Guess who's Back

JohnB

JohnB

JohnB
Well this hood cleaning thing is starting to wear thin in the a Mississippi area.
I have lost accounts left and right. Seems we have a lowballer bunch of kids in town cleaning hoods for $75.00 and $ 100.00 dollars a store. On a good note the fire equipment business is picking up a little .
I have had it with these so called lowballers .... I lost 7 Burger Kings that I was cleaning because someone bought them out ( International something Corp out of california) then we Lost Amerigos and Char Restaurant because some idiot beat my price by 50%. Then Last week we lost all the Krystal Hamburger Joints Because they found someone alot cheaper.
Just guessing but I would say I have around 30 Accounts left...
Well I guess if things dont get better I will have to take that part time job back at the hardware store.
I also need a better way to advertize .. We tried the phnebook , internet, sales letters, putting business cards on doors but nothing .. Now the only phone calls I get are Damn Bill Collector's .. and the freaking IRS... Oh well I should have opened that computer repair busniess instead ..... WOOOO is me!

Well I am not getting any younger I guess I better get to work and find something to do next week..

GO COLTS !!!!!

See yall soon....
 
John,
You seem really on top of what you do as far as knowlege. I would start hitting the stores and sell your quality over price.
I just picked up a major restaurant chain here because another company was using subs and had no quality control as far as the work and no follow u to complaints to thier work. Jsut keep at it, another advertising area that i have found is postcards from www.postcardania.com Give them a look up and ask for Rob bradshaw he specializes in mailings for the restaurant hood cleaning buisness and i love the results. They actually mail out cheaper than the USPS does as far as postage.
 
or you could move somewhere else. most of us are looking for someone who is knowlagable and knows the trade.
 
Thanks yall.. I amgoing to try the post card thing.. And come Monday I am going out to pound the pavment. I think I am going to do a few example cleanings ... I called one of my newest competitors today just to talk , I offered him a job ... I am thinking about calling my old buddy at Hydro-Clean in Florence Mississippi and see if we can work together.. Im not sure.. I always thought I was the cheap guy at 250.00 to 400.00 but I guess I was wrong.. I did however pick up a jap steakhouse with 9 vent hoods for 1100 a month , but it takes 10 hours to clean it.. Anyway its great to here from yall again... Maybe I need a sales team like Matt's...
 
Maybe I can come out to MS and stir up some business for you.

Whenever sales are down I do the "pound the pavement" and hold sales. It seems to get the ball rolling. Cold calling is a last resort.
 
I built my company on cold calls....soooo.....I will disagree. Mailers are the easy way;)
 
Depends on your location. I have gotten some decent leads from mailings, but my results are far worse than what I've heard from other guys. I get about 1% response to cards that some guys get 10% on. I'm guessing it is just my market area.
 
The Ultimate in Dirty

I wish I would have had my camera. I went to clean a catfish place in pofunk mississippi ( Mendenhall) outback in the woods .. Upon arrival I was crowbarring the filters out of the hood . all 12 of them and naturally they were falling apart since they were the aluminum throw away type. Anyhow i got them out . I then went on the roof ( Hey!!! where the hell is the exhaust fan ) Found it ( it was a homemade galvanized box with what looked to be a mobile home kitchen exhaust fan in it... I got to go back and get photos.. When I came down off my ladder I noticed something moving on my trailer ( yep you guessed it A Big Ugly Racoon??? I went in and started to clean the hood , every few inches as I sprayed water would shoot up thru the top of the hood ( Holes Everywhere) Well 6 hours later Im done , as I am putting in the filters I hear this Knocking sound coming from behind the duct above the hood .. Yep there it was looking right down the back of the hood the biggest rat I ever saw Holy SH>>>> . As I am about to leave I call the owner in order to get paid my litte $300 bucks ( Mad Mad Mad) He says leave the bill on the bulliten board by the off ice , lock the doors and I will mail you a check ...Oh I forgot as I was loading The truck I dropped my ladder into the side door glass of my truck and broke the glass out too.. maybe I should have gone home instead of cleaning this one.. with my luck the rat probably ate my invoice..
 
Well ooops .. Forgot the anti freeze and now the whitco is frozen solid crap...and i have a church floor to clean tommorrow at 7 am.. They say it is supposed to 19 degrees tonight.. I hope it thaws out today so I can do the anti freeze thing... I hate when my machine freezes up.. I got this church job cleaning a small kitchen floor and walls for 650.00 yesterday. Walked in looked around gave a quote and the lady handed me the key and said you have all day friday and saturday.. Thanks.. I love these kinds of new customers.. I guess if the machine is frozen friday we will go in and hand wipe the walls first then in the afternoon we will start floor scrubbing the interior floor .. If you are wondering ..about the mess I bought a wet vac with the pump out feature on it this is like a great life saver... It pumps out about 6 gallons a minute... works really well .. I have got to take before and after photos so I will post them soon.
 
Just another Cleaning at Buffalo Wild Wings Last Night

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I use video now as a sales tool, you can show that to your potential customers, somehow it has more impact than pictures alone. Great work.
 
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video can make you thousands of $$.:cool:
 
Thanks CG and Josh .. I got this Idea from yall,, and Matt Too.. We went shopping last night at Best Buy and Bought us a New Video Camera.. It is a dvd type .. We got a pretty good deal on it.. My wife says we need to make about a 15 to 30 minute video and then use our dvd burner to make copies..
Since more than 90% of our customers are restaurant's we just go door to door handing out videos to be titled " What Can B&R do for You " It will be another first for the cleaning and fire protection service companies in Mississippi..
 

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Just Something we did Sunday

This might take a day to actually work but this is a cleaning at primos including the vent hood and the concrete cleaning .
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John B.. I still have a office and warehouse (FREE) if things get bad and you need change. Dan Cosgrove
 
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