, take your equipment out,and bring your extraction machine in, and prep it for work, all the time you are doing this, it gives the carpet it’s “dwell time”, for the  pre spray to do it’s job.
 After rinsing and extracting, you can put your air mover on to start drying the carpet, while you empty the machine, and put it back in your van.

[alang]

thanks Rich,
to be honest if i could get 2 jobs a day coming in mon to friday that would do me fine , and i could do ok at that until i built my  reputation - ive factored at least a year for this to progress,but in reality for me to get the 2 jobs per day -as people rightly say on here keep dropping the leaflets,but the catch is 15000 leaflets comes in at around £1000 printed and delivered,so there's my catch,i need 50 percent more customers or there about to get the same as i had before,(if i can get customers without the drop)my thinking was leaflet drop every 6 months but more frequent it seems to me to be quite expensive ,i am not naive by any stretch of the imagination,but its finding the balance,spend too much or not enough?  if i could slowly build over time then that's the best way forward for me.

[Mike Halliday]

Don’t pay a company to deliver leaflets, unless you have total control over delivery they will not work. A company will deliver them with 2-3other leaflets.

Printing cost £130 for 15k you need to find a designer

[alang]

Mike hi,my flyers have come in at £200 so there's an improvement I can make there.  they were designed by the company who have done my web site,(so look similar to my site)still in progress mind and im waiting the final proof, 2 options in my town the local advertiser who deliver there book once a month, they charge £45 plus vat per 1000,don't usually get many fliers in there issues, the other is royal mail,more expensive and they all get put in the same leaflet drop,I don't think I can deliver these my self so im a bit tied to my choices,either way quite pricey
thanks for the advice
al

[alang]

whos that flyer company by the way
thanks

[Mike Halliday]

Printcarrier.

£45 +vat is the top price you want to pay but stipulate yours is the only leaflet.

You need to be very careful with your marketing  budget you are going to spend a grand on 15k leaflets printing & dlivery could that money be spent elsewhere and you get a better return.

I’ve done leaflets for years I would never pay anyone to put them out if I couldn’t have total control  I would not do them. I employ my own deliver, or do them myself with my helper

[alang]

mike thanks
i get where your coming from,and i cannot afford to throw out  15000 every month,if i got a hepler it must take forever to deliver?
i can advertise in the local ad mag at £85 per month,this puts me along side my main competition,hes been doing this a long time and is well respected,it is the only place he advertises,its almost another reason that ive planned to take a year plus to build up and start slowly,getting customers to convert over to me is going to be hard and take time,i don't think adwords would help so much as once my site goes live there will be just the 2 of us pops up on google maps in our town,i may be wrong regards ad words of coarse,not sure what else i could do except the visiting local businesses but il be doing that anyway,i hope i'm right and there's room for us both in this  town and i haven't taken the decision lightly,took my 6 months to get to this stage thus far

[Cleanevangelist]

alang

hi, you need to listen to Mike. if you want to be successful then learn from people that have been where you are. you are trying to cherry pick things that will fit into your plan and not try new ideas. If you want cheap leaflets then buy a second hand riso. you can get them for about £200. look for one thats had little use, say in a church. dont get one from a printer as it will have had a hard life.

Regarding the mag only spend that money if you advert works. the mag might be good but your copy and offer might not work. this is something you need to test until you get copy and offer that work. then you can move onto testing new copy and offers against that one in  A B testing. the very best way for print is to drive them to a space that you can expand the message as space cost money in print. We do this with consumer message copy that can point to a recorded message, or web page

https://ianharper.co.uk/carpet-cleaning-guide/

adwords works but you need a very large war chest and a big learning curve. you need to support it when times are slow. 

Also dont compare yourself with other carpet cleaners you dont know their details like how they support their marketing. for example they might do other work that pays for it and then upsell when they quote.

regarding google maps its the very best way for you to get work on google but you need to get lots of reviews on that listing.

Good luck and let the prospects tell you want works

Ian Harper

[alang]

Ian thanks
 a lot to take in and digest,we won't be launching till the end of the month,and we will go from there regarding how well or not the marketing works,is a steep learning curve for sure,but one that we look forward to hopefully getting right.a big concern at the moment is getting the pricing right,(don't want to scare customers off) but at the same time don't want to be too cheap,it something that were going to have to set,try,then reassess as we go  i think
thanks

[Shaun_Ashmore]

If you go out to quote then you’ll probably not need vast amount of enquiries as an onsite visit usually gets the job but while you’re out quoting you’re no earning so do your sums for pricing, on fb you can get a carpet cleaned for a tenner but through an on-site visit there are companies that charge 10 to 20 times more.

[alang]

shaun thanks,
tbh i was thinking around the £3.50 a m2  which to me sounds about right for the average 16m2 room ,but it concerns me a little when the rooms get larger than this,my room for example is 26 m2, its not massive i wouldnt say but the price would then be £90 I am not sure people would pay this type of money but looking at forums a lot of cleaners were charging this a few years ago,from a marketing point perhaps i was thinking upto 16m2  at £3.50 then anything over this would be say £2.50 m2,not sure if anyone on here does this or is a good way to go, but i wish to be accurate every time with my pricing rather than say £50 per average room and £75 for a large, i think that if i did this then some customers could get short changed as where is the transition from medium to large,any thoughts would be appreciated thanks alan

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Never ever under estimate what the customer will pay! I had an enquiry on Friday for 2 x arm chairs and a 13ft x 12ft lounge I quoted £185 to be told I was too cheap, now I’m sure that there are more expensive cleaners out there but my point is that there’s so many different prices for our services that why pin yourself down?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Have a min charge or min spend You don’t want to tell the customer it’s £3.50 a metre and they ask you to clean the bottom of the stairs carpet or you could end up with a £3.50 job i’ve been there and done that and it takes some getting out of!

[alang]

ha i like it, i can imagine getting loads 10 pound jobs,as i said we haven't launched yet but did a caravan today  quoted 50 quid,thought it would take 2 hours max -was packing up nearly 5 hours later aaah,so on that front my pricing already needs to change,and my speed of coarse. loads of great comments on here and support, appreciate it and the pricing one is for me gonna be the crux of it all,need it right first time really. thanks

[Mike Halliday]

The thing with pricing is once you give a customer a price you can never increase it.....but you can reduce it.

So hit them with the biggest price going including all the bell & whistles,  they might just say "fine when can you do it" which is great, you get a high prices job. but if they don’t you can negotiate the price down.

Eg;.....

You:  "The price to clean your living room with be £120"

Customer: "that’s too much"

You:  "well if that price is a little more than you budgeted for there are ways we can still do a professional clean but at a lower price,  are you willing to vacuum and move the small items out of the room before we arrive?"

Customer: "yes"

You: "well in that case the job will go much quicker so we can reduce the cost by £25 so it will only be £90"

Customer; "that’s better when can you do it?"

Can you see how if you start high it gives you more options to get the job

[Stoots]

If you need work fast and with as little spend as possible then Facebook ads without a doubt, couple that with hammering the local groups and your page.

The kicker is you will probably have to go after the lower end of the market with cheaper prices, but hey if it keeps you afloat whilst you leaflet better areas in search of better customers.