i whipped this up last night... i REALY need to have these ready to be going out soon (idealy i'll be droping some on sat.)

if you would please crotiqe it... please be paitent it's a fairly large file (900kb)
http://www.thomascarpetcare.com/pics/150flyer.pdf

i'm still not 100% on the headline... my wife liked "do you know whats in your carpet" but thats the the one either doh...

any ideas?

also think i need to add my phone number somewhere around my offer area... but want feedback on there... perhaps a call to action with the number
"call now 555.555.5555) kinda thing

thanks guys
mark

got the phone number taken care of... still not sure on the headline

Is your e-mail address on it? Some people prefer to contact you that way.

Looks good: just 2 typos: On the bottom right "if your not ..." should be 'you're' and you inverted a couple letters on your website name. Nice looking flyer Mark.

mark how often do you get emailes?... i'd honestly prefer that way but i know most people are telephone type's :-/ lol... but yes it's at the bottom maybe i should make it a little more pronouced...

still looking for that perfect headline now :-/...

so i posted this over on another forum (small biz forum) and got this response....

Sorry for the lenght, but read it and you will see why.

As a former carpet cleaner (up until 08/06, now full time floorinspector), I can see a few things you need to address. I was in the top 5% nationally certified of all in the entire world and this was an excellent marketing tool as well as knowledge that allowed me to be in the top pricing structure and clean carpet in homes for people who cared and were not slobs or pigs and cleaned once every 5-10 years (some people can go that long and still not be dirty, but if you have kids and LIVE in the house, it will get dirty and show) and you could rarely tell much difference when done due to the stains they had set in. I have clients that cleaned every 3-6 months and every year to 18 months at the longest and took very good care of their homes.

First noticed:

One typo: it says clean of only $150, think you meant for only $150.

Second, before I go on, you need to really look to get IICRC certified ASAP (go to www.iicrc.org for information). First, in 2008, the major mills will tie ALL new carpet warranties to being cleaned by IICRC certified technicians or warranty is void and will require receipts and proof of certification from the cleaner.

Second, in a few years, you will not be able to clean any carpet unless they just don't care as the warranty program is set to roll with millions spent to advertise the changes coming in 2008. You can bet that if the # 1, 2, & 3 mills make this a rule, the rest will follow.

Third, education is a key tool for credibilty and knowledge and WILL MORE than pay you back. I can take a $500 spotting machine and clean any carpet out there as clean as the guy with the hottest truck mount, mabe not as fast but will be as clean. It is not the machine that is the magic bullet, it is the knowledge as this is an industry of chemistry.

Now to your flyer. Watch saying envrionmentally safe; if you are not a chemist or other field qualified to make this claim, EPA can eat your lunch. You are better saying earth friendly (which is fancy for bio degradable). EPA is very strict and it only takes one time to bite you for making flase or misleading claims; the fines can be high.

Not sure where you live, but to clean a whole house for $150 can get you in trouble as we have homes here from 5000-10,000 sf and more than half of that can be carpet so you may want to set a maximum sf limit or you are way too cheap and not going to be taken seriously, even if a special.

If you focus on low price, you will likley never see the inside of a high end home. My lowest sf price was .26 and that was for rental using a 6 step method. When doing homes for my clients, I charged from .29-.35 without moving furniture and no protector to as much as .35-.43 sf if moving furniture but not electronics, china cabinets, or large dressers over 200#. I did not advertising, stricly word of mouth and referral and would not consider the overpriced Yellow page ads unless doing water damage; they will not get you higher end clientele. My clients would not even call anyone in the book, Val Pak, Money Mailer, or other clowns as they knew from experience what they would likely get. I had a few that used Interiror designers and they interviewed the cleaners; guess who won on these if I was one of the ones called when I laid out my credentials. I sold my client base to a friend and he makes anywhere from $500-0ver $1000 per day doing 2-3 jobs and loves it. I do floor inspections full time as it is more lucrative and the cost of entry is enough to keep out most competitors.

If someone called me an their focus was on price (I refused to quote over the phone, they were not the client we wanted), I would get in the home and do the preinspection and ask the questions and then tell them the package options and then give a price. If they himmed and hawed and compared me to others, I focused on my certifications and 12 step process.

Using YOUR name in the company name is very bad. You will be expected to be at all jobs as they are hiring Mark Thomas and if you expand and have other techs, this may pose a problem. If you sell the company, another problem as the next owner is not Mark Thomas (I also have a small business consulting company so am giving you some free advice to help you grow and make it in this business).

