My canvassing blog!

[Solarpanelcleanington]

Give nothing away. They should be grateful for your service and pay for it.

Good luck!

 

[Chris33]

dasslr1 thank you for taking the time on that post and for that insight,and yeah it would be very frustrating to look back and have priced houses so wrong!

Adams0211, thanks mate. Yes I'm going to knock these freebies on the head, and rejig the whole flier as I'm starting to think it screams desperation lol. Without all this input I'd probably be booked for a month and chucked right after it!

Thanks everyone, lots of helpful advice ☺

Was just getting frustrated waiting on my council badge for door chapping purposes, but yeah this flier needs work!

Chris

 

[dasslr1]

iv only know through experience bud ,I even thought the same when I started ...should I give a free clean here and there .. and its not worth the hassle. if you want 15 for a house go for it ,some will say yes some no ,but the ones you do get youll know your getting paid what you wanted and what you want in hourly rate ,(that's up to you to decide),

ps don't let the nos grind you down ,youll get there .

 

[peter rogers]

If smart about it this gets attention. Free window clean,.. That's one window. Maybe re gig the flyer. There

Lists of gd ones on here

 

[Greener]

Talk to @Greener she does I think third clean free

Cheers @peter rogers and thats "Mr" @Greener LOL /emoticons/wink.png yes last year (My first year in business) I offered all new customers an HALF PRICE 3rd clean, My theory was that if I could get them interested by enticing them with the half price clean then by the time the 3rd clean came the customer would have had an opportunity to:

(A) See the benefits in having their property cleaned regularly, correctly and professionally.

(B) See that I actually ALWAYS do what I said I would do from the start.

© Get to know me and give me an opportunity to build rapport.

(D) Establish whether or not they could actually afford a regular service

(E) Give me the opportunity to get a feel for the customer i.e Good or Messer

All of which I consider to be Very important when taking on new customers but none more important than the other.

When I first started door knocking I picked up a small number of customers, however I soon came to the conclusion that for me personally door knocking and leafleting offered very little return compared to the time and effort that I put in and to be honest I found it soul destroying. So I sat down one night and created a BUSINESS Fbook page Facebook (and NO this isn't an attempt to gain more Likes ) @Gav more than happy for you to remove if not allowed :thumbs:. I for one know that the majority of people I know spend a lot of time on FB looking at the and commenting on the local community groups and that people are always looking for and recommending various trades and the best bit is thats its FREE-FREE-FREE arty:arty:. So instead of pounding the streets knocking on doors in all weathers getting more and more disheartened I made the conscious decision that I would use the power of the web it market my business i.e website, Fbook and a few cheap adverts on local community websites. Each new customer I gained I would ask to like and share my page and from that I can honestly say approx 90% of my customers are quoted and won. For those that may think this is the Lazy/Easier and less time consuming way I can assure you that if successful it is anything but.

Anyway apologies I digress ;-) getting back to the 3rd Half Price clean, I certainly believe that it helped me get my foot in the door with many of my customers, however by the time it came the the 3rd clean many of my customers had totally forgotten about the offer and were generally grateful and appreciative when I reminded them of the offer and I have had many comment on the fact that it showed honesty on my part. When I first started I would go round offer them a quote and get the 3rd price offer in straight away, but as I got busier I changed my sales patter, I would offer them a quote and when I won the business I would then say along the lines of "thats great and thank you :: as a way of thanks I will carry out your 3rd clean at Half Price" I ran the offer for the whole of 2015.

I'm fortunate that through Working hard at building rapport and spending many hours promoting my business this way that I haven't had to actively go OUT looking for work and am now at the point where the majority of my New customers (on average 12 a week) come through recommendation from my existing customers, although Id also like to add hardly any of them mention the half price third clean, which is good as Ive decided NOT to offer this any new customers gained during 2016. I will decide half way during the year whether or not this decision has impacted on the business regarding gaining and retaining new customers.

Finally I personally would not offer the first clean FOC as from my experience a very, very small amount of people may cancel after the freebie. Let you and your customers get to know each other before you go giving away your time and hard graft. Im from a sales background and one of the few cliche sayings that I believe to be correct is "if you can make them like you, then they'll buy from you". Use your personality and professionalism to win and retain the business and go easy on the freebies, because when you become more busy you will resent having to give away your time and potential earnings.

