what do you rely on for your advertising?

[bogilvie]

new poll

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Lawn care business tips

As many people that log on to this site and only 4 votes? Sad

[Steve]

I agree. If you are reading this post, please vote and take an active role

I looked at the results, so now I can't vote...my bad

[Little's]

The type of advertising I rely on wasnt one of the options, knocking on doors and talking, so I voted for the next closest...business cards.

[Steve]

Hi Little's,

For our readers, can you tell us how often you knock on doors and how many you have done? What % of those people do you get jobs from?

[Little's]

I only knock on the doors when I am actively trying to fill slot in my schedule. I usually doesn't take too many doors. I would say out of about 50 doors, I will talk to about 25 people and get at least 1 or 2 call backs from it.
When I first started my business, this is how I got all my customers. One of the call backs was from a person who manages a property managment company. He immediately set me up with 12 properties, and I am still doing 7 of them, and it accounts for about 1/2 of my income, since 2 of the properties are large apartment complexes.
This is the only advertising I have done (besides craigslist which brings me lots of one time jobs). And I work full time, so it works well.

[Steve]

Oh! Fascinating!

When would you suggest lawn care operators go out to knock on doors?

[Little's]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Team Gopher @ July 29 2007,1:31)]When would you suggest lawn care operators go out to knock on doors?

Definitely when starting out. And anytime you need more customers. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I stay busy full time, yet I have never paid for any advertising.
If you have a customer that is a little out of the way, that is another time when I would knock on any neighboring homes to help make the extra drive more profitable.

[Steve]

Do you have any suggestions of what to say to the potential customers? How do you go about making the sale? Is it important to get them to say yes for a job on the spot or do you just want to meet them and follow up later with a phone call?