I noticed that since I placed some cheap vehicle magnets from vista print on my SUV I have had a dramatic reduction in people wanting to negotiate on pricing.
What have you noticed since improving the professional appearance of your company.
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When I first started I didn’t have shirts made. Once I had shirts made and always wear them everywhere, I started getting stopped every once in a while walking around. Got one job out of it so far. Hope I get more!
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Great question. I look forward to seeing the varying answers.
so far no one cares about my shirts or magnets lol. havent gotten one job from them so far.
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I recently had some nice button up dress shirts embroidered for doing bids and what not. Plan on getting work shirts made soon. Trying out some grey Dickies shorts to pair with them. They are supposed to be good with bleach, because they are mostly polyester.
Looking to get my van wrapped soon. Going to be around $3k depending on who i have do it, but i think it’s one of the most important things you can do to look professional.
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A lot of this depends on what market you are going after. My guys wear company t shirts and sweatshirts but I don’t have any trucks lettered. I don’t want my phone ringing with residential work because folks see the number. Nothing wrong with a nice shirt, but YOU are going to make the biggest impression, not your dress. Folks don’t expect to see the septic tank guy or plumber super dressed up for an estimate. We are just blue collar guys doing a service. I tend to wear overalls a lot when meeting with a property manager.
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Market does make a difference. I have two different markets I work in. Rich second home shore towns and inland regular everyday people. I have collard shirts, lettered trailer, high end business cards. Thats all for the richies who expect high end service and that is what I want to present to them when I give them an estimate higher than the other three guys they called. Obviously a great personal customer service presence but that should be the same for all customers.
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So you are saying the rich people are the ones who expect to see you in uniform?
I have lots of experience selling b2b so I have been around plenty of affluent and powerful people.
I have got business from both, my shirts and lettered truck.
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I didn’t mean that rich people ecpect us to be in uniform but when they pay top dollar for our service I want them to feel confident they are getting it a lot of things help with that like professional appearence; uniforms, professional clean equipment, websites, lettered trailer… and so on.
The same can be said for all types of customers but in my opinion I think for people who have expensive homes end up with the highest cost to clean them.
I did this for the same market with a 3.5 gallon machine out the back of my truck in ripped shirts. I charged a lot less back then and I lost a lot of estimates then too.
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In my area most of my competition is just guys who do it as a part time gig. They pull the washer out of the back of there truck, they don’t have uniforms, most don’t even have lettering.
I want to stand out as a professional who knows what he is doing and talking about. So I have a uniform (just a simple collared shirt with my business name and logo, tucked in with tan shorts or pants. My truck is fully wrapped. I give estimates on tri-fold bid sheets with my company information on it and all my services and packages.
It’s not so much that I feel like I get more business out of these things, but I want to give people the idea that I am professional so therefore I will treat them in a professional way.
First class service no matter how small the job or who it is.
I think people feel like they are in good hands when you look professional, they know you care about your company and appearance, so you are less likely to do a crappy job and take off with their money never to be heard from again.
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I have a completely wrapped trailer for my fence staining pulled by a bright yellow truck. I get jobs every month because of how I present myself going down the road. I also wear collared logo shirts and hats when doing bids. The truck gets people’s attention long enough for them to read the trailer. When I show up to do the work it’s a whole different story. In the summer I wear stained shirts and shorts, in the winter I wear coveralls. It is just too hot to wear coverall’s in the summer here in TX. It’s OK to be small, just don’t look small.
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I got several inquiries when my shirts were brand new. Now that they are all covered with bleach stains, I haven’t had anybody mention them in a long time. At some point, they ceased to be uniforms and just became cruddy old work shirts. People probably figure it is some company maybe I used to work for 10 years ago. They are brown, which hides the dirt well, but the SH makes funny purple spots. I thought about switching to white. That would solve the purple spots, but white can turn kind of dingy in its own way.
Also, it definitely seems like more people will come up and ask for a card the day after I wash my truck. How often do you see a dirty UPS truck? I think they are onto something. People notice.
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That just gave me an idea. Maybe if I had a hat or something in addition to the shirt, they would both kind of reinforce each other. A dingy shirt is a dingy shirt. A dingy hat is a dingy hat. But if I had BOTH, I think people would see that and realize it’s probably not an accident.
Here’s another idea: Buy new shirts.
Polyester is what most people use, as it does a decent job resisting the bleach.
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I tried the poly shirts but they stink when they get sweaty. I just buy tons of orange cotton shirts now.
How has the orange stood up? I am doing awesome with hanes gray comfortsoft v necks and crew shirts.
They fade out after about 6 months. Queensboro tshirts run pretty good deals so once a year I’ll order 3 or 4 dozen. When they wear out they become shop rags. I used heather grey for years and they held up better but I get an insurance drop for using orange or lime/green.
Never heard of the insurance drop thing. I am using j d walters. It’s only 1400 a year. I should ask them about this.
I order the Port Authority performance polos from queensboro. I get the lime green for visibility and to match my company colors. The 100% poly holds up to the bleach no problem. If you have issues with smell, use different detergent. I’ve never had issues with that, but I’m guessing oxiclean or something similar should help.
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