Making the big push

The Summer is fading away fast and the winter slow will be here soon. I did not get ahead enough to survive to this point. For some reason, August has been a dud this year and the jobs are not coming.

So, it is time for the full-court press in hopes of finishing strong over the next 2 months or so. I hit 2 towns so far and went on foot door-to-door, but only had about 20 greet me at the door. I distributed 200 door hangers and stuck a magnetic business card to over 400 mailboxes. I must have walked close to 20 miles today....felt like I was running for office.

Once I re-hydrate, I will be doing the same thing in one of the other towns near me and then canvassing the last town tomorrow. In all, I should be distributing a total of 500 hangers and over 1,000 business cards. Then I will be visiting all the businesses in person starting Friday in hopes of setting up some winter contracts.

Not sure what the results will be, but I am optimistic that by just getting a few calls will get my trucks in the neighborhood and then the neighbors will see the logo and remember the card, triggering additional calls. At the very least, I hope that some of the cards remain on the fridges in about 5-10% of these homes.

The only thing that ticked me off was seeing several houses listed for sale by the very real estate agent that I contract with out of Omaha. She always stages her listings and I get the call to do the carpet and tile. There were 4 houses and I was never called. I guess I need to pay her a visit as well this week and find out what my status is with her office.

Fingers crossed, the phone starts ringing again. I have a few banks to clean this month, but that is all that is on the schedule. I have been dead for the last 7 days. I just never could get the residential market to come around this Summer.

Wow that was a big effort today Rob. Im sure it will yield results for the summer and the winter holidays. Keep plugging away. At least you're not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. This has been the slowest week this summer for me

No, I am not a sit around kind of guy. It wore me out and even left me with a good size blister on my foot. I guess running 5 miles each day was no match for the hoofing it tour.

I know that it is part of the industry, but it drives me crazy to make a 2-3k over a couple of days and then turn into the old Maytag repairman for the next week. I have to reduce that down-time.

We will see what happens after I finish the push this week. I expect the commercial contacts to go far better on Friday as those people are always home during the day.

I have my eye on 22 medical / dental offices, 3 theaters, 7 bars, 4 banks, 1 boat shop, and 2 strip clubs for Friday.

I will probably save the strip clubs until last....

I drove back through those neighborhoods today for both visibility and to check on my flyers / cards. The good news is that I only found 6 still outside, so hopefully they are not all in the trash.

I can at least be happy knowing that all those flyers / cards were found and removed. That is a lot of eyes, so maybe I will see some results next week.

I predict at a minimum you'll get 4 jobs

That is about what I expect as well...maybe even 6 due to school starting up.

I have always had a two week lag from what I remember when school starts....but after they get back to the grind its a good strong season until Christmas. The next 4 months should be good for you Rob.

Good footwork. I like the old school approach.

Well, I don't know if it will pay off, but I can sure say that I gave it a shot. Covered 5 towns and distributed all that I had planned. Wore out a pair of shoes doing it as well.

The commercial has already paid off securing a few winter contracts after scouring the area. That part always comes easy for me, but the residential is still a strange beast that keeps eluding my efforts.

The seeds are sown....now to see what sprouts.

In my opinion, Residential is where its at....I get commercial calls and bid them much higher than most and usually get them based on my reputation.....Residential is my focus! I like to bid them and see the various carpets and problems you don't generally see with commercial. Residential carpets are what I can get with ease!...commercial would be the same except I don't care for them as much. The footwork approach will never die BUT It's not as effective as EDDM or Social Media when done right. With Social Media you can literally turn your business off and on! I just took a week off....I am now back to taking the calls that are coming in by choice....this weekend I scheduled 4 jobs. Next week I will easily get 10/15 jobs that are NOT on my books now. I was so lost when I got back in the game and now I feel like I never was out.

Here is a surprise development.

I have had at least 5 people that I have heard from that posted me to their "neighborhood groups". One call came in from a landscaper that offered to pitch for me with his clients for 5% of any sales.

Between the 4 jobs thus far and the above, I see cracks starting to form on the frozen lake. With a little more time, things might just open up.

Are you talking about the website that Dave was talking about, ummm nextdoor.com or something like that ?

Nice. I would ask permission to post a few postcards on the their community board and I would pay the 5 percent to the landscper

dp1 wrote:Are you talking about the website that Dave was talking about, ummm nextdoor.com or something like that ?

Those are the ones......several neighborhoods have called me saying that I was recommended by people in their neighborhoods. The areas are rather ritzy areas, but that is okay too.

Mo wrote:Nice. I would ask permission to post a few postcards on the their community board and I would pay the 5 percent to the landscper

I agreed this morning and supplied him with 300 cards / flyers. He has been operating for the last 20 years and has a client base of over 1,500 regular customers....most of which he never sees as they live out of state and just have him maintain the properties. Seems like a very good opportunity to me.

Add 2 more respondents to the door-to-door program. Cleaned the first one today and the second is booked for tomorrow. Both found my card on their mailboxes.

Really, this has been my most consistent week all Summer. At least one job scheduled every day this week. I am starting to like this trend, to bad winter kill is just around the corner as I could get used to this productivity.

Good thing about residential is you get a rush for the holidays as well. Just do one more batch to the same neighborhood before then

I think I will do it again in late Sept. and October. If I get no additional calls, it still generated more than expected in the short term and hopefully will do well next Spring.