Just how social are you?

[Mikey P]

Owner Op or a Tom King, do you get out and become THE carpet cleaner in your community?

How much effort are you putting out to become the "Go To" company?

Do people in your church, sports leagues, inner circles, the neighbors on your street know what you do?
and do you do it real well or give off the impression that you're still figuring it out? Do you come off as a Larry Lunchpail or do you give the impression of being a romantic master craftsman?

Is all our time spent on "Social Media" or do you get out and kiss real babies?


Some things I'm doing in Nevada to get the word out.

I joined some local neighborhood blogs on Facebook. Other than having my logo as my avatar, I don't talk cleaning much at all. I comment about the weather, events, cute pets, NO POLITICS, and give as many suggestions on peoples problems that I can.

One lady posted a photo of her back yard which looked a lot like mine, I made comment and the next thing you know I get an invite over to see her's in person. Paula and I stop by (a quarter mile away) and the next thing you know her daughter invites us to a new split off from a BNI type group that needs a carpet cleaner.
The group has a All Natural House Cleaner, an interior designer, a window fashion designer and about 8 other good referral sources. They meet once a month mid day so Paula and I will take turns attending. We also are encouraged to meet with individual members for coffee or at their place of business once a week. Which we have..

Paula and her church has already led to some nice work and contacts. A new gal pal in the hall owns another window and fabric store. They just found out about our FPA offerings and just so happen to have two chairs on hand that belong to the biggest land baron in the valley......

We just became Industry Partners in ASID for our FPA service. We've yet to find where the designers are congregating her in NV but will be attending a meeting soon in the Bay Area/Scruz to hopefully find out.

Paula dropped by one of our care packages at another local design/upholstery shop, within a day the owner calls with her mouth full of the delicious free chocolate gift and asks for us to come treat some fabric.

Mentioned earlier but I sold a bike on Craigslist to a guy who if I didn't take the time to chat it up with him, I could have easily not have found out that he manages all the county buildings and is not happy with their current carpet cleaner. The conversation was all about bikes and it took some effort to bring it around to suck mops...

Cleaner's Giving Back Day has already lead to boosting our new rep.

Since we moved in in May of last year, we have not heard from our real estate agent who lives right around the corner. Yesterday she invited us to her Super Bowl party.
35 other neighbors are coming....

Once spring hits I'll spend a few sheckles on FB doing my best Will S impression.

Yelp has a growing presence here and has generated some nice work. Ten Best Cleaners in * City is a top three on Google, which goes to Yelp.

I started a motorbike group page on FB which is attracting local..


....................and I'm waiting on a slow poke web geek to finish my site so I can do further door to door promotion with a matching trifold and mentions of my world famous blog..

 

[steve_64]

We Just got in the local paper for donating a bicycle to a school for an attendance program Gennys friend is involved in.
Im a chamber member but havent been involved recently. Weve been so busy with the new house and work we are pretty spent most of the time.
I think being involved and the face to face stuff is the best for long term business.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Facebook does help us in our small area....

But, I also do get a lot of contacts from around the country and the WORLD for help that they found me from YouTube, Facebook, other venues I maybe don't even know about.

Was just helping a person from Croatia this morning who is taking on a large....very large hotel carpet cleaning situation.

I directed him here as well....

It's interesting to be sitting in the morning in your bed drinking coffee watching TV and getting a Facebook message from another country...then they call you

Great conversation and really hope we can maybe be of help to him as well....

And interesting to see how much better we have it here in the USA for access to our cleaning tools, supplies and Chemistry!

 

[FredC]

....................and I'm waiting on a slow poke web geek to finish my site so I can do further door to door promotion with a matching trifold and mentions of my world famous blog..

I'm balancing all your little badges

 

[Mikey P]

Pretty!

 

[Chris A]

Not nearly social enough with new people, something I've always struggled with. Once I'm in the home I'm a stud

 

[Spurlington]

 

[Desk Jockey]

Baxter and I walk everyday and visit the neighbors. We say hello to the horse and donkey. I give them horse treats.

Further down the road we visit a Boxer and I pet him. Talk to the neighbors kids as we pass them but don't see any adults.

So far no work has come from this but I'm still hopeful.

 

[Old Coastie]

Eat the horse, ride the donkey and sic the dog on those pesky kids before you get arrested.

