AREAS

Might try postings in grocery stores and any place that has a bulletin board and stick your business cards there, maybe some brochures as well.

Talk to seniors organizations.

Chat with the home office about how to get on the website…I went there and you are not coming up on the Bay City, MI location. BIG GLITCH! How could anyone know you are there if they can’t find you? Give out a business card with the website on it and someone looks it up and your name does not appear, they just might think you are scamming them.

Clean for friends and relatives. Get referrals.

Hope this may help you.

Dave

Gary,

I have been in business for six months now and I know my first 1-2 months were slow. But, then things started picking up a bit. I have used Money Mailer and Clipper Magazine for Direct Mail and both have been pretty good. But, the best thing that I have done for my business has been PROACTIVE NETWORKING.

I joined the Chamber, BNI, COMMERCE Club, etc. I attended every before hours, after hours functions as possible, especially the first few months. Did not have immediate business from that, but it did start to build with time and then the referrals started happening as well. BNI (which we have a good group of about 25 here) has really been good. Not a lot early on, but once I built up some relationships, things started clicking.

I am still not in the main phone book here. It comes out this month. Hopefully that will help even more.

My best advice would be to network, network, network as much as possible. And, not just join, but be pro-active in meeting key people and other business owners. Work on building relationships with them, become friends and the business will eventually come.

The key to networking is not to do a quick introduction of yourself and hand out a business card, but to focus on getting to know a few folks very well at each function adn then stay in touch with them at future functions. You almost need to have a battle plan prior to attending the function: Are there key folks there that you would like to meet? Is there anything that you could offer that would be of value to them? etc., etc. Remember the first contact is not to overwhelm them with your business, but to plant the seed for a future relationship. Then, whenever they hear of a need or have one themselves, you will be the first one they think of.

It is tough early on, but try to remember that every action you take today, and every relationship you establish early on will have an impact on your business six months from now, a year from now, and so on.

Feel free to call me anytime, I would be glad to swap start up stories with you since I am still relatively new… (864)201-1307

Dan 🙂

Gary,
The previous advice in the above replies is great!

I would like to add a little concerning your marketing efforts. Unless you have very deep pockets, great care must be taken to get some return for your advertising dollars. If you sent out 38,000 direct mail ads, that must have cost you a lot of money. There are so many variables that can affect the success of your ad/flyers – day of week, time of month, weather on the day it is received, the specific ad copy, the envelope it is in, etc. Before you spend large sums of money on ads, you need to test them when possible. Consider sending out 1,000 or 5,000 as a test next time. I know they cost a lot more per thousand when you send out less, but you could prepare some at home while you are waiting for the phone to ring. Also, you will be testing more than one thing. Test your ad copy, the day of week, the envelope, etc.

I don’t want to try and discourage you from spending money on ads, but you learn pretty quickly that there are so many advertisers that will approach small businesses and they all promise amazing results. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I started doing something last year with advertising sales reps. I accepted quite a few invitations for lunch to hear their sales pitch. After they finished their pitch, I made small talk and eased into asking them how long they had been selling advertising. Only one had been doing their job for more than a year. So in other words, they don’t know zip. If they know much at all, it is probably a whole month’s or two months’ worth of experience more than you know, but that isn’t much.

If you do a search on Google for small business marketing, you can find several sites with loads of information about marketing/advertising. Keep in mind that those sites have free information which is great, but they hope to hook you into spending serious money with them. Just read their free info and resist their fantastic claims of what they can do for you if you buy this package or that one. Use some of your free time to cram about marketing. Your ad dollars are your dollars, so you really need to learn as much as possible to make informed decisions about ads.

Like Ron and the others said, use every free hour for some purpose. Several operators have posted in the past about their networking efforts with real estate agents. Search old posts for more on this. This type of networking won’t cost you any money or very little at most (buy them a few donuts), but does require your time of course. The Devlins in Denver give a very generous discount to any real estate agent in order to let them see our capabilities. By the way, you can clean empty houses much faster than furnished ones. You can give a better per sq. ft. price if a home is empty and still make good money.

Don’t get discouraged about the slow start. I sometimes get calls from people who heard about me from a friend and they were originally told about me months ago. People may hear about you but not be ready yet.

You are coming up on a time that is usually a good period – Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So far, if I had to say the single thing that will push a customer to call for carpet cleaning more that anything else, it would be visitors. If they are going to have visitors, they will go ahead and get their carpets cleaned now rather than put it off. Some operators have made up little coupons and sent them to everyone they know as well as their old customers. You could make up a coupon that says “One room free if you clean three” or “20% off for the Holidays” and send a few to everyone you know.

The others already mentioned the phone book. You really need to be in the yellow pages. Again, be careful about spending too much money. Seek advice from others about what was in their yellow pages ad that worked.

Good luck,

Mike

What a great bunch of advice here. Mike, Ron, Danbo and Dave, your advice is dead on. Any new operators have a great leg up just by reading and learning from the bulletin board. Gary, I encourage you to be patient here, but you have to be hungry. Go out and put your plan and this advice to work and don’t stop until it does. The HB system combined with all the advice in the world, you cannot fail. Only you can do it though, no one else can do it for you. We all have competition, it’s up to us on how we beat the competition. Gary, good luck and keep it touch. We’re all rooting for you!

I still remember some of the great advice I read on this board my first months in the business. One of the best lines I remember reading was: “Believe in the system, because it is good & it works!” Start with that attitude & your sales will reflect in good results! Personal contacts are the greatest asset in the beginning I believe – friends, church members, business people you know, etc. From there, the referrals grow. It is important to “fish” for business when the fish are biting also. Think about the predominant work force in your area – what do you think their pay periods are? Hit them when they get paid and you have a better shot! Rise above the buzz – insert flyers on tues/thurs instead of Wed when everyone else does for example. Walk neighborhoods – get the permit – and put flyers on doors. You’ll be surprised – folks will call…but as said above it may be awhile!! Holidays are approaching – get to them before they put up the Tree & you’ll help them get ready for visitors! Currently, I only do HB part-time – but I can tell you the demand continues to grow because of referrals & soon I’ll be back to full-time! I believe it – because I believe in the system and I think this franchise is on the edge of expedential growth!!!! Good luck!!