Home Show

[spraymasters]

Well, Gloria and I did our first home show for Spray Masters this past weekend. We tried to do it up right and displayed our "tools of the trade" and had pictures. We also set up a sign-up sheet for free estimates with 10% for those who "signed up today". We had flyers, brochures and business cards to hand out. We set everything up nice and pretty on a handmade tree-limb table. We also make planters and had them set out with plants. We were dressed in dress pants and our dress shirts with our logo. We had samples of deck wood properly stained. We set out a basket of candy.

We networked with all the other folks there as much as possible handing out our cards and brochures. We had alot of positive feedback about our booth and even sold a couple of our planters! BUT, we only got 8 people to sign up for estimates and most were for little things. Not sure about the folks we networked with. They took lots of cards etc. We are waiting for some responses.

Have any of you done a homeshow and had some good results? Time will tell with us.

Hope everyone is off to a great start!
Dennis


------------------
Living Life On the Edge Makes Us Dizzy...WE LOVE DIZZY!

Dennis A. Cormier and Gloria A. Wagner
North Georgia Spray Masters, Inc.
spraymasters@hotmail.com

 

[charlie]

I have some question about this home show you were in.
How many people came through? Did they pay to get in? Were there any other companies doing deck restoration?
How many days did the show go for? E-mail me with the answers and I can guide you to have a better Home Show.
I have been doing home shows for seven years and have learned alot from them. e-mail is ed95@wi.net.

Charlie

------------------

 

[Jon Fife]

hi charlie,

you mind making that information public? i would also like to hear you thoughts on better home show presentations.

thanks,
jon fife
nashville, TN
(615)837-3663

------------------

 

[archie hodges]

i can only tell you that we just did how 1st homeshow about 90,000 came to the show . held the 3rd week of march and so far we have done about 22,000 in business. the show cost us 1200.best of luck.ps all we clean is vinyl siding and decks,fences..

------------------

 

[Laurie Grathen]

Hi Dennis and Gloria,

If, by "tools of the trade" you mean that you took your pressure washers into your booth, that may have worked against you. Now that we have three home shows under our belt, we know that if you display your pressure washing equipment, people walking by assume that you sell pressure washers and don't stop because they don't want to buy any of that stuff.

Our first show was a little disappointing too. We didn't even get 8 bids! In fact, we didn't even think to ask for bids there.

The second year we actually built a 10 ft by 6 ft deck from old grungy deck boards and stood it up on end (half cleaned and stained) at the back of our booth. We also build a small wall out of old, dirty vinyl siding, cleaned half and put that in our booth as well. And then displayed our before and after pictures on tower we built out of a sheet of 4 x 8 plywood, cut into thirds and hinged to form a triangle shaped tower. We covered it with felt and mounted our photos on foam board and stuck velcro to the back of them. The velcro stuck real well to the felt. Turned out to be a very attractive display.

We also held a drawing for $200 worth of free pressure washing services. That ensured that nearly everyone who signed up for the drawing was somehow interested in having something cleaned (as opposed to just giving away a TV) so we had a lot of leads to follow up on. On the drawing entry blank, we made them indicate what it was they wanted cleaned so they were actually thinking about our services.

Every time someone stopped to look at our display (and a lot of them did) we asked if their deck or house was starting to look like that. Most of them laughed and said, "yes" which was a good lead in to our asking if they'd like us to come out and give them a free esimate on cleaning it up. The second year we got about 25 bids. Considering only 8-10,000 people attend our show, we thought that was pretty good.

Our home show has turned out to be the most effective use of our advertising/marketing time and energy so don't give up yet. There are lots of ways to make them very effective for you.

Best wishes,

Laurie

------------------

 

[spraymasters]

Hi Charlie...and Laurie. The show was a small one. We only had a couple thousand folks to show. No cover charge. We were the only ones that had anything to do with pressure washing or restoring decks. The show was only for one day. Laurie, we only displayed our different wands and we put them up on the wooden display. Boy, you did go all out with your display!! We just had 3 wood planks that we have to show our staining. One side is gray and dirty and the other is nicely stained.
So far we did get one job out of it. A house washing. More than paid for the entry fee but certainly not all the prep time and actually time at the show. Still have not heard from any of the "contractors" in the other areas.
We will be patient and not give up on the shows I guess. Not sure if we can go to the extent you went to Laurie...

Dennis

------------------
Living Life On the Edge Makes Us Dizzy...WE LOVE DIZZY!

Dennis A. Cormier and Gloria A. Wagner
North Georgia Spray Masters, Inc.
spraymasters@hotmail.com

 

[charlie]

I don't like to do Free Shows, people tend to look for freebies. One day is not long enough. Spend the money on 3 day home shows with attendence in the past of 25000 plus. You will get more results.


Charlie

------------------

 

[Laurie Grathen]

Didn't mean to make it sound like we went all out. It was a lot less work that you'd think. The tower, for instance was a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, cut into thirds with 4 hinges screwed on and the felt wrapped and stapled to the back. Took about 3 hours to build, start to finish. We banged the deck together in about another 3 hours. In a lucky moment, we picked the siding out of someone's dumpster. Really had less than a day of prep. Was a two day show. Still valuable.

------------------