How much did this video cost?! A new zero turn?!

Originally Posted by psparaco

ok i read this whooooollle thread and i have to chime in. i could careless if i ranked #1 or 1 million. 99% of society. those who hire a lawn care company are those who do not have the time to maintain their yard themselves OR are too old to walk more than 5 feet without getting winded. My grandmother DOES NOT use the internet NOR have a desire. She is 97 years old. I know ALOT of senior citizens who utilize my services. i clicked on ur googlespam , slam kazaam bs and it looked retarded to me. Reminded me of an amway convention slideshow. the number one key to advertising is word of mouth. not what rank my site is during a search on the net. for one if ur on the net at work for something other than your work. you have no business being on it. whats the first thing a home owner does when they come home from work. walk in. check the mail. check their voicemails. sort thru the bills, advertisements for grocery store sales. things need may be interested in. then flip on the tv. if you can post ur lawn care ad on so on demand that might work but put a flyer in their mailbox. put a door hanger on their door. they dont open their door with keyless entry like a car. they will either do 1 of 3 things with ur flyer. 1. toss it in the trash without reading it. 2. put it on the table and forget they put it there until they come across is 2 weeks later when they really need their grass cut and dont know who to call. 3. file it or stick it on their fridge as a reminder to call you when they NEED your services. last year i was hired by 25 clients. oh how did i do this you ask. was it by the internet search engines. nope. newspaper. nope. wrong again. i walked around and looked to those who looked like they needed a lawn care guy. i only put out 80 flyers to select addresses and i landed 25 clients. thats a 30% return on investment. everyone on here preaches oh your lucky if you get 1-2%. depends on the audience you market to. this year i have hand selected 325 addresses to receieve my flyer. i'll take the 1% which is 3 clients. If i manage to gain 30% holy hect. i'll have close to 100 clients. will i turn away anyone. nope. just hire a helper(s) when the workload requires it. and this is all done by not hey i ranked #1 on google. who cares. i use the net for research only and of course social networking with friends i've known all my life, which btw 1 hired me from asking what i did for a living and asked if i coudl service their yard. very rarely do i market my services on it. the net is for research, games, friends to chat. that about it. so sprinkler dude. have fun with your amway thinking. i'll stick to my 30% return on investment. like someone once told me. ITS NOT WHAT YOU KNOW. ITS WHO YOU KNOW. the more people you know and know what you do. the more word of mouth advertising which btw is also FREE there is for your business. you can take that opinion however you like.

I tend to completely agree with you as I am sure you noticed with my last post.

Oh, and whats wrong with free family photos?!?!?! lol

Let the Saga continue...

Stating that our clients don't use the internet is ignorant. I receive about 75% of all my new leads from my website.

And as for Craig...he is a jerk...and he likes it, and he probably doesn't even mind me saying it. But he is accurate with a lot of what he says.

I am not a fan of his sales pitch, nor his comebacks. But again you cannot ignore the internet and how it works, Craig does know how to manipulate it to go in your favor. This is not a testimonial by any means, but I have learned to accept it.

Ritchie, that is a good point about getting customers via the internet. However, I suppose that depends almost completely on the clientele you are getting or the area you are working in. There are parts of the world where most residents are "technically challenged". I don't mean that in a derogatory way but rather I simply mean that they simply don't know much about computers or the internet and really could care less if they know anything about it. They simply don't want to be involved with the internet.

There are a lot of middle aged and above people who don't want to know anything about the internet. They still use the phone book. I know that personally, word of mouth is my absolutely best form of advertisement. Any other advertising has brought me very poor returns (typically not even enough to pay for the advertisement). This I contribute a lot to the type of community and clientele. My area is a very LOYAL community. If you treat your customers right they will be very loyal to you and thus I am having a bit of a problem "stealing" them from their current shop. People are not that easily swayed with advertisements. Do I believe internet works in some places? YES! I do think its a great idea to have an internet presence? Absolutely! But I also believe that its effectiveness depends on your area and clientele.

[picframer]

Originally Posted by SuperiorPower

Ritchie, that is a good point about getting customers via the internet. However, I suppose that depends almost completely on the clientele you are getting or the area you are working in. There are parts of the world where most residents are "technically challenged". I don't mean that in a derogatory way but rather I simply mean that they simply don't know much about computers or the internet and really could care less if they know anything about it. They simply don't want to be involved with the internet.

There are a lot of middle aged and above people who don't want to know anything about the internet. They still use the phone book. I know that personally, word of mouth is my absolutely best form of advertisement. Any other advertising has brought me very poor returns (typically not even enough to pay for the advertisement). This I contribute a lot to the type of community and clientele. My area is a very LOYAL community. If you treat your customers right they will be very loyal to you and thus I am having a bit of a problem "stealing" them from their current shop. People are not that easily swayed with advertisements. Do I believe internet works in some places? YES! I do think its a great idea to have an internet presence? Absolutely! But I also believe that its effectiveness depends on your area and clientele.

You nailed it, even though we have first page ranking on every keyword for our services, 14,000 visits last year, I would guess less than 10 percent of our inquiries come from the website and of those I noticed the vast majority were under the age of 50.

This isn't due to the lack of availability of high speed internet, our entire province is connected.