As the season winds down and there seems to be less time to squeeze new clients into the schedule, I prefer to send people to other wc’ers that I know and respect. I feel this is better customer servcie than just ‘No can Do!’ There are people on this board that I respect and I would like to send referrals to them, but I don’t know what areas we all cover. I am thinking if everyone in the GTA can chime in with their preferred service areas it might encourage some jobs being passed around. We are all different prices, so no promises should be made to the potential client on that count.
I’ll start. I grew up in Leaside, so have a good base there, East York and the Beach. I am also strong in Rosedale, Forest Hill, Downtown, North York, and up into Markham. Essentially I am trying to minimise stretching East beyond maybe Markham rd, and West beyond Bathurst st. Neither of these are hard targets, but i am trying.
I grew up in Scarborough but have lived in Etobicoke area for the last 13 years. The majority of my jobs are in Etobicoke south of 401 and Mississauga East. I do a bit of Downtown (mostly commercial) and Toronto West.
Funny you should post this as I have found I need to pass on some work lately too. Some because I’m busy and some because of my limitations as a one-man-show.
To be honest, i’m behind the 8-ball with a bunch of jobs, thx to this preliminary freeze setting in, so I probably can’t accept anything for the next couple of weeks, residential wise.
I cover the same areas, but without Markham, and with the addition of the Kingsway area, and also some outlying Kleinburg/Vaughan country subdivision stuff.
Thats funny, Mark, I always thought of you as a Scarborough guy for some unfindable reason. I’ll keep in mind that you like the Mississauga stuff, I hate driving out there, and get requests occasionally.
Ah, you can feel the love already…
Kevin, do you go up to Maple? I for some reason get requests from that area once in a while. I think it may be underserviced.
As I go into the new year, one thing I am trying to do is contract and focus on my prime neighbourhoods. Over the years, we have grown but not in the healthiest way. I want to look to minimising the travel to and from jobs this year. I will not vaselate (sp?!) when asked to do a job in Etobicoke or mississauga. I don’t go there. Period. But I know someone that serves that area really well. Here’s his contact info.
I’m all for passing along referrals to areas i don’t go to. I have a few contacts that i refer to already, but honestly they don’t reflect the professional image of you guys here.
I’m primarily in the Oakville / Mississauga region for residential and i have some commercial around the West side of Toronto.
I’ve done some Maple stuff, too, but I hear your pain with the whole driving around the GTA thing.
I try to group work the best I can, but it would be better to pound out more in a central location.
I’m gonna try to absolutely blitz and command the marketing noise in some very specific neighbourhoods/areas next year, to try and pull this off. Essentially, the areas surrounding my best clients.
Located in Oshawa, servicing Ajax - Whitby - Oshawa - Clarington - Port Perry
I might go as far as Pickering for a large job, but with the fuel and such as well as travel time, this is my area.
Mostly Residential, though 20-25% commercial work.
Referrals are good, I recently tried to help out a janitorial company who needed to sub out windows, but they left it to the last minute, so I only passed along names.
Centralization of services is the way to go, some overlap in competing areas, but there is a lot of glass and a lot of customer bases out there. Just trying to find them is the hard thing.
I was in Concord two days ago, there is a Burger King there, that is dying for proper service, I saw the absolute worst job done by anyone I have ever seen. I took some vids and even offered to help the dude but his answer was, why do I need any tips :eek:
Burger King employee took, from 2 min to 5 min to clean one (1) window with a squeegy and pole LMAO
Ed
Located in Oshawa, servicing Ajax - Whitby - Oshawa - Clarington - Port Perry
I might go as far as Pickering for a large job, but with the fuel and such as well as travel time, this is my area.
Mostly Residential, though 20-25% commercial work.
Referrals are good, I recently tried to help out a janitorial company who needed to sub out windows, but they left it to the last minute, so I only passed along names.
Centralization of services is the way to go, some overlap in competing areas, but there is a lot of glass and a lot of customer bases out there. Just trying to find them is the hard thing.
I was in Concord two days ago, there is a Burger King there, that is dying for proper service, I saw the absolute worst job done by anyone I have ever seen. I took some vids and even offered to help the dude but his answer was, why do I need any tips :eek:
Burger King employee took, from 2 min to 5 min to clean one (1) window with a squeegee and pole LMAO
Ed
Last spring I was swamped late April & May but I found myself covering Oakville to Pickering and up to Vaughan. I probably could have fit in a lot more work if it were more centralized but hey, it was my first spring season in the biz and I couldn’t afford to pass on any work.
Like Kevin mentioned, next season will involve ad blitzing the main target areas. I also have plans to push a second biz real hard so I can be more selective on what WC jobs I take.
I understand Mark,
let me think on the best way to phrase my answer, but I would certainly give John, Kevin or you the referral.
I do some sub work now for a large jan san company, they get 20% of the job just for letting me do the work.
The thought process is, 20% is to cover their marketing, advertising and either job pricing or job contact, so it is a win win. I also keep their business cards so if the person asks how to get other things done, or when to rebook, I give the customer the card. I also do not wear my logo/corporate shirts.
Let’s just say it’s to do with marketing assistance for other small service companies wanting to make an impression on the web. (companies without web sites and zero knowledge on how access this medium on small budgets)
