Your Input/advice Appreciated

[BLewis]

Ok, I would like to ask for opinions from you guys. Many of you are bigger with more experience than I. We run a very strong one truck operation with a decent back up truck.
I plan on purchasing a new truck for expansion this year so I am in the prepping stage to market the business more to get business for the second truck.

I did not reach one of my goals last year and that was developing a commercial brochure. I had plans for developing a Tri-fold with one side designated to marketing commercial and one side marketing to residential. My thoughts are this
#1-A % of residential may own or manage a commercial business if some type
#2-Every business owner/manager lives in a residence, most probably owned
#3-Reduced graphic design costs and more importantly cutting the printing cost in half (and this is bartered out)

Now there is a business coach in our BNI that insist that I should do separate brochures for commercial and resi

Your thoughts, and Steve Toburen and @Tom King I would especially be excited for your input on this

 

[SamIam]

I would say 2 different, you don't always clean each the same. Different needs ext. ect.

But wait for peeps who do a lot of both to chime in.

 

[Kellie Hiler]

I would do one just like what you said. Saves money, but you are absolutely correct, you never know what needs a customer will have so it's better to give them all of your options in one nice flyer. It also decreases the likelihood they will lose it. You don't want to overload anyone with paperwork.
I did this a long time ago and it went very well.

 

[PrimaDonna]

Do two. They are two different markets with two very different buying motivations. So different in fact that many companies have separate residential and commercial divisions. Your BNI couch is on target.

We have two. Brochures are cheap to print. It's the design/layout where you want to put your money. And even that should only be a few hundred dollars. We use overnightprints.com for our brochures. Good quality. Google coupon codes and you can get some really good deals.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Do two. With the cost of brochures so cheap I'd do one for each. Just as Meg said they clean for totally different reasons.

Have someone design it for you and then buy them from gotprint.net
Great quality, fast service at a ridiculously cheap price. 10oo trifolds are around $130.00 plus shipping.

 

[Cleanworks]

I agree with the 2. Here's the thing. Your are doing a commercial proposal and give a brochure to the prospective customer but the first part of the brochure is about residential cleaning or vice versa. However' somewhere on each brochure, you should list all of your services. This way if your commercial customer likes your work and reads your brochure and sees that you also do residential, who's he gonna call?

 

[Kellie Hiler]

One of our sales pitches to commercial accounts is that we offer a "friends and family" discount to the employees and their families. And we always let our new residential customers know that we do commercial as well. This is why we put them both on one.
I want everyone to know in full detail both sides of our services for the purpose of those referrals, and as I said earlier, it has always served us well.
I guess it may depend on what exactly you are trying to cultivate with those brochures really.

 

[Cleanworks]

One of the things you can do to save money is to print a reversible brochure, so that on the front it starts with residential, but if you start with the back, it is commercial. You just present the appropiate side to your custie and If they read further they will learn of your other services. Now that i've thought of it, I think i'm going to do one for myself.

 

[Kellie Hiler]

One of the things you can do to save money is to print a reversible brochure, so that on the front it starts with residential, but if you start with the back, it is commercial. You just present the appropiate side to your custie and If they read further they will learn of your other services. Now that i've thought of it, I think i'm going to do one for myself.

Bingo!

 

[WillS]

2 brochures. You can keep the layout the same for both, just change text and images. Done.

It would be difficult putting Church Pews, Office Chairs, Commercial Looking Carpet, Office Carpet Before/After pics on a Residential Brochure. We have 2 separate brochures, I dreaded making them, so I made them look exactly the same besides for text/images. Save time.

 

[Goomer]

I think commercial specific literature will better portray your business as being an experienced, professional commercial operation.

I scrutinize printed advertising material with a different eye now that I have my own business with it's own literature, and would assume most businesses who pay close attention to their own printed material would also perceive a combo brochure as being nothing but a cost-saving effort, which is exactly what it is.

A 50/50 brochure would be better suited as a newspaper insert or as generic canvasing material, not as a primary piece of literature to pitch a commercial account with such big-ticket potential.

With 6 available panels on a tri-fold brochure, you might be able to get away with one panel for advertising additional residential services, but I would not go more than that.

