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Hi. Jason, graphic design at corporate here. There’s been a lot of buzz about these commercials lately, so I thought I’d clear some things up.
We’re experimenting with all sorts of new mediums for advertising. One of the things we’ve been experimenting with is television commercials. We’re starting at the most cost effective methods of producing these, and moving towards more professional development.
Right now though, this is where we’re at. After a few failed attempts at low-cost filming, we decided to work with preshot footage of professionally shot Heaven’s Best video clips of our process and brand. We’ve worked out a video montage, with a professional narrator and music. So far the operators that have been experimenting with it, have seemed to like it in the initial phases.
So far we’ve done the personalizing of the commercials and shipping of the dvds for free to see how the commercials would pan out. But, alas, all things must come to an end. The burning and shipping costs us $15 alone, not to mention the time I spend personalizing these commercials.We have two last freebies going out, with which we’re going to see how well television stations can work with a generic commercial. (i.e. one in which the station would have to enter in the telephone numbers.)
If they are willing to plop in the phone numbers at little/no cost, by the start of next month a generic heaven’s best commercial cd will be available on the shopping cart at very little cost to you ($12 – $20)
If we find that operators need the commercials personalized here at corporate the commercials may cost a little more ($20 – $30). These prices are merely guesses of the top of my head, we’ll have to see what’s actually involved in production. But we’ll have it figured out by the first of October.
So that’s the scoop. If you have any questions let me know. grover@heavensbest.com
Hi, if it’s Adobe reader you’re looking for, here is where you can download it. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
I don’t particularly suggest buying the adobe creative suite, because it’s probably $900 for the whole dang thing, but you could download a month trial if you want.
For most intensive purposes however I’m not sure why you’d need it. I’d be happy to make/personalize/customize whatever sort of ad you need. Just email me at grover@heavensbest.com
Hey Guys and gals,
Thought I would give an update on the new hotel I landed. I just emailed them a copy of their invoices and included in the email (to the GM) that we would be willing to offer 15% off for any employees of the hotel who would like to have their personal homes cleaned. She called me 15 minutes later and booked an appointment to do her personal home, this account is looking better everyday, she said she had called the Steemer a while back and their quote was of course through the roof, so she put it off. I am cutting her a smoking deal since she is the GM down there and once she sees what I’ll do with her dogs “accident” spots, she will surely be a loyal customer and a good account for years to come.
Thought I would hop on here and let everyone know how the realtor networking is going.
Over the summer time, real estate is of course in full swing. We all know that carpet cleaning is not always the same story. With all the networking I did with realtors, I have stayed busier than I thought I would. The guys around me in surrounding counties had a good May and decent June, as did I. But they slowed down this month of July and I only slowed slightly. A huge part of my business is coming from the Realtors that are buying and selling homes. Once they have a good experience with you, they are faithful and also give some of the best recommendation letters to promote the quality work you do. They also know the value of referrals and tell other agents they work with about you, not just their clients. My experience has shown me that networking is the most effective form of advertising out there.
Did my first Guardsman Job a week or so back, a ball point pen mark less than 5 inches long. They paid me $80 to get it out and it took me about 10 minutes at the customers home, I included the drive time in the job because submitting 10 minutes of work with them didn’t make sense. They sent me another job but I declined it, description said pet stain on mattress 8 inches or larger. Sounded like a kid stain on mattress and those aren’t worth the one hour limit they gave for the job. If you aren’t with Guardsman/Valspar, hook up with them, it creates customers and work you don’t have to pay advertising for. What’s to lose?
You may try emailing Bob Gatch in Union County/Indian Trail, NC, he is just to the east of my area. He isn’t big on the message board and probably hasn’t seen this but he has been using Val Pak with lousy results. I don’t think it has returned his investment yet. I don’t like those coupon companies because you are investing a lot for mostly low end price shoppers with less than average sized homes, but that is just my area, can’t speak for yours.
