door to door marketing methods???

Hey guys,

first of all, wanted to thank everyone here for being so helpful and ready to share information. I and my partner are starting our own power washing and deck restoration business this year and this board has been a tremendous help. We don't know much about the business yet, but we're learning. I do know computers and e-commerce though, if you have questions with anything about your computer, I can probably be of some help...

But today, I'm looking for some answers as we feel we are ready to go get some jobs. We have our equipment (some pieces we'll buy as needed) and we've got our office ready to go (insurance, bus. license, phone # etc.) Now, we're feeling the budget crunch and need to get some jobs to put money back in our pockets and I was wondering if any of you have recommendations for drumming up a few jobs door to door. We've got marketing ideas and plans in place, but I'd rather get some jobs now rather than waiting for the new phone books to be printed or for an add we have going out next month. I do have plenty of time and have flyers and business cards ready to print. What has been your most effective door to door method (mainly thinking power washing, still waiting for better temps and dryness before doing decks) and do you think it's realistic to think we could drum up 3-6 jobs for the next couple weeks by word of mouth.

Thanks in advance
John

Generally I print my own fliers and put them out door to door, in my experiance it is best to do this on a saterday morning, when people are at home or better yet in their yards doing yard work, that way you get your fliers in your prospects hands and can then answer any questions they have, also make some with tabs with your business name and number on and place them in local stores, sub division bulliton boards etc. I'm still building my business so I'm certainly no expert, but these things have worked for me to a certain extent.
Gav

John,
I never go door to door for residential work. I have a couple of reasons why I don't but I'll give you the more important ones here.

For one, some towns its illegal to go door to door to solicit business. I know this because I am in law enforcement and where I work you can be given a summons for doing just that. On top of that in real exclusive area's some homeowners will try to also have the charge of trespassing added on top of the illegal solicitation charge. Once again the reason why they do this is because some of them are worth a lot of money even to the point where the person could be even a billionare and you wouldn't know that but they are scarred that you are really just scoping out there home to possibly commit a burglary there on day.

Believe me I know that because I work in one of the most Exclusive area's around.

Another reason and this one is also big as to why I don't go door to door for residential work is because how many houses can you really go to in lets say even a week. What I recommend to do is advertise in the local papers under home improvements or along those lines where the local paper can go to a mass amount of people and you will get calls from people who WANT you to give them an estimate. My add goes out to 100,000-150,000 people each week and even though I pay around $150/week to advertise like this it pays big dividens in the end.

Good Luck

Certainly dont put fliers out in niebhorhoods that post no solicitation and dont leave fliers on doors that have signs on them that say no soliciters, but DO go out and put your fliers out door to door and don't be frightend by absurd threats of lawsuites and legal action, if anybody causes a fuss just say yessir and move on.
Gav

What you need to do is check with the township/municipality office, or the police dept for that area, and find out for sure what you need to do. Don't be ignorant.......find out the facts first.

Every town here was different. One required a permit, but it was free, at the police dept, another wanted $75 a year, they are all different.

That was when I first started, I had 1000 flyers printed up, and I got such little response from them that I never did them again........and relied solely on newspaper ads and then the Yellow Pages.

Handing out those flyers was the biggest waste of time, in my opinion.

Well John, I guess that goes to prove what works for one doesn't work for another and visa versa, you'll never know what works for you till you try.
Good Luck
Gav

Well,

We may start with a few flyers for the next couple weeks and see what type of response we get, but I'll be sure to check the local laws. Our big hope is that an add we are running with another company will work out well. It is a local monthly coupon/ad publication. We chose to send out to one of the 9 zones offered (new construction, large homes, 40,000 residences).

The other company is footing the bill for the add. What do you think is a fair commission for jobs sent our way. If the owner of the other company gets a call for p/wing and he is available, then he is going to give the bid (this could be a touchy point, but i know him well and we've gone over the bidding process thoroughly) or if he's too busy, then he is going to call me and I'll go give the bid. So, I'm curiious what you think would be fair for either scenario.

thanks

John

John, my thoughts are you should get your own ads and do your own bids...or else your asking for a big headache, your friend whom your sharing this ad with is not going to find the time to do your buisness,and how disapointed would you be if your friend bid a job for 200.00 and you get there and relize you need 250.00 not to mention you still need to give him a cut.I would never let someone get involved in my buisness, my 2 cents

I use flyers all the time. It gets me a lot of work. I put mine in retirement communitys. Wants you do one house, sometime you can go right down the street. I do them and high price homes. I have found that both have the money but not the means or time to do the work. That's where I come in.

door to door

I've used fliers and my experience is similar to Mike's. The response has been dismal. However, a friend of mine claimed to have gotten a lot of jobs by going to a shopping center and placing them on cars. I have'nt tried it, but i'm thinking about it.

can happen

John,
I to just got started. Its only been 1 full week of being up and running.So i understand your ? In this first week with only word of mouth i have four jobs to do.I dont know maybe its beginners luck,but i have been spreading my word of mouth for a week prior to opening for business.

As for the flyers i to had a bunch printed up and i will just deliver them to a small upper class section in my town just for a test,to see the response i get from 300 homes .other wise good luck to you and your endeavor.

Thanks everyone,

So far, I haven't had any flyers printed. I am going to have one made though (eventually). A lot of people around know that I'm starting up and I think I'll be able to expect some business from that but as of today, all I've done is cold call. I've done one job so far and am going to give another bid tomorrow. Did one bid this afternoon after calling a small local paper to ask about ad rates and the lady I talked to wanted me to come look at her deck. Beginners luck i guess, its 655 sq. feet for the one off the house and another 600 around the pool!! If anyone feels like giving advice on what I should bid, I started a new thread.....

But again, thanks for the response and good luck

John

My only problem with cold calling is that I just don't know what to say. Any suggestions.
I guess that's why I do the flyers.
I have heard that Cold calling is the best.
I have done everything in the books that I get from this board, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to work out for me like I hear it does for everybody else.
I think peevo74 is hogging all the luck.
Maybe I could just say, "I will be back in a few days to wash your house. The cost will be x-amount. If I have any trouble with you, your going to jail."

Reckon that would work?

Richard R

The way I look at it if my phone ain't ringing then nothing I do to get my companys name out there is a waste of time, 2 of the jobs I've sold in the last 2 weeks have come from fliers I tacked up in a niebhorhood with community mail boxes, thats over $700 worth of work for very little effort and next to no cost except for gas and seeing how you get 36 cents a mile at tax time even that is negated.
Gav

I agree with you Gav,

Some of the things I'm hearing about though, I've never seen here.
Never seen a community mailbox around here and I've never seen a retirement community like one of the other posts mentioned.
Our retirement communities look like a great big nursing home and we have plenty of those around.
How did you find a community mailbox? Was is in a regular neighborhood?
Richard R

Richard,
There are a few round here, I live about 30 miles north of Houston and its getting very popular out here, there is many new subdivisions going up with very expensive houses, but the mid range sub divisions seem to have the community mailbox's, I'm not sure of the reason but my thought is the little post office's out here just couldn't keep up with the influx of houstonians tryig to get away from the smoke, I also put my fliers in walmart and brookshires etc, I print little tags attached to the bottom and when I or the wife go shopping we just replace them with new crisp ones, I sold a job a while back and the lady had had the tag in her purse for 6 months.
Gav