Anyone use "Free Room Fliers" or a variation???

[curt johnson]

For those that use fliers have you used the "pink flier" or a variation of the free room flier? I'm curious what your results were and how much "free cleaning" you did vs. jobs that added other rooms?

 

[RickL]

I tried a free room flyer in my 1st year and didn't like it. I found myself spending way to much time convincing people there wasn't any catch. Ended up trashing a bunch of them. Mine was free room no catch, such as you gotta clean 3 rooms to get one free,etc.

 

[dgargan]

I have tried the JP free room offers several times over the years to try and jump start some slow periods. I literally sent out several thousand over the years. I tried the pink flyer, the "I miss You" letter, the neighborhood "Free room" letter (Already written by JP all you had to do is put your name and contact info in and send them out) Nothing! It's a ton of work. You have to hand write all the envelopes and most of the letters are 2-4 pages per mailing. Just never produced anything for us. Now Lisa and Joe will put up example after example of how their members brought in thousands with these letters every month so I guess you have to try it for yourself and see what it does for you.

I still use the 100 sq foot free card from Howard Partridge and it does work some what but I can't help but think those people would have called anyway because they come from good referral sources. We give away thousands of those cards every year yet only get back 15-20 per year.

 

[Jimmy L]

I tried it many years ago.....many.

I just thought the angle was kind of cheezy.

Made me feel dirty.

Kind of like going thru a Kirby vacuum sales presentation in your home.


Didn't fit my personality profile for honesty.

I understand the concept of getting your foot in the door but if you start stuff like this it can't stop or the people will price shop you over and over again.

Looking for the next "Freebie"

Now I just prefer to offer great service and encourage refferals.

It's a slower way to grow but by refferal with no gimmicks introduces you to better people who don't shop you for specials.

I prefer to offer good honest service VS SLeAZy sales tactics that will only hurt you in the long run.

 

[Mikey P]

Hey Curt, I"m headed to Phoenix in a few hours for Boot Camp and the Trade Show.

Give me a call 831 588 9063 and I'll hook you up with all the pink free room cards you need.

 

[Bjorn]

what I found out about the free room offer the most asked question after I cleaned the free room was how much more can I do for free ( no shit )

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

what I found out about the free room offer the most asked question after I cleaned the free room was how much more can I do for free ( no shit )

And if you say "Free Room up to 150 sqft, the customer will start measuring all traffic areas up to 150sqft.

I have tried the JP free room offers several times over the years to try and jump start some slow periods. I literally sent out several thousand over the years. I tried the pink flyer, the "I miss You" letter, the neighborhood "Free room" letter (Already written by JP all you had to do is put your name and contact info in and send them out) Nothing! It's a ton of work. You have to hand write all the envelopes and most of the letters are 2-4 pages per mailing. Just never produced anything for us. Now Lisa and Joe will put up example after example of how their members brought in thousands with these letters every month so I guess you have to try it for yourself and see what it does for you.

Same thing for me.

 

[Spots2Stop]

We tried the jp flyer several times years ago with very very little return!

I just had 300 free room certificates printed on parchment paper so it would feel simular to money. I did my 15th job from them today! Yes a couple did not buy more, but most of them spent over $100 so it has been a great choice.

You can see the certificate in my video below.
s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQQbtqFfT1os]

 

[Steve Toburen]

For those that use fliers have you used the "pink flier" or a variation of the free room flier? I'm curious what your results were and how much "free cleaning" you did vs. jobs that added other rooms?

I never did the "free room" deal on residential. (Not saying it won't work- we just never needed to do it.)

HOWEVER, one winter we were really slow and I wanted to pump up our regular contract commercial accounts. So we sent out a letter to around 50 restaurants offering to clean the WHOLE PLACE free of charge. (Remember, we were dead slow anyway.) There were only two conditions to this WHOLE PLACE FREE offer:

1. They be sincerely interested in a regular monthly maintenance program for their carpets.

2. The owner or manager be there for at least the first 30 minutes to actually see how we cleaned and the results.

We mailed out the letter and followed up over the next four or five days. Out of the fifty letters we sent out we booked 11 free restaurant cleanings. Of the 11 freebies 10 of them signed a long term monthly contract and when I sold the company around ten years later 9 of the 10 were still regular accounts.

I'm not espousing this tactic and only mention it to show the need in marketing to think outside the box. The two main business emotions when it comes to carpet maintenance are "apathy and inertia". These both work in your favor when you have the job but are killers when you are trying to GET the work.

So ya gotta break through the clutter and the resistance. Several of these restaurant managers told me they got solicited at least once a week by carpet cleaners, weren't happy with their current service and yet had never actually put the account out to bid till my letter showed up. Go figger ...

Nostalgically submitted,

Steve Toburen
www.SFS.JonDon.com

PS Now before a lot of you break my chops on how much you hate night work and restaurants in particular let me state I personally despised doing night work. That is why something called "employees" was invented. Given how profitable commercial work is you should be able to hire reliable part time workers, pay them very well (we recommend 25%) and turn them loose. Encapping with a Cimex works really well with this tactic since you can also pay them a mileage allowance and they supply their own vehicle. (Plus encapping works well for one person working alone.)

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Some of our best restaurant accounts started like that, with a variation.

I'd tell them: "Work is a little slow right now for us, and I'm sure it's a little slow for you too. I know your food is good, and so is our service. How about we swap? I'll take gift certificates in pay, and give them to some of my other customers so they can try you too."

I usually try to schedule them for early AM or preferably a day they are closed during the week. If not, the boys do them.

 

[FLYERMAN]

I did it. Did tons of them btw. Most spent more money. One lady even had $950 in total cleaning. Becareful of the neighborhoods you pass them out in and you'll do fine.

I wrote a report called "Handling the FREE Room offer" if you'd (or anyone else) wants a copy email me with "Handling the FREE Room offer" in the subject line and I'll send it out.

It is by far the trickiest marketing approach I ever tried.