If you don’t know about it, check it out. It’s a social media network for neighborhoods. It’s totally free. (Not sure how they will eventually monetize but it also has the potential to become a highly geocentric Craigslist) Not indexed by Google so no good for your Web presence. The only people who can join or even browse have to prove that they live in the neighborhood (usually a postcard verification or they check you through your credit card billing info) and then you are connected to all your neighbors in the site as well as a 2nd degree connection to the neighborhood immediately adjacent to yours.
If you live in a dumpy area or are interested in commercial work this is useless to you. They encourage neighborly things like yard sales, trading baby clothes, safety issues, where to find organic strawberries in winter that are fair trade etc. They also are regularly a source of service provider recommendations.
I first found out about it when I was hired for a job and the woman said I was highly recommended on Nextdoor. I’ve since heard the same from other clients in a variety of neighborhoods. They highly discourage using it as a personal advertising platform for your business.
Yet as a member of my neighborhood, I still find it a great marketing tool. Whenever someone asks for a recommendation for a service I offer, I private message them with a little intro, a link to my about page to see that we’re not going to send scary people to their house, my contact info and finally a request for their personal contact info to follow up. Since it is a site built on trusting your neighbors many people have their home address listed. I’ll use Google Earth to prepare a bid before I contact them. Then as soon as I get their info, I email them the bid instantly.
There are a few Bucket Bob’s using it to promote themselves. The newest guy just came on offering landscaping, handyman service, snow removal, window and gutter cleaning etc. AND he’s reliable and cheap (his words). I predict he’ll be gone or found his niche specialty in a year or two since according to his posts he’s got a brand new truck, house, wife and baby to care for.
Now I piggy back onto every one of his posts and private message everyone who makes a request for an estimate (warm leads ) I typically won’t contact people who start out with "How much do you charge?"
I’ve landed several jobs off those PM’s and it takes minimal effort especially since every potential client is within 10 minutes of my house. I ask that those clients go back to Nextdoor and follow up the thread with a review of my service.
Just a little tip.
And if you’re in my service area, Nextdoor is a terrible waste of time. It’s just full of extra picky Groupon lovin, Craigslist searchin, HomeAdvisor callin cheapskates!
@DaveYogi@WindowRescue
How are you guys leveraging nextdoor to get opportunities? It seems to not really be focused on making biz to consumer connections so much as neighbor to neighbor connections.
Feel free to pm me if you don’t want to share publicly
Once I found out that I was getting referrals from that site, I made it a point to ask people to put a referral if they were happy with my service on there to continue to flow. I also asked people who aren’t referrals from there that if they are members of local Facebook web pages or next door, if they would review me. Well, I’m off to do a $550 4 hr job right now I got from next door
But, I have noticed that many neighborhoods have online newsletter or community blogs . One client put my info on there community newsletter and I got a couple of leads from that last year . I would ask them for a link or something and they’re where pretty hush-hush about it . Seem weird that they wouldn’t share the site with anyone . But I can understand now why
I’m expecting my confirmation postcard in the mail so I’ll let you all know how it goes. My neighborhood is pretty dumpy except for my house and a couple others so I don’t expect much. Maybe there will be other opportunities down the road.
I post in the classifieds. Gets a pull everytime I post. Don’t want to do too often though. Also… most communities will have a local Facebook group for yard sales. So its like people selling stuff in a Facebook group. I’ll share some of my social media posts in there and it’s worked out really well for us too.
Last night someone posted that they’re looking for exterior window cleaning reccomendations, so I left a reply that my husband and I own a window cleaning company. I added that we’re licensed and insured, and since we live in the area we could stop by any day for an estimate. So far she hasn’t contacted us, but I got a message from someone else that saw the thread and would like an estimate
You never know where that could lead. I don’t target homes that don’t have the look of quality maintenance, but when ever I get slow I do drop door hangers in “borderline” neighborhoods too. Everyone works somewhere, so they may need their place of business cleaned, a relative, or it just pops up in discussion somewhere. Thing is to get your name out there in as many places as possible. Then when the question comes up of who cleans windows, “well, I know this company called Alphaclean…”
Update: Since my last post I’ve done about $500 in business from nextdoor referrals.
It started with the door hangers I left in a nearby community. Those got me a piddly little job for my minimum service charge, but the lady thanked me publicly on nextdoor and posted a link to my website. So now I’m getting intermittent calls citing that post as their reference for calling me.
) I typically won’t contact people who start out with "How much do you charge?"
