You’ll hear a lot about Home Advisor on here. I think some consider it a necessary evil, and some just evil. I don’t know that the “juice is worth the squeeze” on HA’s services, because it is pretty pricey, and then they charge you for each lead “they” generate. Just knowing the lead does not charge you, but as soon as you call the number they give you (proprietary to reach that customer) they will charge. Of course, not every lead translates to a job booked, but you are charged regardless. John Lange has some YouTube vids about Home Advisor that will give you the rundown, but keep in mind his business is doing very well. He considers it an incremental cost to growing his already popular business. If just getting started (like me) may not be the wisest marketing investment. (I made the investment, and have not had many quality leads generated from it).
Thanks, and I read a little on them. Some people swear by them and some hate them… So it’s kind of a two way street. I think I’ll hold out on them… Although I’m sure I’ll get the call again in 3 months or whatever. The guy looked me up by my Craiglist ad. I’m in Montgomery Alabama and he called from somewhere up north.
I bought my sh for the first job from home Depot but got the 8.25% germicidal bleach. Didn’t see or even know they had 10% … I’ll have to look where you mentioned in the store.
Right now what I use is irrelevant since I’m getting zero calls, leads, or messages. Lol
I’ll just have to ride it out and keep pushing and doing what I can to get my name out there.
It won’t take them 3 months, I get calls weekly from them and I ask them every time to not call again.
I’ve had to get rude with them. What gets me is their approach they make it sound like it’s a privilege to pay their high commission. It’s like $21.00 per lead just to bid against my competitors. No thanks.
We were in Prattville thanksgiving weekend and I wondered how you were doing. I hope all is going well. It was nice to watch Alabama play Auburn with my feet on Alabama soil
Keep pushing…everything will fall into place.
Keep grinding the calls will come. I’d get your business verified & listed on google. Before I had a website I just linked my business Facebook page to it as my website
Instead of typical door hangers I use the same post cards that I use for eddm. Just take a hole puncher and a rubber band and now you have a door hanger
Oh there is plenty of work. It’s just getting the people to spend the money. Most just don’t care about the mold or mildew … Or the driveway. It’s just the culture here I guess. If that’s the right way to put it.
That’s everywhere… have to find the right customers. Don’t market to your whole town/towns, focus on two high end neighborhoods. Find two neighborhoods that the home value is $ 250,000 + Homes built in the 2000’s and vinyl siding.
Door hangers, business cards, yard signs will be much greater roi. Once you gain a little traction it’ll take right off.
If you have signage on your trailer/truck drive through the neighborhood every chance you get.
Also if $ is tight, go door to door knocking and handing out business cards.
I haven’t gotten any door hangers yet. That will be my next purchase. I targeted a few neighborhoods the other day that were in the 250k+ range. Magnetic business cards on mailboxes of homes and driveways that looked like they needed a little tlc. They were “no soliciting” neighborhoods though lol. So I was trying to be Sly about it. You know those kind of neighborhoods where they don’t like people to advertise. I’m going to try to hit some here in Montgomery today when I get off. I was just in my small town outside of Montgomery the other day. Most of the housing around here is brick sadly. Probably 70% of the market. They’ve got a few neighborhoods here in Montgomery that are 300k+ even in the millions. Gonna try to hit them. But you’d be surprised how cheap the people are who have those type of houses lol.
My point is find two neighborhoods and market to them. Over and over and over. No need to hand out door hangers to 4,000 houses. Do the same 400 houses 10 times. Try and dominate those two areas. Easiest fastest way to grow
I would look into building you own website. It’s not expensive and fairly easy. Probably cheaper than door hangers. The important part is getting it ranked on Google. You can find most of the seo information on the internet and YouTube to get you there. Depending on your market it can be visible by spring when business is booming again.
Thanks Patriot and Bill.
I will do both of your suggestions. In my mind I thought trying to get the same place ten times was just a waste of money and time. I mean if they’ve decided not to use my services 9 times… Most likely they will decide not to the 10th time… Right??
I think most people have to see an ad 5 or 6 times before they even notice it. 
Hate to say it, but you may have to offer deep discounts for your first year or two. The competition will hate it but sometimes it’s necessary so you can get your ‘foot in the door’.
We had to do that in 2009 when we first moved to this area, people didn’t know us from Adam. It caught on pretty quick we do a thorough job and were able to ‘restore’ normal pricing soon after.
Just curious, what percentage of your original discount customers were you able to retain at your normal rates?
That’s a tough question. We had quite a few call backs the next year, but a lot of them wanted the same deep discount so we had to just suck it up.
Really the main benefit was referrals and THAT kickstarted everything. We knew the discounts were ‘loss leaders’ like in a grocery store so it wasn’t too hard to stomach. We were VERY busy as you can imagine.
What helped me was providing a promotional discount, for example, I was running the “Hurricane Irma Special.” It only ran for a month. When they called the following year, they had no problem paying my normal rate, considering that they knew the work I had done. I had only one person be discontent with my price and was expecting that same “special” price. For their case, I simply explained to them why it was a one time deal and they were understanding.
That sounds like the answer to the dilemma of starting at a deep discount to get the ball rolling, then bam! “regular pricing”.
