Word of Mouth is your best marketing strategy by far. Make your customers “want” to share their/your story and become walking, talking marketers, for FREE. (Read Talk Triggers by Jay Baer)
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Try new things on YOUR house, or family/friends house, not your next job. Experimentation shouldn’t be done at the owner’s expense.
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There were several threads about paying a base salary plus bonus per day for what gets done…you may want to go read those.
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Agree about hiring a guy/girl with a family at home. THOSE people need to put bread on the table. The bachelor doesn’t; so he may not care as much about doing a good job.
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TALK TO YOUR VENDORS!!! I take on average 10 calls a week from customers. 2 of them are asking how to use the products. 8 are asking how to fix what they just screwed up with my products. We honestly don’t mind talking to you about our products, or even our competitors products, we want you to do a good job and not mess it up and then bad mouth us for the next 5 years.
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To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is death to your business.
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Read the biggest mess ups of 2018 thread…lots of good lightbulb moments there.
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Test your chemicals, TEST your chemicals, FOR GOODNESS SAKE TEST THE CHEMICALS!!! It shouldn’t matter if you washed the house next door and are pretty sure there won’t be a problem, please test your chemical choice on the house in an inconspicuous place.
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If you don’t have time to do the job right, don’t take the job.
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Be part of your community. If there is a founders day picnic with community vendor booths; get a booth; have a drawing for one free Soft wash up to two stories…blah blah. Sponsor one non-profit high school team a year with a tax deductible donation and get your name up on a banner at their games. Us sports parents really do look at that stuff; and if our kids are in sports we can likely afford your services.
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This may be a touchy one but I, as a homeowner, appreciate it when I can speak to the people working on my house in ENGLISH! It truly aggravates me when I meet with a person, settle on a price, settle on an expectation and then I can’t communicate with the person who shows up to do the job. I had one guy pull out his phone set to google translate…which didn’t work that great. Tried calling the guy I made the deal with, no answer. Just all around frustrating! So please hire people that can communicate with the owner of the house.
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Get good insurance.
Maintain your equipment.
Get familiar with your equipment.
Educate the customers.
Rinse, rinse and oh, rinse!!!
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Can’t agree more on the educate the customer. I’ve had so many customers call me back after they want to “get other quotes” and still chose me even with a higher quote than the other guy who didn’t educate.
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Like my father always said “K. I. S. S. It”.
Don’t forget who you are doing it all for. Because at the end of the day that’s all you have.
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Great advice
#1 is golden
#4-just started that this year in my window cleaning business and it makes for happy employees and wife!
#5 learned that as a Wal-Mart manager years ago.