If you do not have odor control classes taken, you are making claims on odors that may bite you as I have seen most of the deodorizers on the market and there are odors they will not work on. Don't promise what you can't deliver. Under promise and over deliver and you are the hero.

Like new appearance; only if you use optical brighteners and at that point, you not only voided all carpet warranties, you applied a product that is bad for carpet. If sued, you can be forced to replace the carpet as YOU are the professional and should know better. No carpet that is used will look like new just as a 3 month old shirt or pants will not and they are laundered after each use (making claims will get you if it does not happen and in print, is false advertising and the government steps in on those issues in court).

Be careful of nights weekends and holidays unless you do not want a life. Once you advertise this and low prices, it is hard to change that without losing customers who expect it.

I would not use the fish symbol; one of my clients was the local Jewish Rabbi and it would offend him and if they are atheist or Muslim, would offend them and others and I do not care who they are or what they believe, I am in business to serve my clients. My testimony came out in how I conducted myself and when people asked why I did more than other cleaners they have had (great time to share why and not offend them but let them know why you are different).

Just some FYI from a guy who cares and wants to see you make it. You can call me at xxx-xxx-4274 (leave a message if you get VM as I may be on the other line or out of the car and do not take my phone in a home during an inspection).


You will also find with IICRC training and certification, assistance in marketing and how to word your marketing materials. There are several people in this industry who specialize in packages including myself. The industry names are Howard Partridge, Jope Polish, Jon Don has a guy on their staff, Armand Taddeo is another, Chuck Violand, and some others who have packages you can buy or workshops you can attend for a price-most are expensive at first but well worth the price if you follow the plan (most will give excellent ROI).

There is only so much soil than can be removed so the key to higher prices is how you market yourself. I have eaten ruth Chris steak and Texas Roadhouse and others on both sides. All come from a cow; it is how it is cut, aged, and presented that demands the higher price. Ruth Chris steak is not magic; they market to the right clientele and get their price based on atmosphere and presentation and high quality meat aged and cut just right. Golden Corral could do the same but their target market is a wider spread and not needed for the price they desire to get.

Verbage is a key in marketing in this industry. I have taken jobs from lower priced guys (I was $100-$159 higher in some cases) and they called them to cancel; one was in route to do the job. I had a lot of good people teaching me how to present and get the higher prices and bought several of these marketing packages and they proved to be very useful. These packages and seminars will teach what to do and not do and when to do it and how to handle price objections and other hurdles.

I know you are like I was at first; hungry to build the business and take just about anything to get the phone ringing. Be careful this does not shoot you in the foot by focusing on low price as it is hard to change this without losing your existing customers. Wal Mart could not become Neiman Marcus (sp?) without a lot of changes and it would cost them in the short run and hard to convince these customers to pay the higher prices. Profit is what you keep and bank, not sales so focus yourself to work smarter, not harder.

1. The iicrc comments are interesting. I wonder what will happen when the changes are made.... hopefully nothing. As of right now I know nobody has ever asked me about their carpet warranty. Will every home owner who uses capture, oreck powder with orbiter, bissel/hoover steam cleaners also void their warranties? If so the warranties would seem to mean very little. I also believe I read somewhere that rug doctor machines are iicrc endorsed so that must mean they clean better right...??

2. Comments re. enviromental. I think "be careful" there is good advise. But of course I doubt the epa would care if they ever called and you were using orbit natural, abstraction, outsolv or such products. However, none of the encap products I know of have any environmental credentials so it may be wise to be careful if you are not using organic products here.

3. Deodorizer comment: I don't think saying you provide a free deodorizer means that you are providing a guarantee of killing all odors... and Whamm which I believe what you are using does have a fairly potent built in deodorizer that works on just about everything but cat urine.

