To Darwin and all who e-mailed me about this. You say you have a good customer base but are not getting any new business. Are you staying in touch with your exsisting customers with offers or just getting info to them thru a newsletter, or flyer every 90/120 days? Have you asked for new business while servicing them. We have a standard statement that we make at EVERY service call. "If you like what we did here today, please tell a friend, neighbor or relatative" Here are a few extra magnets/business cards to give out. We get about a 85% repeat/referrel. If you are not getting at least 50%, you need to re-evaluate what is wrong. Wipe the baseboards, clean small rugs, do something extra while your there. When cleaning furniture, we always have a business envelope with us to put change we find, or don't find in the furniture (something I learned from Ed York many years ago) to give to the customer upon completion of cleaning. Do something extra to make you stand out from all the other cleaners. Believe me, if I am called to one of your customers home to clean (maybe your on vacation) you will not get them back. It's easier than you think. And price will have nothing to do with it. I will probably charge more than you do. It is not bragging if you can do it. I am saying this to get you to re-evaluate how you do business.

I dare say you will NOT, first of all, get in my client's home. They love me too much to even think about calling YOU or ANYBODY else. Other than that, carry on my friend.

I GET ABOUT 50 NEW REFERRALS A YEAR (I TRACK EVERY JOB I GET). IS 50 GOOD OR NOT? I DO A NEWSLETTER EVERY OTHER MONTH AND I ALSO SEND OUT POSTCARDS TELLING THEM IT'S TIME TO CLEAN AGAIN. I ALSO HAVE A REFERRAL PROGRAM.

I DO A FOLLOW UP CALL, SEND A THANK YOU CARD AS WELL. MY REPEAT IS VERY HIGH, BUT I WISH I COULD GET ABOUT 100 NEW PER YEAR.

It sure sounds like you are doing it right. If you have 500 customers in your data base, you should be getting 250 repeat /referrel calls a year. Maybe you need to expand the area you service. We used to service 75 miles out from our base, now we hardly go out more than 15 miles.