You can very likely offset any additional design costs by making sure your designer agrees to furnish you with master files of the brochure in a popular file format that is compatible with most online printers like GotPrint so maintain control, and you can shop around and find better deals and order as few or as many as you want as needed....................

 

[Scott S.]

I always get call "Do you do residential or just commercial". We don't push one any more than the other, but we too also have 2 brochures. However i ordered a pack of the interlink supply commercial brochures to try out and to also get ideas on updating our current one.

 

[Scott S.]

I always get call "Do you do residential or just commercial". We don't push one any more than the other, but we too also have 2 brochures. However i ordered a pack of the interlink supply commercial brochures to try out and to also get ideas on updating our current one.

Only real think i HATE about bridgepoint systems brochures is that they post their info all over the damn thing, almost like asking your customer to cut you out and just buy from bridge point directly. No reason BRIDGEPOINT needs to be all over a brochure that's supposed to help my company.

Maybe Scott W. can change that.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I think most manufacturers do that. Its a shame because they forget who they are selling to. They only need to be concerned with selling to us, the cleaner.

The marketing piece has diminished value when its full of industry trade names & products. The home or business owner hasn't a clue who or what that is, that's why they call us.

 

[Scott S.]

I think most manufacturers do that. Its a shame because they forget who they are selling to. They only need to be concerned with selling to us, the cleaner.

The marketing piece has diminished value when its full of industry trade names & products. The home or business owner hasn't a clue who or what that is, that's why they call us.

oh, believe me the consumer is not stupid. they google everything, ask all the right questions, etc. they are alot smarter than you think.

 

[Kellie Hiler]

Most are, that's for sure. But then there are the ones who don't care, they just want you to come and do what you do best so they don't have to worry about it.

 

[Spurlington]

Only real think i HATE about bridgepoint systems brochures is that they post their info all over the damn thing, almost like asking your customer to cut you out and just buy from bridge point directly. No reason BRIDGEPOINT needs to be all over a brochure that's supposed to help my company.

Maybe Scott W. can change that.

I could see - designed by '' so and so '' ... but to advertise other products on your advertisement is wrong !! Id give them the option to lose the advertisement or lose the advertiser !!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Most of our clients just want know "who to call". They don't have time to care about methods or products. They trust us to do that for them.

 

[Shawn Abbey]

I'm going to go a slightly different direction here.....

First, hire a professional graphic designer to design your brochures. They can provide your central logo, font, colors, etc. Plus, they know what is getting attention nowadays. Whether you go with two brochures or not, is not my point. You must have a central theme for branding and name recognition. Personally, I don't know how many advertising pictures for carpet cleaning I've viewed that has the owner in jeans standing proudly next to their machine. Unfortunately, that doesn't motivate the lady of the house to call you.... Consider doing something different that makes you stand out from the others AND makes the lady of the home feel comfortable calling you.

Second, consider a clip magnet to hand out for the commercial clients you're soliciting to remind them of you when the time comes. Many times I've received calls from companies where I either serviced previously, or stopped by to hand out flyers. They didn't remember me but, they would see my magnetic clip holding the 25 messages from their wife. Then I would get the call. That worked for both residential and commercial.

Third, as far as the commercial market is concerned, the ladies of the offices and business you're targeting are the ones who talk. If you've knocked their socks off with your professional presentation and cleaning at their home, they'll talk! When the time comes to clean the offices, they'll remember you, and offer a suggestion to the decision maker to call you.

Now, I don't know you or how you've operated so far, but put a large focus on your residential clients if you're not doing so already. Think differently. How can you improve your presentation? Are you sending out happy people? Do they smell like cigarette smoke? Are they happy with their employer? Are your lady customers comfortable allowing you or your employees into their home? Are you doing the little things that the other cleaners in your area aren't (corner protectors, staging mats, booties, mopping the hardwood floors, etc.)? Sure, keep up visiting and pursuing your commercial clients, but impress the clients you already have even more than you're doing!

Shawn "I've got to quit writing dissertations and get back to work" Abbey

 

[The Great Oz]

Two brochures. I'm banging my head against the wall because some people I advise are trying to do too much with one brochure and it confuses people about both of the things they're trying to sell. This reduces the impact to the point I think the brochure gets thrown out at first glance.

Let the designer do the work and I'll bet they'll find a way to mention your other service on each brochure - after the main message.