Your flyer looks pretty good, the guy that wrote you from the other board had some good points, especially about getting certified. However, I agree with Grant. The warranty issue IMO is not that big of a deal and probably won't be for quite some time if ever. Most people don't even know they have a warranty or what it is. The only time you are going to have an issue is if you damage the carpet. I have never done that. Bigger businesses are another matter.
You can say sanitizer and deodorizer applied. You can't say carpet will be sanitized. The only concern I have is the $150.00 for whole house. I don't like whole house specials it degrades your business image. Real businesses don't do that, they get paid for what they do. That said you certainly can give discounts, or specials on carpet protector, or application of deodorizer, etc. I like giving discounts, like 15 percent off during the month of February. You must protray your business as very upscale and professional, if you are going to get the prices you should be getting, and the type of clients you want. For homes we charge .30 square foot if we don't have to move furniture and .35 if we do.
If you like cleaning nasty carpets all day and getting paid pennies to do it, then advertise low prices and thats what you will get. Remember you have a specialy cleaning business, you are not competing with every steam cleaner out there. You want upscale homes and busiensses.

took into account a lot of those things and changed em up... refresh and it will bring up the new flyer

on the $150 whole house deal... i just got to ahead of myself thinking about needing to get some cashflow i've edited that now... i just REALY need money for rent... anyone want to buy volvo wagon w/ a blown turbo? lol.

er anyway thanks guys... now whatcha think?

ok here we go... updated it... i'll be going to the in-laws tonight to start printing out copies (thank you for owning a xerox :)

and will be hitting the neighborhods with the brick mal boxes with the built in news paper bins (all nicer neighborhods) and putting them in... i'll goto normal mailbox houses later but I have my son with me on these days so we need to stay in the car for now.

HELL YA....

copying my flyers right now... they are coming out GREAT... i was nervous at how the picture would turn out but it's GREAT...

i'm using orange paper today cause thats what i'd bought... looks VERY good IMHO... although i'll get some female opinions from fam before i print out more... the bright orange is hard to miss... but the white may look less cheesy...

hopefuly we'll see some good response on them... it's raining right now but not to badly... plan to get 50-100 out today... tommarow when it's dry i hope for 150+... but we'll see what happens...

sorry excited... my 1st REAL step to getting some cash inflow so i can pay rent :)
mark

printed out 130 of them... only took about 20-30 min to drop all of them (putting them in newspaper boxs)

learned 2 things... subdivisions are MUCH larger then I thought (only covered one smaller subdivision)... and i think i need to cut the pages in 1/2... doubling my flyers...

the copy machine printed out very nicely, 600x600 (finaly found the specs of the machine)... slightly grainy pic but it's plenty clear for a simple ad.

going to try to get at least 300 out tommarow... just need to go buy more paper (using some bright orange so people actualy see them.

looks like for now my biggest expense will be paper... toner cartrages for the xerox machine are $30... and f

hopefuly i'll get a few calls this week.

My husband and I are helping our 24 year old son start carpet cleaning business with the challanger and I got a lot of helpful tips from your emails. I don't know how to look at your flyer. I am trying to make my own on the computer (old microsoft works program), but have not really put any out in quantity yet. A friend suggested to me that I just put flyers out in part of each subdivision so as to hit more subdivisions and the neighbors will either see you in the neighborhood when you are cleaning or hear of you from their neighbors.

A restraunt wants us to clean their tile floors also, can we use the challanger? Can anyone tell me what a fair price would be. No stripping. Also, what do you wash your pads in? Water temp and detergent.

Gloria... your son isn't far off from my age... my dad has helped a lot in the marketing aspect (he's heavy into multi level marketing)

I personaly am using publisher... it's a GREAT program but it's not cheap (thank you dad ;-) to view the flier though just copy the URL... assuming you have adobe acrobat reader on your computer it'll eventualy come up (likely after the computer freezes up for a min or so lol... gota love microsoft)

I currently am hitting entire subdivisions... idealy $200k+ type homes... my target is 800-1000 per week... got about 800 out last week (1st week) and got 1 job out of it lol... but my deadline for the 25% off is late feb so i kind of expect an influx near the mid/end of feb...

rule i always hear is to always keep marketing... if you don't have time... MAKE TIME... while you may not have time for a little while... your jobs will eventualy run out... this of corse doesn't exactly apply to somone who is running purely by word of mouth... but that takes a while

YES the challenger can do tile... as long as you are talking about tile/grout style tile... it can also do the "other" type of tile (type found in hospitals)... but from what i understand it doesn't do nearly as good of job on those.

challenger has a tile&Grout brush that attaches to the bottom of the challenger for $35 which is a great deal IMHO... the HOS tile & grout brushes are a bit more expensive so those will wait for a few more jobs lol.

i've basicly "moped" the tile with my HOS (also did the mo-in-laws lanolium) and they came out nice... but that didn't get into the crevices but i didn't expect that anyway.

for pad washing... i'm still new to this... but i do a pre-rinse cycle... then was it on a large load setting and am a little heavy on the detergent...

drying i hear mixed things... i've just been setting my drier to a low heat level.