marketing to dry cleaners and furniture stores

[juniorc82]

I dropped off a stack of gift certificates at a furniture store . The gift certificates were for 20.00.They were givin to them as a xtra goodie to give to their customers. I have gotten a couple nice little jobs out of these. The sales people at this store are doing the markiting work for me . I got one custy out of the deal that has wall to wall upper end orientals who has recently put his whole house of rugs into a cleaning cylcle with me. so thats definatley an awesome sales angle working the funiture stores. the other angle I have been working is the dry cleaners. Alot of people seem to call dry cleaners for area and oriental rug cleaning. I left coupons there and the cleaners have been hooking me up with rug referals.

 

[ACE]

Jon,
As always, I admire your ambition. Them Rugs might end up being more of a pain then they are worth. It doesn’t sound like you have much space to work on them or a dehu to help speed dry them. I hate doing rugs in the winter. I have to get some heaters going in the garage then add heater to the van to keep it from freezing.

 

[juniorc82]

Jon,
As always, I admire your ambition. Them Rugs might end up being more of a pain then they are worth. It doesn’t sound like you have much space to work on them or a dehu to help speed dry them. I hate doing rugs in the winter. I have to get some heaters going in the garage then add heater to the van to keep it from freezing.

I am not expecting to have full garage with area rugs but it is cool to get a job or two here and there . I have plenty of air movers and do good work on rugs. I think this has been a good little sales lead again not trying to go all out on it but everylittle job counts

 

[dgargan]

I worked my tail off for a year and got 4 dry cleaners in the best part of town to start referring me. We were all excited about the referral program. They would get 10% I would get lots of work.Started out with the 100 sq ft free cards and a nice display poster on the counters. Big bust! Did lots of free rooms not much else. Area rugs never turned into anything. We had the dry cleaners give out coupons with every dry cleaning picked up. Nothing!

I know guys with great success doing this but just didn't happen for us.

 

[Bjorn]

seems the rich like those free cleanings better than poor folks

I tried it once many years ago when I bought a JP package did get a few jobs but not enough to pay for all the free cleanings, some rich folks had the nerve to ask how much more can I clean for free?

The free thing can work but not for carpet cleaners because you have to go to their house a oil change place auto repair free inspections or retail they come to you and your place.

 

[dgargan]

It got so bad that we had several "customers" try to break the 100 sq foot free cleaning into 30-40-50 sq ft at a time in several rooms. Traffic lane here, spot there, 3 steps. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I pulled the plug on the 100 sq ft deal after 4 years of trying to make it work.

 

[Bjorn]

the answer i got back from Joe was your doing it wrong we have piranha members making then of thousands of dollar off the free room offer which is the most powerful marketing tool

next was the three stage letter BOMB

then I asked for my money back ( yes it was refunded ) of course back then it was only 650 dollars for the bronze package
or course if I upgraded to the gold or go to the boot camp things would work much better

 

[duckster]

Now this is only my personal opinion on marketing gurus so take it with a grain of salt.

Joe Polish is excited about his formula for marketing a service, that makes it work for him. He has been able to get others excited about it, that makes it work for each of them to some degree as well.

My preference is Seth Godin who makes the reader/viewer think. Check out his videos if you like on YouTube. Of special interest to me is the concept of leading a tribe. As he explains the IPod vs Nokia the largest cell phone manufacturer lets say I GOT IT. He is fresh and up to date, not stuck in the 90s in my opinion. 12 Best Sellers translated in 33 languages.

Nothing wrong in my opinion with JP, he has his niche which is not all carpet cleaners, just a relatively few carpet cleaners, a small slice of the pie. And in that niche he is quite successful from my viewpoint.

 

[XTREME1]

my secret weapon in marketing is do great work and let your customers know you don't advertise and ask they will tell their friends
psst [psst keep it quiet