All the very best for the future, stick at it reap the hard earned rewards from your all your hard work. @Greener

 

[Greener]

Ref putting prices on your flyer, its something I did in the very early days but I soon decided it wasn't the best thing for me personally to do, you know that old saying "how longs a bit of string?" Well I think the same can apply to pricing a clean? Here is an example of what I use when replying to a message wanting a price.

Prices can vary for many reasons, some being dependent on where the property is situated, condition and size of the windows and access. I would always prefer to view a property before quoting, if you would like I would love to pop round, I walk round the outside of the house to give you a quote (It only takes 2 minutes and I don’t need to come inside). As long as I can access the rear of the property you don't even need to be in, .I'm a firm believer in NOT putting people "on the spot", so if you would prefer I would be more than happy to supply you with a quote via messenger/text once I have viewed the property? Many thanks Dale

 

[dasslr1]

this is what I use ,I find affective

it gets the phone number from them

and the address

when they text I reply with "hi this is D and B windows I can pop round tomorrow and give you a quote ,if your not in is it possible to get round the back.""and when iv finished ill pop it through your door "

the majority text me for a quote

flyer 3use this.docx

 

[dasslr1]

this is an old quote sheet I used to push through the door

id mark off each window and add it all up .

9/10 they would come out and id tell them the price anyway

**note the gutter prices have all been upped now lol**

D & B WINDOWS QUOTES 2.docx

 

[mark]

the amount of rubbish you get through the doors these days.even fancy leaflets!!WHAT DO YOU DO???well I know what I do.rrrrrrrip em up.so in my opinion-state plainly & clearly what service you are offering.joe public haven't got time to trawl through loads n loads of info.state the service you provide and contact numbers

 

[adamangler]

Theres a company near me who do a free first clean, but they are a MASSIVE company with god know how many vans and employees so they can obviously take the hit. It sounds great getting work at any cost but like someone else said it soon gets to you when youre cleaning a house and its underpriced. I find myself swearing whilst cleaning underpriced jobs, ******* shitty underpriced **** job what **** quoted this? oh me well what a first class spunk rod i am, **** this job

 

[Ads81]

I can't really understand why you would want to give free cleans away, your local garage doesn't do you your second repair free, nor does your milk man,corner shop..................etc, if people want a window cleaner they will pay for one, if you do a mint job they will keep you 99% of the time, in my experience anyhow .

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums app

 

[Bigbird]

You have to be brave and charge what you want, if you dont get what you want walk away, it will not be easy but must be done or you will regret it later. You want to be the most expensive windy in your area and doing the best job. NO FREEBIES! BeBrave

 

[Chris33]

Thanks again for above points guys,I've taken off free clean but turned it into third one free. Interior clean is removed and box of chocolates incentive is removed lol, and punctuation is tightened up.

So, dropped 500 leaflets and have around 5 customers from this, an extra two that were by chance and unrelated to leaflets (gym and a big house) and three people I know. So.. Ten so far.

Starting cleans this week,and getting pics for fb page later. Hope to use that on buy and sell sites soon as.

 

[adamangler]

5 customers for 500 leaflets is an excellent return if it continues at that rate you could quite quickly build a round just off leaflets. Ive tended to average 3 per 1000 leaflets.

 

[Chris33]

Well dropped another 300 fliers today,will be chapping this whole town once the 3000 are all dropped this week. Two more jobs from yesterday's fliers came through too, and first job via Facebook (which I'm building now via pics and status before setting it loose on the buy and sell pages)

Hit the high street for business after this domestic leaflet drop and picked up a barbers,a hair dresser and four potentials (will chase up). Total so far is about 12 customers and 3 or 4 commercial jobs.

 

[Chris33]

Hi mate, two initial things that I've noticed have helped is putting my landline to divert (to work mobile). Both older customers called the landline first and it rang onto my mobile, two customers from that.

Also the link on flier to my fb page led to a fb message and a ten pound house.

Chris

 

[Chris33]

It could have been more than what I've got, a lot of guys around here are doing 3 or 4 quid a house!

After advice here though,I'm sticking to prices I want not what will get me the job. I've plenty of time to build slowly.

 

[Jimroot]

Must be a good demand in your area, I get about one for 400 flyers

 

[Chris33]

Irregular Cleaners from what I've heard so far Jim..making my job easier ☺

 

[Jimroot]

Good for you I know my area is saturated with cleaners, if you can get a good amount of that 3000 houses you'll have a cracking round, get them as gutter clears too :thumbsup:

 

[Chris33]

Thanks for the encouragement buddy! ☺