All I’m hearing is no…

[AlienAgent]

What other services do you offer besides carpet tile and upholstery is there anyway to add more services?

I clean anything you can walk on. Tile/grout, carpet, vinyl, VCT, wood, concrete, strip and wax, upholstery cleaning.

I have a ton van with a Judson, a ton box truck filled with commercial equipment. Propane stripper, propane burnisher, Liquidator, Guzzler, auto scrubber, Cimex, Phoenix, five 175’s, tile spinner, tile wand, 3 Ninja portables, a Sandia Sniper portable, two Viper trotmops, a SteamAction Tornado truckmount waiting for a van to go into, and a huge inventory of every chemical, pad, and bonnet I could need.

If there was enough business around here I could put a 5 man crew to work around the clock.

 

[Cleanworks]

I clean anything you can walk on. Tile/grout, carpet, vinyl, VCT, wood, concrete, strip and wax, upholstery cleaning.

I have a ton van with a Judson, a ton box truck filled with commercial equipment. Propane stripper, propane burnisher, Liquidator, Guzzler, auto scrubber, Cimex, Phoenix, five 175’s, tile spinner, tile wand, 3 Ninja portables, a Sandia Sniper portable, two Viper trotmops, a SteamAction Tornado truckmount waiting for a van to go into, and a huge inventory of every chemical, pad, and bonnet I could need.

If there was enough business around here I could put a 5 man crew to work around the clock.

Maybe need to sell some stuff.

 

[AlienAgent]

Maybe need to sell some stuff.

Absolutely not! Lol When I get moved towards a more populated area I’m gonna need it.

 

[FredC]

I took a look at your website. It isn't visually assaulting or anything and ranks well but could be much better. Right now it just looks like some guys blog instead of a cleaning company. It does have a call now button at top (should also have phone number there) and a quote form (maybe expand that so less input needed from customers than "tell us what you need"). Possibly add some online scheduling.

Also work on reviews. You only have one on the platforms I checked. Maybe claim and spruce up some of the directory listings like yelp.


How many local groups do you participate in? I know you mentioned not being part of the irl type groups but maybe at least online............and I mean participating not being that ahole constantly blasting his discounts. Being social is probably the only way you're going to increase biz locally.

 

[Nomad74]

I took a look at your website. It isn't visually assaulting or anything and ranks well but could be much better. Right now it just looks like some guys blog instead of a cleaning company. It does have a call now button at top (should also have phone number there) and a quote form (maybe expand that so less input needed from customers than "tell us what you need"). Possibly add some online scheduling.

Also work on reviews. You only have one on the platforms I checked. Maybe claim and spruce up some of the directory listings like yelp.


How many local groups do you participate in? I know you mentioned not being part of the irl type groups but maybe at least online............and I mean participating not being that ahole constantly blasting his discounts. Being social is probably the only way your going to increase biz locally.

Does my website stimulate you?

 

[FredC]

Does my website stimulate you?

It was ok before it went down.

 

[FredC]

@Nomad74 you know I'm serious right? Site is down...

 

[Nomad74]

oh hell

 

[FredC]

and no I didn't hack your walmart emachine and do it......

 

[Nomad74]

and no I didn't hack your walmart emachine and do it......

This all stems from when BofA closed my accounts. I have my girl working on it now. Damn, thanks for letting me know Fred.

 

[Nomad74]

and no I didn't hack your walmart emachine and do it......

Fixed. Whew!

 

[Nomad74]

I just want to ride my motorcycle.

 

[roro]

I just want to ride my motorcycle.

I imagine you would be one cool plucker

 

[AlienAgent]

I took a look at your website. It isn't visually assaulting or anything and ranks well but could be much better. Right now it just looks like some guys blog instead of a cleaning company. It does have a call now button at top (should also have phone number there) and a quote form (maybe expand that so less input needed from customers than "tell us what you need"). Possibly add some online scheduling.

Also work on reviews. You only have one on the platforms I checked. Maybe claim and spruce up some of the directory listings like yelp.


How many local groups do you participate in? I know you mentioned not being part of the irl type groups but maybe at least online............and I mean participating not being that ahole constantly blasting his discounts. Being social is probably the only way your going to increase biz locally.

Thanks for taking a look Fred. It’s not something I have put a whole lot of time or effort into. I just needed “something there” and never put much more into it.

I have tried off and on for years to get people to leave reviews, they always say they will, but never do. Most of my residential customers here are old (65 and up) and not exactly competent to use the internet effectively. I suspect they don’t know how to do it and I hate to push it while in their home. I’ll have to look into the apps that push them for reviews using their phone number info.

