Greg brings up an excellent point. A very excellent point. It is especially applicable to new companies, who need to control their growth and monitor their progress.
Begin with the end in mind. What is it you offer? What do you bring to the table? What is it that sets you apart fromt he competition, and why, should a customer purchase from you over another company? You can base your strategy on two things. You can lead with price, or you can lead with service. It is that simple. If you are going to advertise that you are a real bargain, the cheapest, the bottom bid in town, then you are leading with price. No question. If that is what you want to do, that's fine. There are pluses, and also minuses to doing it. If you choose to lead with service, you have more options. You can lead with corporate values, with satifaction guarantee, with delivering what you promise with greater expertise, there are many ways to wrap the package. The bottom line remains the same. You then lead with service. Just like leading with price there are pluses and minuses.
Once you have decided which you are going to do, you can then, and only then, effectively market the company. Everything you do, will be tied back to the core principle and what you stand for. Price, or service. Once you have chosen, then you can begin to develope the tools necessary to market your company. The tools will reflect your chosen stance. They also will be specific to the market you choose to enter into.
It is wise, very wise, to begin in one segment of the cleaning industry. Each service can be seen as a segment, and each segment should be considered before extra efforts or monies are expended on expansion in that area. Wood restoration is a segment that draws good response from the consumers. It is a segment which is seasonal, and with proper positioning can be tapped into as a first service offering, or segment. It falls under the category of exterior home maintenance.
When you first begin, it is not important to think of it in those terms, but as you begin to get comfortable with jobs and find people asking about what else you do, you will find those words will come back to you. And, they should. Exterior Home Maintenance. Remember them. Consider what else you can offer to the consumer, to get other work....if you went through a drive through, you might be asked, "do you want fries with that?"
House washing. Patios, pools, tennis courts, flagstone, gutter in and out, concrete walkwyas, porches...exterior home maintenance. You don't need to lead with them, or to run ads just for them. You have already identified the cash cow in the segment you are focusing on first; wood. These are the extras, the ones to add with bullet points, the ones to send postcards for. In the fall, we send gutter cleaning reminder cards to our deck customers.
Adding another segment might be years down the road, and might mean you are ready to explore a variety of things, from hoods, to mobile washing, to building decks, to ducts, to carpets, to janitorial, to .... the sky is the limit. It's about the need, the fit, the positioning, and the delivery.
Once you have answered the question of what the company is going to be, it's goals, its mission, what it will be as it grows up, you will in time be able to to answer what the next step is, and you'll also know when it is time to take it.
Beth
