SnapNWin (marketting)

[CHEESE2009]

So I got this thing in the mail from a pizza place, "Pizza Pizza" I'm sure you have one in your town. I thought it was pretty cool, I saw a link to http://www.snapnwin.com/ that's where (apparently) many companies get these made. It's pretty interesting, it got my attention! Lol, I sound like I'm advertising their site... Anyway, I want to describe it, but I suck at describing. It's more than just a magnet pretty much. You snap the magnet out of it's backing, & on the backing it says a message (which is hidden unless you snap out the magnet) so people become curious - like me, & the client is left with a nice magnet. ... I through the magnet out though, I mean, I have the pizza places number in my phone lol... THOUGH, for lawn maintenance, a magnet would be KEY. Clients want to keep in touch with us. Every time I call them, they ask for my number again & again! Business cards often get lost, I suppose. I have like 30 business cards from different places taped to my wall, but I guess my customers aren't as psycho as me.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Here is an image. So the oval part is the magnet? Have you asked them how much it costs to get them made?

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[CHEESE2009]

I'm scared to ask haha!

Considering how expensive business cards are, & magnets are usually a ton more expensive....

And they only sell at a minimum of 1000 "magnet things" & up.

Hmmm.

I already got my business cards made, once I've used half of them, I'll give these guys a call.

Just wanna make every nickle count lol.

I think my heart will break if people were to throw these out, they are magnets man $$$$$! LOL

[Steve]

I can't remember the last time I threw out a magnet. I don't care what's on it. I tend to keep everything with magnets on them.

I bet a lot of people are like that

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

I can't remember the last time I threw out a magnet. I don't care what's on it. I tend to keep everything with magnets on them.

I bet a lot of people are like that

And that is why I give them to customers that we plow snow for or especially one off's and they do pay off and not that expensive, mine are a business card size or a little smaller, $15.99 Canadian for 25. Which IMHO is cheap and Steve is right, people don't throw them out generally, not even me, I have a ton of fridge maganets from various companies....Here is ours

[Steve]

or especially one off's

What do you mean?

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

What do you mean?

You are my customer and I keep you plowed out, Breeze comes out one day and sees a foot of snow and here I am next door, Breeze says can you come over and plow me out, we ask one question, do you want us back every storm or just this once, in either case they will get a maganet. Or maybe one of the guys is driving and a prospect flags them down, I let the guys quote all these jobs, my operating cost is about $2.90 an hour for tractors plowing all in plus salary so they can't really screw up that bad.

But if Breeze said just this storm for now, we consider them one off's

Forgot same for mowing, you and your wife are going away this summer for three weeks, we will look after your lawn while you are gone. We consider these one off's but we keep track and will ask if you want us back again this summer. I get this a lot from Navy folks that are going to be gone for a few weeks or months.

[Steve]

Oh I get it

In such situations do you offer any inducements to get them to sign up for the entire season or no?

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

Oh I get it

In such situations do you offer any inducements to get them to sign up for the entire season or no?

No, never have and I doubt I ever will, my rate is my rate and we stick to our guns.

One of the guys made more money last storm pulling cars, trucks and trucks with plows out of the ditch then he did plowing, and yes we are insured to do this. it was deep heavy snow and the four wheel drives were having serious issues, the tractors play in these conditions like a kid plays in snow. This is a service I never thought to offer. Tow trucks take hours as they want to focus on traffic accidents where they make big bucks, I don't, I want the local stuff where the guys are driving by anyhow so now every tractor has a tow strap, even our smallest unit will pull a 350 series out as all the tractors have back hoe's on for weight and in case they get stuck.

If it's severe conditions, it takes 20 min per tractor to put pick or what we call V Bar chains on, they would tear the pavement up before they would spin, all but one driveway we do is gravel so it's not an issue and if pavement on a roak gets torn pulling someone out, the pot hole crews at the city can deal with it in the spring.


They are made for this kind of work, a truck is not and I don't care what anyone says, I have to many friends that own dealerships or are service managers, their clients are lucky to get three seasons out of the trucks, it's desperate hard work, tractors are made to do hard work, I am staying under the radar on this one using tractors.

I did a job for the city last night, first snow removal for the city, one of their big trucks did a Cul de sac wrong and blocked some condo parking garages and they needed a loader, three other companies they had on the list above me didn't show as it was a very small job. I showed up, he said the city will pay you for two hours for this one plus your travel time which was one hour total, I did it in 1 hr 10 min, called the city supervisor and he came back, he said he was shocked I did that much that fast and I was going to the top of his list.

You see sometimes we have to loose to win, I didn't loose anything and no I didn't really want to go out last night but I did want to get in their good books and higher on the pecking order for year three when we start going more commercial.

[picframer]

I may have to re think my equipment no purchase for 2010 as the city just called again, I would not have had a lot of use for this unit below in 2009 as it's too big for a customers property however I have about 80 hours seat time on them at Demo's for deer. These things have an amazing top speed to get around the city and Deere has a demo in Halifax that I am picking up in an hour to take to this other job as I guess it's quite a bit bigger than the one I did last night, this is a 244J Loader, the smallest of the Deere high speed loader family, four wheel drive and you can lock up the front and rear so that all tires have to spin, and yes she takes chains also.

The cost is steep but if this keeps up it would be worth it and I could probably find some uses for it this coming summer on large excavation jobs, I am serious this thing will go just about anywhere and I have really put it to the test at Deere's request.

The one in this image is three years old, you should see the 2010's, even this one to me is a Cadillac but the 2010 is the Ferrari...