Hey guys, hope all is well, I’ve been on this form for a while and I have received a lot of good help and advice. I recently just started my business and today I went around for the first time and handed out business cards and talked to a bunch of stores. Every store I went to I asked for the owner/ manager and due to it being a Saturday most weren’t around. I sad my whole spiel left my card and got there bosses card. I was told most of them had a window cleaner but we not really happy with them and would certainly pass my card down to the person in charge. All in all I stopped in and talked to about 20-25 businesses, only one or two of them I was able to speak to a manager and was able to provide a quote. How does this compare to your guys first time ?
You did very well. You planted the seeds and you never know where or when they will sprout.
Dont obsess over the ones youve spoken to. Keep repeating what you did today because tomorrow or the next day, you’ll get the jobs that say yes right there and then, in addition to the cards who will call you back.
Well done!
So what’s the next best course of action? Do I go to more stores/ businesses and talk to more people and hand out more cards and hope someone from the First time call ? Or should I spend more time following up with the stores I Already spoke to? Or is both the right answer. What would you guys do?
The less cards and flyers you have the better. Dish them out and follow them up.
Yeah good work so far. The fliers in your truck will never do anything for you- it’s the ones in prospects hands that get calls. Now rinse and repeat everyday and do the work right then. Other folks will notice and you’ll have chain reaction days where the next store and then the next will hire you. See you back here when you need help with techniques in a week or so.
Beat the streets.
Follow up with everyone the next week.
I’d bet the number one reason store owners don’t like about their current window cleaner is the inconsistency of them showing up.
Be consistent on trying to gain their business. Pop in on a regular basis and hand your card to the manager or whoever is up front. Don’t take up any of their time. Just say a quick hello and hand them your card with your price on the back. Eventually they will start to remember you and hopefully they’ll give in.
That’s what I used to do. And yeah, the chain reaction will happen. Once you get one store the others will start to trickle in, as long as you’re consistant.
Yeah, that’s the joy of cold sales. Here are a few tips that worked well for us. #1 Always leave an estimate. Not just a card. Then follow up with them, several times. You’ll be surprised at how many new customer you can get by simply following up. #2 Don’t know who the contact person is? Use Manta.com and your local BBB site. You can typically find the owners name or supervisors name. Good luck!
What is your script when following up?
Good sites to work from, I would like to add to that your local chamber of commerce, if your a member you can access other members contact information from the chambers site.
Hope this helps someone.
How do you go about following up on storefront customers? Like how long do you wait and how do you approach it etc? If you do it at all. Thanks. I have got some warm leads but don’t want to be pushy.
Follow up in person is best and a call is okay.
First follow up should be about 3 days. Just check and see if they had a moment to go over your bid and you can answer any questions they have at moment and to book first service.
If you can’t reach them the first time you follow up again in a couple days.
Hope this helps.
3 days is kinda pushy, don’t you think? I usually wait a couple weeks. 3 days is making you sound too needy and they usually need more time to kick things over before they are committed to getting a cleaning schedule.
Plus going back in a couple weeks shows you can punctual with your schedule
By no means, if your dealing with a decision maker they can give you an answer within 3 days either way.
If it’s the decision maker, 9/10 they either say go ahead and clean them or come back in clean them. Unless they have a window cleaner already and or it’s a small mom & pop shop then I believe were the two weeks falls into place
From experience dealing with the types of clients I look to target 3 days works well, it gives them time to communicate with accounting and or owners, and it also give them time and me to get everything in the system.
Mom and pop shops if you get the owners normally you get an yes no answer then, if it a manager I follow up 3 days it gives them time to discuss everything with the owner.
That’s the way I do things it it has been working very well for me.
It does fell rather pushy, but it will be something I will out this next year.
Do you go in say something like, “well since you had a couple days looking at your windows do fell a weekly or biweekly schedule works best for you?” There’s not a spot in the question for a no response so that works sometimes
It’s not pushy.
Every interaction with people is different. Never is one identical to another Adam.
So there is no set script that I use.
@wcs so when following up you are mostly just following up with the manager to see if they talked to whoever the decision maker is? If the first time I bid I talk to the owner and they say no obviously I wouldn’t follow up in 3 days.
@ahamilton So if you talk to the owner and they already have a window cleaner you still follow up in two weeks? Currently I am only following on places that show some sort of interest. If they say they have had the same cleaner for like 20 years im not going to follow up on them for like 6 months.
