How much sales work do you do?

I am curious.

How many sales calls do you guys make a day/week/month?

What do you think your success rate is?

What's the population of the area your in?

Myself, being new and all, I have set a goal to market my business at least 1 full day a week. Unfortunately my success rate right now is too low to mention. My local population is around 30,000 to 40,000 people.

I know my business well grow but being on a show-string (more like sewing thread) budget, I really was hoping for more business.

See ya,
Greg


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bigdog,


what ever sales plan you use you need to set you r own goals and stick to them. If I sound like a broken record that’s OK. Marketing your business will feel like a broken record. When you find something that works just replay it. Over and over again and again.

I don’t think we can set a number for you, my self I try every week to make as many contacts as possible. What ever is physically and mentally possible. Some weeks more others less. My success is only about 25 % retention. I don’t count accounts we sell as one-time hitters; I only count the ones with monthly residual income. Some will say that’s low, I think its real. I hear guys brag and boast about they land 80% of all people they see. Well if that’s the case if they want a job I got one and they can name their price.


we have close to 3 million in the valley.


The only thing I could suggest is go to two days and your doubling your business. Try to do some form of selling everyday.


People that say I cant afford to advertise. Get a job because you can’t afford not to advertise.


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Ron Marshal Phoenix AZ
1-888-fleetwash

I guess when you consider the lack of response to your question, looks like most folks do not!

We have tried most every form of advertising. Nothing that we have done has given us real good response.

Population of our county is about 75,000 people. Probably have about 500,000 if we counted a 60 mile radius.

Most all of our business is repeat. The best new business that we have received in the past few years is word of mouth referals.

We had a good year in 2000, was up about 20% from '99.

Dave Olson

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Tidy Powerwash Service, Inc. P.O. Box 781, Catlin, Illinois 61817 Phone 217-427-5557, Fax 217-427-2632 We are a commercial cleaning contractor serving East-Central Illinois and West Central Indiana since 1984. http://www.tps-inc.com/preswash.htm

Greg,
Does your company do mostly residential or commercial. My company is strictly residential where repeat business might be on average every 2-3yrs. So because of this I advertise in the local town papers which the paper here calls zones. I might do around 5-6 zones when I start up next month. Now this is not cheap. Its around $100/week but I usually only do it for the first 6 weeks or so because then I book up for at least from March to memorials day weekend. Then I'll advertise for a couple of weeks for the July 4th weekend and for this I also book up fast. I also get alot of work via word of mouth and also from other customers.
Now I will tell you what my 2 main problems are with this. First of all I generally book close to 50% of my estimates which is not good so this year I will raise my prices at least 15% to compensate for this. In my mind you should be nailing somewhere in the High 20's to low 30% or your prices are to low. The second problem I have is and this is a good one but overwhelming at times is that my adds reach over 100,000+ people a week and on a really hectic day I could get 15 calls for estimates. This is why I should hire people to do the work because I know I could land a lot of these potential jobs. Because of the above I sometimes work 10-20 days consectivetly doing either estimates or both jobs/estimates and unfortunetly I go out on Sundays because of my work load which I don't reccomend. Money makes you do crazy things and believe it or not I still spend alot of times with family because my sleep is minimal when my powerwashing season begins. Which approaching 40 yrs old can't be to healthy. I do have tons of life insurance because of this but eventually I will get it thru my head to have multiple employees to handle the work load so I can relax more often. Thank God heart disease doesn't run thru my family but putting yourself at risk doesn't guaranty anything. But anyway have a good add and look professional in appearance and back everything up with high quality work and you will do fine. -John-

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Well im a newbie but i feel im doing well so far,what i do or have done so far since i just started my buisness recently is i have my wife do a lot of cold calling and going from place to place talking to people.Ive been at this about 2 weeks or so and i have landed 6 monthly jobs,so to me anyhow thats not bad.So if i can suggest one thing as a newbie is have your little hen do some talking to people,thank about it..do people seem to buy from women more?We thank so.Well theres my 2 cents take it for what its wirth.

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Bigdog,
Advertise, advertise, advertise. Set a budget.If your going for residential put a 3-5 line ad in local papers, especially if there is a "free one"(thrown on lawns once a week). The first few months may be slow, but as your ad is seen there on a steady basis the calls will start coming in.
I live in an area of about 200,000 people in a 15-20 mile radius(I don't like straying from home!), and advertise in two papers on a daily basis, send out an avg. 50 postcards a week. The costs are $485.-$525.00 per month; it generates about 5-10 leads a week, and I close 2-4 out of that number. When I have time, I make calls to businesses, and other trades people to get other leads going. I make calls 7 days a week, if that's what is needed( my best selling day is a Sunday!Working people love to talk and spend money on that day). My present goal of keeping 2 crews busy, so far it's happening!
Just set out some short term plans and a budget, and review once a week. Be flexible, things change, and so must we.
Good Luck,
Ken S.

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"The best job at a fair price"

Thanks for all the replies,

I was really curious to see what others were doing.

Thanks

Greg


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Good Luck to you Greg!
I too have been glued to this board every morning and night, eager to read the posts each day.
This week Im going to call and put my first ad in the flyer.I should hit 120,000+ homes in the area. The ad will break on 2/28 and I'll let you know what kind of response I get. In the meantime I will be working on passing out flyers,cold calling etc.

Ken

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