I don’t care much for participating in the social media local groups. I’m in them, but don’t even look at them. I’m not the most social person anymore. And while I hate to be like this, I’ve noticed that the type of person who is active in the local FB groups isn’t exactly my ideal future client. They tend to be broke, opinionated, females in their 30’s who constantly complain and know it all. And there is a real preoccupation with vehicles going down the road slowly or turning around in driveways… I’ll do a little looking around on the groups and see if I can find an angle that works for me.

 

[AlienAgent]

And also, there might be 5 or 10 people a month even view my website. Carpet cleaning just doesn’t seem to be that high on the priority list in my area.

 

[FredC]

Thanks for taking a look Fred. It’s not something I have put a whole lot of time or effort into. I just needed “something there” and never put much more into it.

I have tried off and on for years to get people to leave reviews, they always say they will, but never do. Most of my residential customers here are old (65 and up) and not exactly competent to use the internet effectively. I suspect they don’t know how to do it and I hate to push it while in their home. I’ll have to look into the apps that push them for reviews using their phone number info.

I don’t care much for participating in the social media local groups. I’m in them, but don’t even look at them. I’m not the most social person anymore. And while I hate to be like this, I’ve noticed that the type of person who is active in the local FB groups isn’t exactly my ideal future client. They tend to be broke, opinionated, females in their 30’s who constantly complain and know it all. And there is a real preoccupation with vehicles going down the road slowly or turning around in driveways… I’ll do a little looking around on the groups and see if I can find an angle that works for me.

Well it's something that you should put more time and effort into. The web is how many, if not most at this point, find contractors. The website, reviews, your footprint, etc help them decide to use you although there will always be those that go down the list just checking prices. Websites, social media SM, directories (consumer and B@B),etc need to be more than just there.

You're not wrong about people and reviews but follow-up emails (and crm reminders) will help build them. Anything you can do to remove barriers to doing so will also help. Things like a brief description of how and links to sites to leave them. Can also be in the prep email.

I get not being social but unless you have a ton of folks around searching for services it's probably your best bet. Like here, those social groups, are like TV shows with a much broader reach than the main characters. As far as an angle there shouldn't be much of one other than participating.


Lastly recessions and dying towns are real, getting work can be hard, and rural has challenges but it seems folks always end up manifesting their thoughts in this biz no matter where they live.

 

[Cleanworks]

Also if you have a Google page, update it once a week with info about your services. Can be things like a good vacuum to buy, how to do emergency spot removal, why soil filtration if difficult to remove, etc. Or promoting your services or prices. I get more work from my google pages than from website. I could do better on them but I am too lazy.

 

[Chris A]

we can't control the economy and I don't know your challenges to your area but I mean this only in a positive way but

If your records are anything but a crm software with all your customers in it and what they have done in the past than they have very little benefit to you.

If you can't track roi how would you know where to spend your hard earned money on advertising what if your wasting that money paying for leads and doing work and actually loosing money or just breaking even? Start tracking everything
You can't improve something without measuring it first

I would start a crm right away
I would look at the local companies in your area and before you tell me there isn't any work or a lack of money look to see who is doing the best and what are they doing?
are there any multi truck operations near you?
where are they advertising?
are they better than you?

I don't claim to know anything but I have seen huge growth once I started marketing my existing customers and tracking my money

This is all great info. I would second using SMs Fill my Schedule program it really helped us get over the hump with our past customer marketing.

 

[Nomad74]

And also, there might be 5 or 10 people a month even view my website. Carpet cleaning just doesn’t seem to be that high on the priority list in my area.

Listen here. If it isn't a high priority, then you need to make them think it should be a high priority. Just like Mikey's jet extenders. None of us want or need them, but you can bet your boots Mikey is going to be out there on his soap box telling all of us we need them.

Get into your client list and send every past customer a card who hasn't been serviced in the last 12 months. Hell, if you want to be really aggressive, call them and check in. I bet you book some jobs. "Hello, this is Alien Agent with UFO Carpet Care. We cleaned your carpets over a year ago and we're just checking in to see if you're ready to have it done again. Right now we're offering a special discount for repeat customers like yourself."

Look at me for example. My website has been down for weeks and I didn't even know because I've been so busy with just my normal client base. I do the reminder cards, I make notes in my CRM of what their pets names are, I leave magnets behind, I look like Tom Cruise.

 

[Chris A]

You look like if Tom Cruise was ordered from wish.com

 

[FredC]

My website has been down for weeks

1 week at most...there are google cached results from the 6/7th.....if it makes you feel any better

 

[Nomad74]

1 week at most...there are google cached results from the 6/7th.....if it makes you feel any better

Yes, That makes me feel better. I was looking at an 10/2 date where someone last tried to contact me through the site.

