ok..how many of you guys are using the jon don news letter??

[Brian R]

Your welcome

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Without seeming salesy thought I would answer a couple of questions. The cost for the 1:1 which means you do nothing other than upload your list and choice of coupons is 119.00 a month plus approximately .55 per newsletter.
This means for 1000 news letters it would be 119.00 + 550.00 = 669.00 So about .69 per newsletter. If you do it 12 times a year it would cost you 8.28 to be in front of a previous customer every month. I can't think of anything else that is that cheap.

Lets say that you get a 99% failure rate. Or for you positive thinkers a 1% success rate.
That would be 10 customers booked a job. If your average job is 150.00 (certainly not outrageous) that would be 1500.00 per month. 1500.00 - 669.00 = 831.00 to the good.

Tell me that mailing to previous customers that you can't get better than 1%.

Now you could do them yourself. Be creative, write them, print them, fold them, place the little sticky thing on them, and the take them to the post office and mail them.

We think you should mail them monthly but we don't force you to do that. You choose when you want them to go.

Finally we believe in guarantees. If you try the program for 6 months straight and you say Big Billy suckered me in with his smooth talk and I don't think it worked like he said we will give you back your 6 month fees 6 x 119.00 = 714.00.

Tell me how you can go wrong.

I been thinking about it and based on a 1% success rate and a job average of $150.00 your actually losing your shirt and busting your but in the process.

If you send out 1000 newsletters and and get 10 jobs @ $150.00 each that equals $1500.00. Now, you need to subtract the cost of the newsletter which is $119 + $630 (todays JD newsletter print rate) equals a total cost of $749 sign sealed and delivered.

$1500 gross
- 749 cost of newsletter
---------
$751 Profit

Only $751 profit?... Houston we have a problem! Because it didn't cost you $0.00 to service 10 customers. the question is how much did it cost you to service 10 customer to earn that $751.

Personally, i schedule a minimum of 2 hours per job. that includes travel time, chatting with the custy, pre-vacuum, setup, cleaning, tear-down, working up the invoice, getting paid and driving to the next jobsite. So, based on my experience the absolute minimum amount of time needed to service 10 customers is 20 hours.

So, it took 20 hours to earn a whopping $751... Also, i don't normally work solo so that means i got some labor costs involved. Let's just round cost of labor to $16 per hour (including taxes, workmans comp, vacations and accounting fee's)

$16 per hour
x20 hours
------------
$320 cost of labor


$751 minus $320 is a net of only $431 for 20 hours of hard labor. That's only $21.55 per hour for me... BUT WAIT!!!!!! I've only accounted for labor. I still need to account for fuel, chemicals, supplies, insurance, self employment tax, retirement, accounting fee's, maintenance, repairs and cost of equipment.

Geewiz, i wonder what all that cost me per hour? We'll let's say you can get all that done for a price of only $2k per month. Take $2000.00 and divide by 160 work hours per month to figure your hourly cost of doing business. It costs you a minimum of $12.50 per hour to operate your business.

Now, we take the $21.55 hour profit (after labor) minus the $12.50 per hour cost to operate your business

$21.55
-$12.50
---------
$ 9.05 per hour take home pay.

in other words, you just did all the bullshit for only $9.05 per hour take home pay. i can earn more flipping burgers.

it is a losing strategy... or, for you positive thinkers it's a winning strategy at failure.

Tell me how you can go right.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I think you're over thinking it and you're also looking at it from a pessimistic view.

George you're doing water damage restoration now, right?

How are you marketing to your current data base for these services? What if you used the newsletter to do that? What if you got 1-WDR loss a month, just because you used the newsletter that carried the message of emergency work.

What does an additional 3K do to your calculations?

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

OMG! your right!!!!

now we're cooking with gas!

I totally forgot that restoration is the whole reason i was researching newsletters in the first place...

hmmm...

well, i'm not sure how an additonal 3k affects my bottom line. let me think about it but it might be doable.

Thank you very much Richard!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Don't count on the 3K immediately but seriously over time it should add into the equation.

Put a graphic in there. A large 24-HR Emergency Service. I'm not sure if you're just allowed logo's or if you can add something of your own in it?

If you can introduce the new services, saying you got into it because of the demand from your clients. How you offer rapid response and are committed to being there when they need you. Something along those lines.

 

[billyeadon]

Interesting that this post boomeranged from 2008. I feel good because 6 years later every SFS I tell the same story about the newsletter. My story has not changed. Some people love it, some people have stopped and some would never try it.

Just goes to show that little changes in our industry. The newsletter is still a good marketing tool in your marketing toolbox.


Actually there is 1 change Brian is selling Chevies (and doing well at it) instead of carpet cleaning.

 

[GCCLee]

Like the hair dye removal one?

Or Ice Melt?

Of course : )


Sent from da parking garage of dee detention center

 

[Shane Deubell]

You don't HAVE to send out 12 print newsletters.

Could also send out 12 email newsletters using their content then print 2-4x times a year. Or any other combo you come up with.
Also put it on your social media sites, leave them behind at commercial site break rooms and whatever else you can dream up.

$120 for that much quality content is pretty cheap actually.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I like that idea Shane!

Electronic and leave them everywhere too!

 

[billyeadon]

You don't HAVE to send out 12 print newsletters.

Could also send out 12 email newsletters using their content then print 2-4x times a year. Or any other combo you come up with.
Also put it on your social media sites, leave them behind at commercial site break rooms and whatever else you can dream up.

$120 for that much quality content is pretty cheap actually.

Actually if you just want to get the newsletter on a disc for emailing or printing your self that is less than 80 bucks. If you decide you want to print it is usually more cost effective to have Jon-Don do that.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Actually if you just want to get the newsletter on a disc for emailing or printing your self that is less than 80 bucks. If you decide you want to print it is usually more cost effective to have Jon-Don do that.

Sounds like a good deal, I'm in .

For email quality content is even more important. People start unsubscribing real quick if you send them junk.
I agree its cheaper to set up any print with Jondon, less PIA also.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

If you get one $3000 water job per month that changes everything.

you add the $3k into the $1500 gross sales the newsletter already generated for a total of $4500. For arguments sake let's say the cost of labor doubled to service that water job.

$320
x 2
-------
$640.00 total labor.


4500
-640
-------
$3860 in your pocket after labor.

Now, take the $3860 and divide by 40 hours. That put's $96.50 per hour in my pocket to pay for all the other overhead of running my business... we already know it costs $12.50 per hour to operate.

$12.50 per hour cost to operate
x 40 hours
---------------------
$500

It cost me $500 in operational expenses. So, take the $3860 after labor and subtract the $500 to operate.

$3860
- 500
------------
$3360 net profit

Almost forgot to subtract the cost of $749 for the newsletter

$3360
- 749
--------------
$2611

$2611 divide by 40 hours equals $65.28 per hour profit in your pocket.... We'll, that sure in the heck beats flipping burgers!!!

That's more like it!!!!

Thank you,

 

[Desk Jockey]

It can but done but you need to be constantly pounding your message with this and other vehicles.

Once you start getting a few and are happy with results put some of that aside for other vehicles to get your message out.

No George, not a dirt bike that has the company logo on it.

Although.....that might be a good way to get me a dirt bike.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Sounds practical to me george!
Really you only need 4-5 jobs a year to be profitable.

Content marketing is a basic nowadays, how you set it up is personal choice.

Print newsletters are pretty expensive so i wouldn't do cheap room coupons.
Water damage makes a lot of $ense to me and/or bigger combo packages like furniture and carpet deal.
Tile and grout too!