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Ready, Get Set, Go

CNS-southwest

Well-known member
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3,708
I am nearly at that stage where i am ready and just need to budget and get everything in order for getting work in.

We all know the main thing is getting your name out there and regonized, seeing as i havent yet started, that wont be from word of mouth.....therefore it needs to be visual!

1) Car signed

2) Various Flyers

3) canvasing

4) catchy slogan and name

5) posters in shop windows

6) Facebook page

7) twitter profile

8) website, set up for seo

9)business cards

any other things i can do or have missed?

Thanks

Dave

 
Yeah sounds good mate, if you're just killing time then you can get your office in order, ready for all those phone calls. Here is a few things I do which I find works well for me.

I have a 'new customer' form by my phone which gets filled out, then put in a file 'to be quoted', then once quoted, they go in another one ' to be added to database'. I hate little bits of paper, they just get lost, so any leads I get, I make sure they get put through this system, which helps me, loads.

I also use little paper 'your windows were cleaned today' slips, and I find this is also really useful, and the customers see, to like them. So thats worth considering if you haven't thought about doing that.

Here is a wee list of documents that I use, and would recommend you think about making up;

invoices

receipts

quotation (only used for large coms)

intro letter for new home owners (for when a customer moves house)

Account on hold letter

welcome letter

H&S Assessment

I would like to make up a pack, that I can just send out to large commercial leads but I am still working on that one.

 
Yeah sounds good mate, if you're just killing time then you can get your office in order, ready for all those phone calls. Here is a few things I do which I find works well for me.
I have a 'new customer' form by my phone which gets filled out, then put in a file 'to be quoted', then once quoted, they go in another one ' to be added to database'. I hate little bits of paper, they just get lost, so any leads I get, I make sure they get put through this system, which helps me, loads.

I also use little paper 'your windows were cleaned today' slips, and I find this is also really useful, and the customers see, to like them. So thats worth considering if you haven't thought about doing that.

Here is a wee list of documents that I use, and would recommend you think about making up;

invoices

receipts

quotation (only used for large coms)

intro letter for new home owners (for when a customer moves house)

Account on hold letter

welcome letter

H&S Assessment

I would like to make up a pack, that I can just send out to large commercial leads but I am still working on that one.
This was my thinking mate, use the time I have now to get everything sorted.

I'm going to be using a tablet so the customer details will go straight into the system.

I was Gona do a "your window have been cleaned" slip which tells them how to pay and roughly when I'll be round if paying by cash.

Info letter for new home owners is a great idea mate.

Do you give out welcome letters to domestic customers as well as commercial??

 
Yeah sounds good mate, if you're just killing time then you can get your office in order, ready for all those phone calls. Here is a few things I do which I find works well for me.

I have a 'new customer' form by my phone which gets filled out, then put in a file 'to be quoted', then once quoted, they go in another one ' to be added to database'. I hate little bits of paper, they just get lost, so any leads I get, I make sure they get put through this system, which helps me, loads.

I also use little paper 'your windows were cleaned today' slips, and I find this is also really useful, and the customers see, to like them. So thats worth considering if you haven't thought about doing that.

Here is a wee list of documents that I use, and would recommend you think about making up;

invoices

receipts

quotation (only used for large coms)

intro letter for new home owners (for when a customer moves house)

Account on hold letter

welcome letter

H&S Assessment

I would like to make up a pack, that I can just send out to large commercial leads but I am still working on that one.
do you have a external hardrive or a dongle to keep all your records on?was thinking this but if pc goes nuts youv had it lol got mine in a book in me safe but all my houses are in me head lol

 
Well my pc, tablet n phone all link together. There is a back up drive for the laptop and it also gets backed up onto a cloud type system /emoticons/smile.png

 
you can start with a ladder, bucket, squeegie, applicator and scrim (pre-washed grade A)

and go practice... if you cant clean your own windows then your customers are not going to stick with you....

a microfibre cloth is also a good start.

 
yup it comes with time, use the scrim to detail IE to remove the water from the edges. the scrim needs to be tackey, sightly wet but not too wet, you need to ring it out and if you want to hold the end and give it a good fick like when you used to whip your sibling with a towl....

then go inside and look at your work and see what you missed.

 
clean'n'simple - yeah they just go out to all customers, there is a little bit there on safety, payment methods, late payment policy, stuff like that.

A.K. no I don't have an external, I used to back everything up onto a slave drive in my machine but I haven't backed up in possible a year. Terrible I know, something I should really do, and start a bit of a routine with it. On the plus side, I built both my machines and am pretty handy with pcs, so unless the hard drive is completely unreadable, I will be able to fix it and get my data.

Simple - its great having nifty gadgets etc, but I would advise you to watch the purse strings if things are tight. Keeping it simple to begin with can be the best thing to do at times. Not saying its a bad idea with the tablet, or anything. But you really want to aim to get your bank balance up first, with a bit of reserves before splashing cash into it.

 
why not, most window cleaning programs do backups to the web, I have george and I stick my DB onto google drive. fair enough its a DB but if you got my customer list. (and you cant without my username and PW) then what are you going to do with it. come down to south london and clean my customers for me.... LOL

 
if you have excel spreadsheet you can just save it and password protect it... its not perfect but it would make it a whole lot more difficult for someone to crack it.

 
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