Coupons are looked at as an ongoing effort. In effect, they become the whole marketing plan.+++ By the time you factor in your time in creating them, distributing them and factoring in the actual discount itself, you have a very expensive promotion. +++ You have taught the customer that your service is not worth what you priced it at. +++ The people who found you through coupons will wait for your next one. +++ You are rewarding people who have no relationship to the success of your business. +++ If your regular customers who have supported you find out someone who's never been there is getting a better deal than they are, they just might not return. This is the result of a conversation with a friend and competitor who said his business was up and his profits down. He is a the biggest couponer in this area. In all the years I have been in business, I have never advertised price or issued a coupon.

I havn't found anything to be more effective than good old fashioned, hand written thank-you notes. We send them after every job, every referral for any reason we can think of. We enclose a colorful refrig. magnet as well. Some of our customers have a whole string of the magnets on their refrigerator. I have even seen them in places that we havn't yet cleaned! A disciplined office I is an indispensible marketing tool. I think that our business is more a "people-business" than machines, chemicals and advertising business. Personal interaction is the key (IMHO). I love the comments from the other oldies (such as myself) and the enthusiasm of the new guys.

sorry

We have a quaint little restaurant with good food and service in our little town. When the couple at the table next to us paid the check with a 50% off coupon, the chief/owner must have been tipped off. He went to thier table and sat down. We overheard him talk about his participation in the 50% off Entertainment Book. He said that he valued the Entertainment Book because it brought in customers that have never tried him before. He told them the story his business and how many years he had been there. They told him they were from Athens, about an hour's drive from the restaurant and they would have never come w/o the coupon. He smiled and wished them well and said he looked foward to seeing them again. I was incensed! We lived in this town. We had gone there for years, paid top dolar and recieved no special recognition. HOW DID WE FEEL? WHO WAS MORE IMPORTANT? Here we paid full price. We haven't been back since.

But how do you get the foot in the door. I understand comm work is a lot of handshaking and cold calling.

So what do you do for the res customer? Put a high priced ad in a phone book and hope the home owner calls.

How do you get in from of the new customer. News paper ads only get the price shopper. Maybe if you are just starting like I am working on to get a client base. But then would I really want that type of client, no. I want some one that is going to say yes to 100.00 to 150.00 per job.

How do it work, what is the secret.

I'll take my answer off the air.

JT, To be sucessful in residential you must get referrels. Do everything in your power to get their friends, neighbors, relatives, boss, etc.

Wow I never thought that my typing was that bad. Rick, any chance of installing a spell checker for me. LOL

Those little books raise a lot of money for youth and school programs. If you don't like the food or service I could understand you not ever going back. But getting mad at a guy for making a contribution to the youth in his area and working a marketing plan doen't seem right.

It's a great thing he's doing. Go and buy the book and you can get 50% off and support some local kids.

Greg Loe
Chico,Ca
www.gregs-ucs.com

While I respect Rambo
I have to say on this one you are totally wrong

It is how you set up your marketing (coupon campain ) that will make you
or break you.

Newspapers work
telemarketing works
coupon mailers work
direct mail works
cold calls to the place or business work

It is all on how you approach each one that will make you
money or loose you money.

Just because you have a coupon does not mean you have to be discounting
a thing it can be your normal pricing. The pricing is just in a form or a coupon

One can also give a discount on addons such as carpet protectant or
several other low cost things that will not cut into your bottom line.

When I first started out we did the FREE ROOM or we will clean favorite chair FREE
when responding by certain date.

I still have most who responded to these ads as clients today. I know
35 cents and up a sq ft is not top of the line but it is not low balling either.

It is what you do when you get in the door and how you treat them after you leave the counts.

Get referials
book the next cleaning while you are still in the home
send a newsletter every two months min
direct mail to every home on the block you just cleaned for
preferably with a testmonial letter from the person or people you have cleaned for
in that area.


Commercial is not much different just the names change.

Getting in the door is hard once you get in keeping the account or client depends
on if you do what you say you can do, keeping in front of the client and solving their problems so noone else has the chance.

Sometimes that may mean subing out stuff you do not do so others will not have a chance to play in your field

There's a free spell checker for Internet Explorer. It works great too!

You can use it to check the spelling of every word you type online.

http://www.iespell.com/

ENJOY




Rick Gelinas
encapman

With all due respect, Ray, if you've never "issued a coupon" how can you possibly know what they do? Your customers have never seen one of your coupons but you know how they would react?

Ever have a steamer tell you VLM doesn't work?

Just like VLM cleaning, properly performed, coupons work.

Advertise price? I'll agree there, unless you're selling a commodity like gas. Then again, there are plenty of very successful models of priced-based, commodity cleaners. Just because it doesn't work with yours or mine doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Offering a token discount isn't going to spoil anyone. $6.95 a room? Now, that breeds a disloyal bargain-based, sometimes contemptuous, clientele that'll leave you in a heartbeat. Certainly not my cup of tea. I should probably qualify that by saying I've never tried it so it's just my best guess.

Customers who call you because they like and trust you wouldn't care if someone else saved twenty bucks or not. At least mine were never that petty. In fact, I've had customers not use a coupon I saw sitting on the counter, stuck to the fridge and sometimes even stuffed in the checkbook as they filled out the check.

You sound like me some years ago. I had many of the same thoughts about coupons you do. Besides, I was sooooo spectacular my business was better than 80% repeat and referral. Why advertise?

But, when I decided to give coupons a try......

Despite my illustrious repeat and referral rate I still couldn't afford discounts. So, the first thing I did was raise my price to compensate for the discounts.....for everyone, coupon or not. The people with coupons thought the price was right. So did the people with no coupon. It didn't take a 2X4 between the eyes to see the light. I raised them again. The people with coupons still thought the price was right. So did the people with no coupon. I may be dumb but I'm not stupid. I raised them again. The people with coupons still thought the price was right. So did the people with no coupon. Hmmmm............

The long and short of is I eventually raised basic rate better than 80%, all because I let the discountees pay for the discount and nobody cared about, or much less noticed, the imposed inflation. I ended up working less, making more and cutting the coupons back to a minimum.

A coupon is and should be an introduction. Structure it that way. For every "I don't have to advertise" cleaner (myself included) there's at least three or four others enjoying a better quality of life thanks to coupons.

As my mother used to say every time she plopped a disgusting mushroom down on my dinner plate, if you "never" try it you'll never know if you like it.