Some Mentioned Home Advisor.......

[Dadio]

Someone mentioned about starting with Homeadvisor to get their big toe wet in cleaning. Has anyone here had a good experience with them or any similar companies. I don't see them as a viable way to get profitable jobs can anyone else share any positive or negative experiences with them or similar companies. Thanks

 

[OxiFreshGuy]

They CAN be profitable. The problem is you have to be very engaging with your customers.

 

[Fedri]

For 2 years, I had yelp and paid them $550 a month, and the return I got about 15k a year; I canceled them 3 months ago, and I am getting more work from them for free. I am in their organic google search that brings me, customers.

 

[OxiFreshGuy]

$6,600 paid for $15,000 in sales. Not terrible but not great.

You probably got some sales of there you didn't know about either.

 

[Fedri]

$6,600 paid for $15,000 in sales. Not terrible but not great.

You probably got some sales of there you didn't know about either.

Probably, and not to mention the referrals from yelp customers.

 

[mrotto]

its great when you get to the point of not having to pay for customers. *yah, but youve been in biz for 40 years* you say.

LOL, I see so many newbies ask which place they should spend their money on for advertising. except for a couple years of 1/4 page ads in the yellow pages when we were growing, our marketing has been mostly hitting the streets, talking to people that can get us customers. Carpet stores and Realtors were our golden nugget. Thing is you have to take the time to put together a marketing plan and stick to it whether you are busy or not.

But thats so much trouble, you know, Planning. so go ahead and spend your money. thats what everyone else is doing isnt it?

 

[OxiFreshGuy]

its great when you get to the point of not having to pay for customers. *yah, but youve been in biz for 40 years* you say.

LOL, I see so many newbies ask which place they should spend their money on for advertising. except for a couple years of 1/4 page ads in the yellow pages when we were growing, our marketing has been mostly hitting the streets, talking to people that can get us customers. Carpet stores and Realtors were our golden nugget. Thing is you have to take the time to put together a marketing plan and stick to it whether you are busy or not.

But thats so much trouble, you know, Planning. so go ahead and spend your money. thats what everyone else is doing isnt it?

And understanding its not overnight success

 

[ACP]

Marketing is worthless without branding. Many make this mistake and wonder why they can't simply plug in a credit card number to a company and be raking in customers.

You need complete branding across the board first then worry about marketing, otherwise you'll never stay in the 15-20% range.

 

[mrotto]

Marketing is worthless without branding.

With all due respect, branding is important if you are selling a product but when buying a service, people buy from people so branding isnt that important.

First you need to make your service stand out from others (Joe Polish) Then you need to sell, sell, sell because thats the primary purpose of a business (Mack Clark). Without sales, there is no business. (for those that are thinking *what about profit*, we are assuming that you are pricing your services to make a profit so again, its sales, sales, sales)

So again, you have the choice. Pay for your sales through various forms of services like Home Advisor, Angies List, etc or do it for just about free by pounding the streets and talk to people that can get you the work.

most cleaners sit back and throw money at the various forms of services with a hit or miss results. Talking to people will get you results, probably faster and much cheaper.