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I am going to try to get our cleaning solution into the local grocery stores in my area. I am looking for feedback From operators who have products in local stores. I could care less about making a profit from this in fact I would sell it to them for my cost plus a small fee to cover my labor cost to fill and deliver product. What I am looking for is the branding of our company. I always look at what is on the shelf and it is the usual resolve folex and other off brands. I think that we have the best spotters on the market and the more that people are seeing the logo the more of a house hold name we become. I have a family member who was just hired as the buyer for nugget market in Sacramento. He was the one who asked me why we don’t have our product in his stores. Nugget is a small chain with a big name. They are in the Forbes top companies to work for and they are the high end markets in our areas. I will be contacting every operator who has territory in their markets to ask permission first due to our territory limits, but this could be a big step in our market for us. Looking for all input on the situation
Greg Miller
Sacramento CA
Greg,
I have often thought this would be a good thing to try. Good luck, especially since you have an “in”. That has always been the biggest obstacle in my eyes in a large city since so many stores are chains anymore and local people have little input on product. Am I assuming correctly that the large spotter is the one you want in the stores? One thing I always thought would be good in such a situation is to put something on it that says you get free refills if they buy it and then later use you to clean their carpet. Could have a tag or sticker you put on it. Or maybe a $10 off coupon for carpet cleaning. Something I also always thought would be great is if the spot/spilll chart could somehow be added to the labels of the large spotter without making it too busy and taking away from its look. One more selling point, especially in your instance. Just some thoughts.
Dave
PS-Did I see you again in one of the industry mags recently? Nov ’08 ICS Cleaning Specialist mag has a guy on pg 34 using a nobles buffer that looks a lot like you in a non-logo’d blue shirt. Here’s the article online and I think the 3rd pic down is you.
http://www.icsmag.com/CDA/Articles/Feature_Article/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000476641They could not have picked a worse picture. We were laughing at something. As for the logo they photoshoped it out for some reason. I was not to happy when I saw that. If you notice the pocket looks very large. Hopefully the next issue will represent much better. As for the spotter bottle size I am only looking at the large bottles. The most important issue is getting the upc code on the bottle. I can make them myself, but i would love to see that integrated into the labels in the future. When it comes to refill and coupons the is a slippery slope. The carpet guy in me wants to slap my sticker on every bottle in my area with my number. The Marketing guy in me is a bit more realistic. It is much harder to pitch a store, or chain with this verses a very professional look. We can still work on making more of an emphasis on the website. Once we have them there we can hit them up for our services. As far as the stain guide i was thinking that should be the carrot to the website. Meaning if we emphasise a free spot cleaning chart on http://www.heavensbest.com then the hope is they check it out. All of this is just the frosting if they were to do all of this. The reality is that the shelf space is advertising. The logo stands out and after a while we are not the never heard of them company. We are the I use the stuff all the time they truly are heavens best, I did know they were a full service cleaning to. And imagine the look on the competition as they go strolling down the isle and what do they see.
Hey Greg, I totally agree. I think this is a great idea. Please let us know if you have had any luck.
When I was in chem-dry the corporate office sold to stores that would sell for almost the same price as the operator could buy it for. (Killed local sales) Also with chem-dry, the local operator had no say. That being said, I sold to the local furniture store (for about 10 years now) Bottles of mixed spotter for $7.50 each, and told them they must sell them for $20.00 (the same price I do)(or $19.99 if they insist), Let their customers know of the life time free refill! Call me for details! The life time free refill applies when they have cleaning done, or it is a $10 charge.
What I like most about this is the endorsement that goes with the sale!
It has been a good response, they sell about 20-25 a year as well as they pass on about 20 referrals a year. We also clean for them.
P.S. La Grande, Oregon is 13,027 in population. Wha who!I have been slow on working on this due to preparation. There were many things that I had to look into like UPC codes and pricing structures for both my cost, and the price point in which to sell on the shelf. I have learned so much over the past month about core products and margins. I want to be upfront on this with everyone. I only want to cover my cost. I have to approach this with a strong objective in my mind. It is not how much more money I could make at selling for $20 or $19.99 to my customers it is advertising. Truth be told I have only sold 8-10 large spotters ever. That does not mean I don’t go through them. Every one of my customers has a small or large bottle in their home. We give it to them for FREE for the same reason ADVERTISING. The objective is simple. Sell to the supermarkets to compete with their so called premium brands(folex). Have them sell our product at a price that is competitive with them $8 or so. Give them a margin that they like, but leave room so they can run them on ad 4 times a year. Show up and be the demo boy handing out small free spotters 3 times a year. Have the shoppers(women) see our logo as many times as possible. Create a branding that my competition does not have. Every time a shopper buys this they become a believer in the Heaven’s Best product. We have the best looking spotters in all aspects of the market. The stores don’t have anything, the competition does not have anything, and the customers have never seen anything that looks as great as the spotters. Even better it works better and stronger than anything else out there. I don’t have, or have ever heard of a red van logo-ed up driving around cleaning carpets called resolve. If there were they would be so busy cleaning carpets on the name recognition and the branding alone not on the results.
I remember seeing the chem-dry extinguisher in the market years ago. It has been a long time. I don;t know how good they were, but they sure looked good. If you were to stand on a corner and ask 100 people to name the top three biggest carpet cleaning companies out there I am sure Chem-Dry would make the list in most cases in almost every corner of the states. I would be very surprised if Heaven’s Best would make it at all. I hear it every single day “wow I never heard of Heaven’s Best, Are you new” They are always surprised to hear how long the company has been around. We are not Chem-Dry, but some day I want to make the list.
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