How would you add 100 customers?

If you wanted to add 100 new customers in a 3 month period, what direction or tools would you choose?

Fliers, postcards, networking, seo, newspaper ads (work great for boosting gutter cleaning right at peak season).

Forget the phone book - too expensive and ineffective.

Honestly, the cheapest and most effective way to grow your business fast is to make a really good website and get as many fliers or postcards out there with an actual offer i.e. “free gutter whitening with any whole house exterior window cleaning” and your website on it.

Most everyone now who receives a flier will look them up on the internet before calling the number on the flier. So having a good website acts as a reference and a selling tool.

SEO takes awhile, so you can’t count on making money on it for awhile. Google is becoming more cautious in awarding high seo. Even if you are doping everything right, they will wait awhile before they bump you up in ranking.

I love getting customers just from my online presence, but if I wanted to bump up my business fast I would relentlessly flier, mail postcards, visit real estate / property management offices with brochures. All the good real estate agents want to have a "good connections to refer services that will help their clients. Look up who is winning the local real estate awards, find out who the successful real estate agents are and go to their offices.

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I agree with you, but this question is more towards an established business. What specific marketing campaign would you launch? What tools would you use? Offers? and can you keep it all in budget? Seeking more specific answers…

[MENTION=8635]Kyle Stafford[/MENTION]

Are you talking residential Kyle?

Right now, I am riding out the summer slow-down. I was jammed packed June & July and the early August. But seems like August is a tough month for us. Everyone is hunkered down in Air conditioned living rooms watching TV and sipping ice tea. I think people don’t want cleaning crews coming in & out of their house in August. Too flippin’ hot.

So my current marketing plan is to try to get more exterior window cleans in August. Do an August special: exterior window cleaning + gutter whitening.

People seem to want the whole kit and caboodle in spring: interior cleaning, exterior cleaning + screens

Perhaps in regions with strong seasons and blazin hot summers, an exterior package advertised through postcards or fliers would drum up extra business?

Then, there’s gutter cleaning season coming up in fall. I have an easy time selling that. I include a complete gutter inspection of hangers, downspouts, & elbows with every gutter cleaning. Most of my customers have houses in excellent condition so tightening a couple of gutter hangers and re-screwing on a gutter elbow every few jobs really doesn’t add much to my overall efforts but it gives the customer the peace of mind that their property is being looked after.

I think all printed ads should have a unique value proposition. I have done fliers and postcards with no special and they have done poorly.

I think something of real value to the customer but that doesn’t cost you very much to throw in is the best kind of offer. Instead of “10% off window cleaning if you book before September”, try “free gutter whitening with any window cleaning job.”

 **** one of the best ways to get new customers that I am always forgetting to do is to flier the houses surrounding the one you've just cleaned. Their neighbors 2 houses down on each side of the street and the house across from them on the other side of the street. If you've done a great job, the current customer will probably let you use their name. For example: "we just cleaned your neighbor, Mr. Jone's house. Give us a call and we can clean yours." Even better is to leave a quote with the flier. The more specific, the better.

  The easiest nitro boost to your business engine isn't new customers, though. It's the ones you already have. If you are an established business look through your records and see if there is some new business from old customers to drum up. Mailing reminders to all your existing customers often works wonders.

Is this for residential or commercial?

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Don’t you think free gutter whitening works/makes more sense to do with a power washing or soft washing deal? At least to me it does anyway

Mike Radzik
Pro Window Cleaning
Central Massachusetts

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A hundred customers in 90 days (all new) may be a monumental task. Not impossible, but you will need to have the right budget, and the right connections (networking).

One thing to help drive this campaign is referral rewards. reward your current client AND the new client for being referred. A cash reward, gift cards, or a contest for a very nice prize.

Your question being so broad, is difficult to give a good response to.

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this is solid gold. Jeffrey Gitomer would be proud

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If your looking to go get new customers, it would be the direct approach…

hand delivered fliers or even eddm with specific time lapse deals to get them to call before the date in any area…

working in a neighbourhood - if you can knock on next door say hi, your doing the neighbours would they be interested in a quote with a special 30% off (not something i like to do, but if you do and you want more custom then why not), if they book on the spot.

If i had enough of a customer base i was happy with but looking to take on new customers at a slow but steady rate, then it’s more down to them coming to me via website SEO, specifically targeted neighbourhood flyering and customer recommendations etc.

and of course there is up selling to current clients and touching base with ones you’ve not seen for a while.

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Hey Kyle are we talking residential or route work.

This one will work better next summer but if you know any guys try it now. Reach out to some good storefront window washers. They get offers to do homes all the time. Since March i passed up over 100 homes, if we did do them and well imagine how many more with referrals. Toss em cash for every home they give you,$50.00. Just work it in your estimate so you still have enough to pay source. Might be tossing some work Squeegee Ninja’s way next year, hope he reads this.

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Yes residential

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target [U]at least[/U] 20,000 people with direct mail, multiple times, and a good web site with great SEO

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What is the purpose of Bringing on 100 new customers. What is the end benefit you are seeking to gain from it? Is it increased revenue short term and or long term? Is it to increase over all volume to bring on an employee? What is the actual benefit you are seeking?

As far as talking strictly bringing on new customers and not taping existing customers then I would have to say there are two principles to remember: Plug all the holes in your wheel barrow and increase the size of the shovel.

First Plug the holes in your wheel barrow: Identify all the ineffective touch points of your business that fumble the ball on opportunities to generate sales.

