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Do discounts work?

M

MrBump

I don't really want to lower my prices in order to get work as I know I will only regret it later on, but I do need to get more customers on board quicker. So...

What do you guys think of offering a discount for the first few cleans to get customers on board? Who has done this or tried this before and has it worked?

 
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Don't know bump but I'd say they just wouldn't value it as much. I'm going to change a word in my vocabulary: not going to use 'quote' anymore, now on its 'the price'.

Far as I'm concerned, my prices are as low as I'm willing to do it for and stay doing it, even then it's usually too much for them.

I like the idea of the first clean double 3/4th free but sounds too much to explain. Ive started just saying one off is x, monthly y. If they want other option, I let them raise it. If it's filthy I'll say it's double first

 
Haha totally agree there, quote means they can haggle, price means take it or leave it :thumbsup: I can't wait to be in the position to be able to have enough work alreadt to be able to say a good price and not worry about losing it.

After panicking over the weekend as last weeks leaflet dropping produced no calls, I spent an hour or so yesterday writing up £5 off notes to entice customers in, but I've since had 4 enquiries this morning :thumbsup: I'm thinking I might try the offers out tomorrow anyway in a new area and see how much difference they make to enquiries and I'll let you know, but patience seems more important than discounts it seems /emoticons/biggrin.png

 
I did a 50% off your first clean flyer a few years back and it did quite well for me. A customer is a customer, as long as you get the price you want. I thought when doing it, I would get allot who would cancel after the first clean, but I dont think any did as far as I recall.

 
Cool laddergarder, that was my thinking too, the main thing is getting the customer on your schedule and at the right price long term, short term pain for long term gain. That's good that none of them cancelled on ya! :thumbsup:

 
Haha totally agree there, quote means they can haggle, price means take it or leave it :thumbsup: I can't wait to be in the position to be able to have enough work alreadt to be able to say a good price and not worry about losing it.
After panicking over the weekend as last weeks leaflet dropping produced no calls, I spent an hour or so yesterday writing up £5 off notes to entice customers in, but I've since had 4 enquiries this morning :thumbsup: I'm thinking I might try the offers out tomorrow anyway in a new area and see how much difference they make to enquiries and I'll let you know, but patience seems more important than discounts it seems /emoticons/biggrin.png
how are you picking up most of your work? leaflets?

i made some leaflets with a quote on, they seem to work better than leaflets with no price as they will either think its a good price or not. id say stick to your prices but put the prices on the leaflets, some people will think too expensive but you never know some might find you cheap, i put a bunch out on one estate at £12 a house, and got 6 calls next few days as the previous windy was doing them at £15+. the same size houses ive seen windwys do for 8 squid round here so you just never know. keep banging the leaflets out.

 
might be worth putting a £5 off voucher glued to your fliers. but you must quote a higher price than you normally would ,say 15 instead of ten . id give it a go if i was you

 
Got all of my work so far through either leaflets or word of mouth. My leaflets already have my prices on as I suck at sales so I figured if they know the price already and still call then I have no selling to do :thumbsup: Unfortunately boar that means I'll just have to take the hit for a few months rather than up my prices first lol.

Had someone contact me earlier about some window cleaning, it sounded like he just wanted a one-off. I said I don't do one-offs, only monthly or bi-monthly, but to lure him in I thought I'd offer him a deal... Normally it would be £20 per clean but I said if he goes monthly I'll give him £5 off for the first 3 months - he said great he'll pay for 3 months upfront and then go from there. Doh, blatantly he's going to cancel after 3 months and has just basically got a free clean out of it :rolleyes:

Still I am going to do a days worth of leaflet dropping tomorrow with my '£5 off first 3 months with monthly service' otes with the leaflets and see how it fares in comparison to just the flyer... I'll let you guys know how if it gets more interest on not...

 
priced a job today cant remember dropping my card in but just goes to show ...you never know when they will call..

trouble was....it was right opposite one I have dropped.:eek:

well dont get me wrong hes a top bloke but..its er a fiver and er..a fiver dont go as far as a fiver used too..okay he always gives me six but today...I would price it at a tenner...hmmm so I er just er...forgot to go...

but he has a nice doggy...and after I have cleaned the windows it just about stops barking...

once I STROKED IT......:Dbut only once but he assures me ...it doesnt bite..honest..so far...