 

[Mr Brightside]

I’ve decided you need to move

 

[Hoody]

I took a look at your website. It isn't visually assaulting or anything and ranks well but could be much better. Right now it just looks like some guys blog instead of a cleaning company. It does have a call now button at top (should also have phone number there) and a quote form (maybe expand that so less input needed from customers than "tell us what you need"). Possibly add some online scheduling.

His site is a GMB/GBP website that pulls everything from the Google listing into it. He doesn't have much control over it beyond the color scheme, CTA button at the top, and About us section.

If you're into DIY Joe - you can have more control over a site by doing a Google site by going to sites.google.com and creating one for free. You can create pages and other features, and you could use free Google Forms to do a quote submission and embed it on one of the pages. You can even hook a custom domain up to it so it is more branded.

In your about us section, I would write more content there and put all of your services in a bulleted list and expand that section to 4-500 words. Add all of the cities and towns that you service into a list as well.

If you end up creating a G-site you could link to individual service pages in the bulleted list of the GMB website to the appropriate page on your Google site.

If you send out a lot of emails for prospecting, Mailchimp has a generous Free tier with up to 500 contacts and 2,500 emails a month. They provide data like if the email was even opened or if there were any link clicks. That info would allow you to figure out the type of follow-up you want to do. Even their $17/month gives you the ability to create automatic flows like sending another email after x amount of days if the first one wasn't opened. Or maybe you want to send an email with more information and a form to fill out if it was opened. There's a lot of automation options that would save you a ton of time.

For your reviews, buy a cheap domain such as gingerich-reviews.com and forward it to your GMB review link. Write it on invoices to help break that barrier if you're doing things "old school". Although having clients search for you and then leaving a review is better for brand signals.

 

[FredC]

His site is a GMB/GBP website that pulls everything from the Google listing into it. He doesn't have much control over it beyond the color scheme, CTA button at the top, and About us section.

If you're into DIY Joe - you can have more control over a site by doing a Google site by going to sites.google.com and creating one for free. You can create pages and other features, and you could use free Google Forms to do a quote submission and embed it on one of the pages. You can even hook a custom domain up to it so it is more branded.

In your about us section, I would write more content there and put all of your services in a bulleted list and expand that section to 4-500 words. Add all of the cities and towns that you service into a list as well.

If you end up creating a G-site you could link to individual service pages in the bulleted list of the GMB website to the appropriate page on your Google site.

If you send out a lot of emails for prospecting, Mailchimp has a generous Free tier with up to 500 contacts and 2,500 emails a month. They provide data like if the email was even opened or if there were any link clicks. That info would allow you to figure out the type of follow-up you want to do. Even their $17/month gives you the ability to create automatic flows like sending another email after x amount of days if the first one wasn't opened. Or maybe you want to send an email with more information and a form to fill out if it was opened. There's a lot of automation options that would save you a ton of time.

For your reviews, buy a cheap domain such as gingerich-reviews.com and forward it to your GMB review link. Write it on invoices to help break that barrier if you're doing things "old school". Although having clients search for you and then leaving a review is better for brand signals.

"Right now it just looks like some guys blog instead of a cleaning company."

 

[FredC]

and nothing wrong with any of Hoody's suggestions.


Me ....I'd suggest a more robust website platform if you're looking for it to be a somewhat passive lead generation source with the ability to widen the net. Even then it's not like jobs are going to pour in from the site but in your situation you need multiple sources.

 

[AlienAgent]

Guys, I really appreciate all the suggestions. When I get done with all my work around the house for the day, I’m going to make a list of everything and start in on implementing a strategy.

I think working a solid plan over the fall/winter will put me ahead by a mile when spring gets here.

 

[Clean Rug Doug]

Joe, looks like you are about 60 miles from the center of Cincinnati. Can you "co-locate" your business to the east side of Cincinnati and do only commercial work there? You previously mentioned commercial only VLM, but you could offer all the types of commercial floor care you are capable of. A 60 mile ride for a larger job isn't so bad as long as you bake it in. Continue to service your local area.

 

[AlienAgent]

Joe, looks like you are about 60 miles from the center of Cincinnati. Can you "co-locate" your business to the east side of Cincinnati and do only commercial work there? You previously mentioned commercial only VLM, but you could offer all the types of commercial floor care you are capable of. A 60 mile ride for a larger job isn't so bad as long as you bake it in. Continue to service your local area.

Thats been part of my plan for a while now. I’m going to target that area aggressively for commercial work all fall and winter. Email, intro letters, phone calls, and in person sales are going to be my strategy.

I can get to the edge of the east side in 45 to 50 minutes and the center of the city in an hour to an hour and a half.

 

[AlienAgent]

@Clean Rug Doug I don’t mind the drive, it takes 45 minutes for me to get to the other side of the county for a local job.

And really, some of the larger homes in the Cincy area would be bigger tickets at my residential price than a lot of the smaller commercial jobs at my commercial pricing.