- - QUESTIONS for those with a SHOP or BUILDING - -

[Mike Brummett]

What percentage of your business comes from people seeing the signage at your location?
Or the signage on your trucks parked AT your shop or building?

When you went from working from home to renting/owning a building with high visibility, did you notice an increase in business? If so, approximately how much?

Thanks,

MIKE

 

[R W]

I don't have any advertisement outside my 3-bay garage/shop. Just plain brown garage doors, brown entrance door, and brown T-111 siding. I really don't want the neighborhood kids knowing whats parked inside. I do get plenty of "I seen your truck and phone number" on the street today phone calls.

 

[Mike Brummett]

WOW, Mike -
That is a very good, carpet cleaning, business related question!
Maybe you will get LUCKY and get more than ONE reply! :? :wink: :!:

 

[Jimbo]

Hey Mike...I have 1532 sq feet for a shop...rug cleaning area and lift...no signs...it's at home...and filled with hotrods!...with space for the van...a project mount...and still have room for the rug cleaning area.

No...I don't get any business from it...but I have a blast out there!- Jim

 

[Scott]

Heya Mike -

We received about a 30% increase in gross revenue the first year when we moved to a prominent downtown location in 1998.

Mostly due to increased rug cleaning.

I'll never forget the first day. We hung a homemade sign (computer generated) in the window about "Rug Cleaning" on our door on the Sunday before our Grand Opening. At 8:35 AM Monday morning (we opened at 8:30 AM), we had our first walk-in customer who was beside herself that she could actually bring her rugs in for cleaning.

About 10 minutes later another walk-in showed up with a few rugs, equally as thrilled that the service was now available.

If you don't do rug cleaning, restoration, or don't have a reason for walk-ins, I can think of many other ways to become "buzzworthy" other than securing an expensive location.

I can also safely report this. 2 years ago we sold the downtown location and built a big pole barn on my property to house our HQ. We decided not to aggressively pursue rug cleaning any longer. As predicted our rug cleaning took a hit but the rest of our operations rose because we spent a bit more on marketing than we had in the past. The difference in increased marketing was nowhere near the building payment, so we made out better at the new barn.

This year I totally rewrote our business plan and focus for the next 5 years and now we need a prominent location again, but not for rugs - but for restoration, amongst other things.

Scott

 

[harryhides]

Can't help you on this one Mike as my place is off on a quiet side street which is a whole lot cheaper than on a main drag.

 

[Jack May]

I'm with Harry on this.

I'm also on a quiet no through street with a small sign on the fence beside the car park.

Our reason for having the shed (2000+foot) is primarily for restoration. If I didn't do that, I'd work our of my garage.

The difference between a quiet street and a prominant location doubles of triples the cost..... and that makes a VERY TALL order to fill with walkups/increase due exclusively to building exposure.

I've been through 3 'upgrades' in sheds in my last 5-6 years as my business grew.

Started with a double garage for 6+ months while the land lord sold his business operations. When he sold that, I moved into his 1000 foot low stud facility and we were there for 2 years. At that time we were putting on a large box van that wouldn't fit into that one and we were consistantly full and overflowing. We looked around and got our present location only a good stones throw away. Twice the size, air tight chamber, tall stud, kitchen facility etc. We were allowed to build a small office inside and now run from that. I think we'e reached our sweet point at least for the next 5+ years and have plenty of scope where we are so it';s really feeling quite comfortable.

John

 

[Mike Brummett]

Thanks for the replies.

MIKE

 

[The Great Oz]

In December we hung two 10 x 10 banners (that showed carpet cleaning) on the corner of the building that had the most visibility, and without any other changes in marketing have seen business rise 9% from the prior year.

 

[WISE]

Mike--

One thing I forgot to mention in my post on the IBS board.

We are on a real busy corridor--basically ALOT of neighborhoods feed into this road which leads to the main areas of town. So we get alot of people that are bumper to bumper right out front in the morning and evening.

Couple a mail campaign to target some of these neighborhoods with daily passer-bys and you get some brand awareness over time.


WISE