Examples:

  1. Satisfied customers do not generate as many referrals as amazed customers so make sure you not only do a good job but do extra things that go above and beyond the customers expectation and do it with every customer. This will help to insure that no potential referral is lost.

  2. put magnetic business cards on the side of your truck so passers by who may not otherwise get one but want one can take it, or some who would not have even thought twice see them and think to grab one.

  3. Increase the level of customer service offered. You may not think this has anything to do with generating sales but great customer service is lacking now a days and it can cost you or gain you referrals.

Etc… You get the point. Consider the ways in which every aspect of your business promotes who you are and use it to your advantage to create selling opportunities that would not have happened otherwise. These are wholes in your wheel barrow where sales opportunities are lost.

Next increase the size of your shovel:

Create a marketing campaign that centers around a single concept for the whole 3 months like a back to school campaign or a holiday season campaign. It’s not the focus that is important so much as the benefit being offered and the deal being given. The focus just allows you to direct all your efforts into a single focus in order to maximize their effectiveness. Design all your marketing pieces around this campaign. Make sure all your touch points promote this campaign which is increases the exposures.

Examples:

  1. Create a well designed website that acts as a foundation and backup for the campaign. Most people now a days view a website as the way to learn more about you, your company and what you have to offer. Designing a web site that acts as a closing tool will do just that close the deal for all those that inquire further off of all your other marketing efforts. This will also allow you to spend some decent money on one source that benefits all your marketing. This does not take away from the need to have well designed marketing pieces but it maximizes the effort of all your other tools. It’s kind of like having a well rounded football team with a killer passing game. It also gives more game to unplanned or undersigned marketing opportunities like when someone gets a referral and they go to your site, or someone asks you for a card and your in the middle of something so you don’t have time to sell them. With a well designed site that converts you have a knock out, sales closing, punch backing every sales touch point, helping to insure that as few sales as possible get lost.

  2. Design creative tools to promote your campaign through the various touch points of your service. Think of the holes in your wheel barrow. These are all the areas where your business directly communicates to the customer and creates sales opportunities. You need to have tools that capitalize on those opportunities and help close the deal; Like gift cards for referrals, sales pitches for common reoccurring scenarios (how many times when you are doing a commercial job do you here the question, “Can you do my house?”? You could say, “sure”. Or you could say,“Sure, as a matter of fact right now is a great time to do it because I am running a great special where you get a free gutter inspection with the purchase of an in and out window cleaning. Along with that I am offering $50.00 off for anyone who schedule with me for next week. SO that gives you a value o $100.00 for free if you get your window cleaned next week. So for an average 3000 square ft home which costs $300.00, you can get it done for $250.00 and you get a free gutter inspection to go with it. What is a good day for you next week?”. Etc… Design tools to capitalize on every different sale opportunity you can think of (just don’t plan too much that you never execute).

  3. touch point sales is not going to drive your ship but it will give it more momentum and cut down on drag, so you need a few marketing engines. I would go with 3 or 4. Online campaign to drive traffic to your web site if your not ranked on page one. If you are already in the top 3 spots then I would spend my money else where. I would go with EDDM, Door hangers (pay for a distribution, and hang on surrounding homes at every job site), Door to door follow up targeting specific neighborhoods that have received your other adds. This will maximize your exposure in that neighborhood with doing jobs in the neighborhood, seeing your ads in the mail, getting a door visit. This will increase the closing rate of door to door and give more value to time spent on this form of marketing.

With the wholes plugged, maximizing your sales and exposure, and increasing the size of your shovel through specific targeted, well planned, well designed, and focused efforts you have a good shot of reaching your goal.

P.S. Thanks for helping me create my next marketing campaign :slight_smile:

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I think you could do it pretty easily, really its only 1 a day with a little hustle that should be no problem.

I would look @ it as cut and dry as this:

Find the right area, the right sub division etc… A few of them actually I would find an area / areas totaling about 5,000 or more people

I would EDDM it a few times, Street Bid it or possibly even flier it.

You can’t rely on SEO internet or anything passive… You need to put your message in front of people that aren’t even thinking about window cleaning until you hit them. Its very possible.

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Networking with other local guys could also give you a nice boost. Not necessarily window cleaners, but other stuff like landscapers, plumbers, painters, driveway sealers, really anything you can think of. Their customers need you.

in just a few hours, you could research 100’s of companies in your area, then have a nice e mail drafted up explaining the services your company provides. We have done very well will referral partners this year. I really wish I would have been focusing on this type of lead generation years ago.

In your market Kyle, I think you could generate a ton of work like this without having to spend much time or $

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I cant let this go on any longer, UGH…

Don’t worry so much about the number of customers, put your attention towards how much money you want/need to earn.

If you want 100 new customers all you need to do is advertise $1/window and you will get plenty of phone calls. BUT at the end of the day you will be flat broke.

Many of the methods mentioned to get new customers are good ideas but the objective of your business should be making a profit by providing the highest quality service possible and charging appropriately for those services. [FONT=Baskerville][SIZE=3][COLOR=#2971a7][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

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Sometimes you just want to stack your database with new clients, there is nothing wrong with that as long as your keeping it profitable.

I got 25,000 clients in 3,258 days it was mostly profitable :slight_smile:

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Chris that’s exactly what we are planning on doing. Eddm and street bidder. I am just curious what else is out there that working for other companies. We are adding crews and I am already planning for next spring to get another truck on the road. An extra 100 customers on top of our current growth would be huge if I can get it done this fall.
The reason I look hard at the # of customers we service is because we have a 80% return on repeat business, not to mention the up selling we push.

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