 

[Old Coastie]

Mike, I really appreciate the post; One thing I do poorly is get the word out. The whole thread was passed to my daughter in law (the brains and beauty of our company) for planning.

Except for Rick bothering the neighbor's dog.

 

[Ron K]

I think that some of us are Lazy as far as this goes. We came from dealing with the YP idiot once a year and we were good. Newspaper and some flyers and then we're living the dream. Social Media is like our new cell phones and computers.... "what the BLEEP is this?" We just need to make time to do it or find a staffer you trust to do or help you get it started. Make time you old crooners da future is here! Yelp still is a piece of shit though!

 

[Mikey P]

Mikey and Fred tip of the day


Find a wealthy church goer to review your personal FB if you lack common sence.

 

[Ron K]

Whats a Church!

 

[Kellie Hiler]

This is one area where I now know I have messed up.
I've always used FB for personal usage and never really cared about politics until the last year or so and now I post a lot of political stuff. But in the last few months I have been working towards upping my game on the business FB page that I had created long ago but never used.
I probably need to go through my Personal page and just delete any and all political or otherwise disturbing posts.
I will say though that I find it kind of sad that I should have to. I never let political beliefs determine who I like or dislike or use whether or not I will use their services, nor do I like the idea of anyone other than my friends being able to see my personal page, and I have it set to private but I don't really know what others can see.
I have a few customers as friends on there. I warn them that I post political views, but most of them are of the same views as me anyway so it doesn't bother them.
I think I'm going to unfriend my husband and then look at my page from his FB and see what shows up. But I may still delete many things so that I don't have to worry about what potential customers can see and I can become more social because I have seen those community pages and wanted to join but could not join under my business page.

 

[Mikey P]

I wasn't going to say anything but yes, you are blowing it.


If you want to be a wild child ala Ashley and Joel, I highly suggest you create two facebook pages to do so

 

[Kellie Hiler]

Thank you, and in the future please don't hold back. I like to hear if I am doing something wrong. I can handle constructive criticism quite well!

 

[Kellie Hiler]

Can someone guide me on how to create a new FB and turn that one into the one that I manage my business page from? Right now I have it set to where I manage my business page while logged into my current personal profile. But obviously when I post on the business page I post as the business and not me. But I want to set up a "clean" personal and link that one to my business.

I want to keep my current personal page as is if I can. And continue to use that one in the forums and groups. Will that hurt me?

 

[Mikey P]

If you use two different emails but the same password for both account FB makes it REAL easy to job between the two.

 

[KevinD]

Mikey and Fred tip of the day


Find a wealthy church goer to review your personal FB if you lack common sence.

and spell check

 

[WillS]

I'll usually go to the grocery store after work or gas station, etc. and wearing the work shirt usually starts people conversing about the business. Or if I'm sitting at a bar playing video poker, the bartender will ask what I do, and it starts a convo with people around me. Since I don't go to church, that's probably my personal networking.

Legitimately though.. I do the Chamber of Commerce breakfast and networking events along with the Young Professional events. Not so much to push residential cleaning on people, but commercial cleaning and to get our name out there. Have had pretty good results with these groups. Also, Jimmy Johns, our insurance agent, our mechanic all have flyers out for us and I network with to. Business referrals to them etc.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Eat the horse, ride the donkey and sic the dog on those pesky kids before you get arrested.

I pet the dogs! Not the kids.

Horse has little fat. You need a buffalo if you're avoiding the cow.

 

[Desk Jockey]

This is one area where I now know I have messed up.
I've always used FB for personal usage and never really cared about politics until the last year or so and now I post a lot of political stuff. But in the last few months I have been working towards upping my game on the business FB page that I had created long ago but never used.
I probably need to go through my Personal page and just delete any and all political or otherwise disturbing posts.
I will say though that I find it kind of sad that I should have to. I never let political beliefs determine who I like or dislike or use whether or not I will use their services, nor do I like the idea of anyone other than my friends being able to see my personal page, and I have it set to private but I don't really know what others can see.
I have a few customers as friends on there. I warn them that I post political views, but most of them are of the same views as me anyway so it doesn't bother them.
I think I'm going to unfriend my husband and then look at my page from his FB and see what shows up. But I may still delete many things so that I don't have to worry about what potential customers can see and I can become more social because I have seen those community pages and wanted to join but could not join under my business page.

Chinks in the armor. It's about time the truth comes out.