I had a lady leave her 25 year old son when I was cleaning, he wrote the check out and I was on my way. Turned out to be a bad check so I called the number she had provided to me when I booked the appointment and it was her next door neighbor, she didn’t have a phone hooked up. I played it cool with the neighbor and the neighbor told me where she worked. The last thing these people want is you showing up at their workplace. So I just called the place to be nice and not put her too much on the spot, but after a couple weeks of that I knew she was just dodging me. So I showed up at her workplace when I was in the neighborhood, her boss who met me at the door wasn’t too pleased and said that I was not the first one to show up there looking for money. I asked her when do you take lunch? She said at noon, so I told her that I would be back at 1 PM everyday until I was payed in full including fees I received for the bounced check. I was payed in full with cash one hour later! I find that these people are not going to have you back anyways, and I don’t want their referrals so I don’t care what kind of weird position I put them in because I wouldn’t work for them again anyways.
Had another guy write me a check from an account that hadn’t existed for two years. Called him up, he played stupid but I was able to take his debit card number down over the phone and that did clear, charged it for all the fees involved also.
I have started taking down drivers license info along with DOB to prevent this. Haven’t had a problem since.
Don’t be rude to people like this, just bold.
Hey guys,
I just now stumbled onto this posting and find these cheap skates pretty halarious. $.06 per square foot! Bob Gatch in the county next to me here was working on the golden corral account and the guy there said we are too expensive because the guy he has “cleaning” his carpet now is only charging $.04 per sq. ft.
I think it is hilarious how these theater and restaurant owners think they are getting a good deal paying so little when they aren’t even getting a $.04-$.06 job done. They are basically paying someone to come make the carpet smell and wear it out quicker. Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me and I can’t help but laugh when someone tells me something like this.
I think Gordon said it best, I’m going to tell that to the next business that tells me I’m too expensive.
Hey Guys, I just ordered my spot dye kit today and hope it doesn’t take too long to get here. I bet the thing will pay for itself in less than a week, I see bleach pretty often and in pretty nice homes. Someone who has their kit fill us in on anything we should be aware of that we may not have learned in Vegas.
Hey Jamie,
Grant here, down the street from you in Charlotte. I emailed Dennis today and he sent me the technician forms to become a cleaner for them. I filled it out and had it back to him within 1/2 hour. I think this will be a great source for upholstery cleaning as well as upselling the client while we are there with carpet cleaning and other services we provide and of course they will become our future customers as well as Guardsman’s. Thanks for the tip, I think this will be pretty good for me since I have nearly one million people in my area. I’ve asked clients if they would like me to clean their dirty couches and they sometimes tell me that their insurance program from when they bought the sofa would cover it, maybe I’ll still be the one cleaning it for them now.
I’m sure that plenty of the operators’ spouses have benefits from their full time jobs and that is completely understandable. At the rate Heaven’s Best is growing I’m sure it will be a possibility before too long. I’m on board though as soon as it happens.
I use Erie Insurance as do many of the other N. Carolina operators.
Another thing that I wonder if we could do together with Heaven’s Best is Health Insurance for our families. It is so expensive for people who are Self-Employed, has corporate or anyone thought about grouping up and doing that?
I agree no refund unless the problem is solved by someone else and the problem truly is in the carpet. I cleaned for a lady who had some of the worst filtration lines I’ve seen yet, I mean black and about 6 inches from the wall. I told her that those were not going to come out very easily and I would have to charge extra to get them out. She said not to because they were just going to rent the house anyways. I left and she had even tipped me because she was happy with my honesty and hard work. She called me a day or two later and said that she had a good friend who was a carpet cleaner who told her those should come out without any problems and that she wanted her money back because I didn’t get the filtration lines out for her. I told her that I could have gotten them out but she didn’t want me to for the price I was willing to do it for. I also asked her that if she had such a good carpet cleaner for a friend why I was cleaning for her, of course no answer to that question. I told her to have her friend or any other carpet cleaner see if he could get them out for her and that I would come by to take a look, make sure he did a better job than me and refund her money. That was roughly 2 months ago and I haven’t heard anything since. I would like to retain her business but not if it is going to be a haggle everytime. She obviously wanted to pull one over once she realized that she did want those lines out but didn’t want to pay for it.
People hire you and pay you when they see the final product, you know what kind of product you provide, stand behind it.
I’ve been doing a normal amount of upholstery lately. But I just whipped up this evening a sheet like Mr. Child in Oregon is doing. It shows all the other services we provide other than carpet cleaning and I will begin handing it out when I arrive at every job. I anticipate that this will help increase the bottom line and get me more work with each customer. I’ve been pushing hardwoods lately because there is a lot of it here in the south. I booked quite a few return appointments for it and anticipate good results from the sheet I created.