 
Cheapie you should take a dog biscuit for the doggy, else it'll give away how quickly you rush around the windows! /emoticons/wink.png

 
ive had really bad returns off canvassing and leaflets TBH

I do hand write a price on the back of a flyer if I think the house in a likely one, a one off price and a reg

I stopped keeping a dirty list to return to as I had so many dirty ones tell me they had a cleaner, 'twould be wasting my time to drive around them again I think

To me keeping it simple, a first clean filthy one and a one off and condition would be same price. A mildly dirty monthly I'd just start up at monthly price.

 
How do you get most of your work then Jimroot if not by canvassing and leafleting? I don't bother knocking the doors, seems too time-consuming and I leaflet during the day, I just drop a leaflet in every door and let them contact me if they want it. I get 1 to 2 an hour or per road on average. I'm hoping as I grow word of mouth will take over though.

 
I think your pretty lucky getting a good return from leafleting. @MrBump I think most don't have as much success. Or not as frequent.

 
Oh I didn't realise 1-2 return rate per hour was a good return, I was hoping it was going to increase at some point lol. If like you say I'm being lucky, it may just be the area I'm in at the moment and that means it might go down when I've done this area :eek: I hope that's not the case. I better get out canvassing again tomorrow then while the weather is making the dirt shine! /emoticons/wink.png

 
Think my leaflet return is something like 1 for 6 hours leafleting :-(

Most word of mouth bump. But at first I had a bunch of WOM gutter vac jobs and FSG and one off cleans, now I'm trying more for monthly regulars closer to home.

I don't find knocking takes much more time up, Id guess about 20% slower overall

 
I'm not so good with rejection so prefer not to knock doors lol. Although went leaflet dropping for 2 hours earlier, dropped 200 leaflets off, expecting 2/3 calls from it (fingers crossed) - although I spoke to about 10-15 people who were by there doors for whatever reason and they all said they have one already, which sucks. Still got 10 from that area already so far so there are still some available.

One woman today told me she wanted to hire me, as she sacked her last one for doing a fsg with a pressure washer, which sent water through her window vents and sprayed dirty water all over her blinds. They are still arguing over who's paying. Seriously, it's a bungalow and the whole property is spotless. Surely a wipe over with wfp would of done it with less risk. Crazy. Charged a crazy price too, 3 x mine! Eek!

 
its an absolute fact that you need to leaflet long and hard to get results. a strange fact about leafletting or doorknocking is that when you REALLY Crave a great result the results are often disappointing . When you couldnt care less if you win or you lose you get great results .

iv proved this recently when i took my workers away from cleaning windows for 1 day and had them leaflet instead. Although my diary was already busy i did this purely because i fancied working in a part of town id not been - And iv been bloody inundated with work from this leafletting session-so much so that my lads say im now obsessed about Cardiff Road ,Ipswich !

Yet a few years ago ,desperate for a rush of work , i went leafletting with my helper at the time a bloke from Equador ,he insisted on wearing steel toe work boots - we had a 4 hour session on a huge estate and he ended up hobbling with big blisters on his feet -

i didnt get 1 single phone call from that area!

 
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Not 1 phonecall, blimey that would be gutting! Steel toe caps for window cleaning / leafleting? What's going to fall on his feets, a squeegee? Haha. Trainers all the way. I guess you never really want to stop marketing so you can either grow or make your round more for less, big gamble having 5 of you leaflet dropping for a day though, glad it paid off.

The unspoken bonus with leaflet dropping is brand recognition, everyone see's your name, then one day someone mentions it to someone and they say, oh yeah i've seen/heard of them and so on, until you become a local legend.... Ahem I mean recognised local tradesman /emoticons/wink.png

 
thinkin of doing a winter leaflet promoting fsg , and powerwashing i have a friend who .. says he doesnt mind doing it for 20 a day i can trust him not to dump them and go home and know hed do a solid day of walkking and dropping leaflets in the area i asked him to

 
£20 for a full day of anything is an absolute bajargin!! I'd be having him do it every day, forever :thumbsup: I wouldn't pressure wash fsg's though if I were you or at least check for vents first /emoticons/wink.png

 

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