Jay Jacobson asked: Now What?Well it’s here, the economy is finally teetering back and forth on the edge of a recession, some months show growth (even minimally) while other month’s reveal a very disheartening down-turn. So what is a cleaning company to do? Do you start to down-size, begin laying off, etc.
THE PURGE!Well for sure it is a time to purge your employee base, keep the good ones, the respectful ones, the “do as they’re told and follow directions” ones , the efficient ones, those that “go the extra mile” “without being told to do so ones”. Then get rid of the rest! These are the ones that have been difficult to deal with, disrupt the flow of authority, don’t follow instructions, have skipped clients, have stayed longer than prescribed on a particular job site without authorization, etc.
Use the down-turn to refine and then grow your employee base and terminate the rest. You should have an unending pool from which to draw. This is the first and or simultaneous step to growing your business in a down-turn. I don’t mean to bore you with the detail of this facet of growth, but I’ve always viewed current economic conditions as a second chance to restructure for growth.
ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE AND ADVERTISE!As you can tell I’m big on advertising and a normal schedule of advertising, keeping your name and your services in front of your potential clients on a regular and consistent basis is paramount to survival and growth.
DIRECT MAIL - THE BEST WAY!Start with you very next mailing by raising the annual income levels of those you want to service. If you’ve been accustomed to servicing say 60k to 80k annual household income (HHI), refine it to say individual annual income. Why? Well in the residential cleaning business, your lower income levels tend to be or become very erratic as their finances become tighter and tighter, as the economy gets slower and slower. Until one day they finally come off your schedule after devastating your income over the time you’ve kept them on your schedule with their sporadic servicing. If it starts to happen, read it for what it is, whether due to a loss of a job, a reduction of disposable income, net worth, etc., these types are going, going and will soon be gone!
DON’T FIGHT THE INEVITABLESo, don’t wait and get caught up in the inevitable fact that you’re going to lose these lower income level clients, because they can’t afford you any longer and their sporadic scheduling is wreaking havoc to your bottom line. You need to move very quickly and get away from this income base client.
As soon as you get wind of an economic down-turn, begin to see layoffs, closures and commercial vacancies around your town, then IMMEDIATELLY begin planning a more aggressive marketing strategy! Raise the “income bar”, the annual “individual” income levels of those you want to service - those that ideally have the want, need and finances to order and pay for your services. Typically, these are the $100K - $150K individual annual income earners who obviously have the money to even entertain calling for and or ordering your services.
DONT’ SHOOT GUN IT…!You’ve worked hard for the money so don’t give in to fancy gimmicks or marketing media ploys to have you spend your advertising dollars on those radio or TV ads, unless you’ve gotten the business you want and are at a annual earnings level and are now just trying to build “name recognition” for you company! Doing so prematurely, will break your budget and bankrupt your company.
NEVER PUT ALL YOUR EGSS IN ONE BASKETA marketing plan that includes a direct mailing to say 30K targeted individuals, and then simultaneously followed up with a two week radio ad campaign FOR NAME RECOGNITION ONLY, might be a good plan and may very well have a profitable end to it. But, don’t bank on it. You don’t know and the radio station won’t guarantee results. For instance, a radio station in Nevada has a 50,000 watt reach, it is heard as far away as California, but we don’t service California or any of the other 13 states that would be reached by our advertisement. Yet, they make up the statistics the radio station will use to sell you on the idea. Oh, you’ll know how many persons in the listening area will hear your ad, but you won’t know how many will call and you won’t know how many listeners are “actually” in your “target” market! Typically, you should expect no less then a 1% response to your advertising, radio typically returns less then 1/4 of 1% of their listening audience and many of those will be absolute “tire kickers” and “time wasters”. So, lets say they have 100,000 listeners that hear your ad over the time it has run, that means you’ll get a whopping 25 phone calls, i.e., responses to your ad and with a close ratio of 33%, which is normal, you’ll have booked 8 new clients and not all of those will book regular service.
Oh, we are sure you’ll get business from it, but ask yourself; “what kind of business” will it be? Most radio shoppers are “impulse” buyers and, in our opinion, are not the “lasting clients” we are looking. Yes, they will order your service, they may even get on your “regular” schedule, but they have consistantly fallen below our expectations. So, we only use the radio to infuse short term capital into the company coffers and continue to highly target our core client base.
PUTTING THE PIECES IN PLACEFirst things first, know what you want and want you want to say, design it or at least sketch it out, you need to find a reliable, reputable (not a fly-by-night-er) mail house and printer. Many of these are and can be one in the same.
Many of them can find your list, meeting all your chosen criteria for the best ROI you can hope for in a mailing.
Make sure you use lots of colors in your piece, people react well to color, it’s a real attention getter and that is exactly what you want to “GET THEIR ATTENTION”. Your ad copy should be straight forward and concise, no surprises, “no bait-n-switch” tactics, you’ll lose the prospect forever if you try that nonsense - it’s not fair, it’s unethical and most of all it doesn’t work. Remember the old adage, each person you speak to and or service will tell at the very least eleven [11] other people about you, whether it be satisfactory or unsatisfactory the word is going to get out about you.
Use a highly targeted list
Use a reputable and reliable mail house
Use Color, lots of color
Use good, clear and concise ad copy
No bait-n-switch tactics
Be consistent - Plan your campaign and follow your Plan!
“When the going gets tough, the tough (survivors), get going” as the vast majority of small business owners suffer their ignorance, like deer caught gazing into the headlights of an oncoming truck - imminent death, you can be racking up new, worthwhile business while your competitors poorly chosen client base dwindles and disappears.
Green and Safe Cleaning Calgary
