tx45

One thing to consider is, what kind of an impression will it make on customers when they see you driving around in a little wagon with a magnetic logo on the door? The franchise requires panel vans for a reason. Our image is one of professionalism.
The gas prices are a benefit to us in my opinion. One, we use the customers electricity to run our equipment. And second the truck mounts in my area are raising their prices or charging a fuel sur-charge. Companies that are dropping prices to try and stay alive are playing with fire and most likely won’t survive in the long term.
One thing that is suprising to me is even with this “wait and see” economy and the artificially inflated gas prices I have seen an increase in my profit margins so far this year as opposed to last. I believe the increase is partially because my prices haven’t changed. My minimum is $79 and I too try and give the customer the full value of that minimum. I also schedule my appointments so they are routed as efficient and economical as possible. You can’t cut back and forth across town anymore.

I am doing 95% of my advertising online. I have been doing this for about a year now and am very pleased with the results.
First of all, Google adwords is an awesome tool in internet advetising. I would encourage everyone to go out and buy “adwords for dummies”. I guarantee it will bring you business for very little cost.
Second, do some homework on the “secondary” online companies like yellowpages.com, yellowbook.com, Dexknows, etc. They can be very beneficial as well. The key to these types of internet companies is to look and see if they are advertising in your area themselves to bring in more local users. In my area yp.com is not very well known so they are not a good source of advertsing, however, yellowbook.com and Dexknows advertise heavily on TV, billboards, magazines, etc. so they are widley used and bring me a lot of business. In some areas there are also companies like citysearch.com or servicemagic. These companies can be very profitable as well as long as you do your homework.
Some benefits I have noticed in internet advertising are it has eliminated a lot of the tire kickers. No more wasted time on the phone with people who just want the cheapest job possible. Internet consumers, from my experiences so far, tend to be a better caliber of customer. Most of them are looking for quality at a fair price and not the cheapest they can get something cleaned for.
No matter how you decide to advertise, always remember to stay proactive in your marketing and not sit idle waiting for the phone to ring.

Ditto DB!

Mr. Devlin,
Thanks for the articles. They clear up any misunderstandings on this topic. Oh yeah, good job to you too DB.

I ALWAYS bill them for the maximum allotted time. I have a minimum charge to cover plus there is sometimes a bit of drive time to get to the job.

Mr. Devlin,
Good ide’a. I’m going to start doing that with my phone. By the way Incontacts number, on my phone, shows up as a (212) areas code.

I’ve heard of a company called In contact (connected with Yellowbook) but not In contact 24-7. If it’s the same company I can’t stand them! They solicit me 10 times a month, at least. Don’t believe what they are selling. I’ve asked them to stop calling me multiple times but they wont stop. One of the ladies even had the nerve to tell me “quit advertising if you don’t want to be solicited”. I refuse to do business with a company who is disrespectful.

I want to applaud Gordon Scriba for the statement he echoed of “Nothing will sell franchises like wildly successful franchises.” I think as state owners we sometimes lose sight of what we can do to help our current franchises become more successful because we become so focused on how to sell new franchises. I think our meetings would be better served focusing our energy on tools/ideas to help generate business for our current franchises. Again, thank you Gordon for repeating that quote amongst all of the state owners. I think a few state owners had never heard that statement before.