How you started your business?

Hello everyone. Merry Christmas to all.

How did you guys start out your business? Did you start it part time from scratch or did you buy someone's existing carpet cleaning business.

Myself for example I am starting from scratch I started Nov.31 2005. Sinces then I have done 28 customers. All from Internet Ads & Handing out my flyers. I have a day job as a carpenter & I relly want my carpet cleaning business to do well enough that I could leave and run my business for myself. I was thinking that time would come when I have served 500 customers. Every customer so far has been very satisfied with the cleaning. I made sure I put my business card magnets on all of their refrigerators. I know it will be a slow process to get to turning the business to full time as I would need to make at least $1200 per week to pay my living bills. Is the one of the most important things in this business having set accounts such as resturants day care centers etc..??

 

Thank you

Johnny from NYC

From Scratch....Jumped in the fire and didnt look back. Fortunately, I lowered my cost of living by over 50% prior to doing it. But trust me, its gonna take awhile. Hell, i'm only sitting at around 11% of my initial investment back thus far (7 months). Then again, I'm stuck in a military town full of $39.00 jobs. Started out with a porty, but got my TM 2 months ago after running into problems with electricity. Too many rental properties around here to make a killing....yet, 15 miles down the road, they're charging between .41-.65c per square foot! Oh well, I'll get there eventually.....Also got off to a bad start with advertising. Missed the deadline for the yellow pages and had to wait 3 months for a spot. So, I guess the easiest way to put it is that I have learned alot so far, and have had many, many, sleepless nights in the progress. Things are definately picking up for me though....Done more business this month than the last 3 combined. Also, have made some better advertisement choices, and have met with installers who hae agreed to hand out my cards to customers of theirs and vise versa.......hope this helps

I am a retired school teacher and after my first year off of teaching my wife told me to get a job or else.

 

Bobby in salmon arm BC

 jtuseo,

Just curious, how hard did you work the flyers and what was your return % ???

I am getting ready to start my CC adventure full time.  My number one concern right now like most starting out is getting my first initial customers. 

My plan to get my initial customers is mainly flyers.  I can print and walk out a couple of hundred flyers a day.  I want to do this 5 days a week in selected neighborhoods as long as needed until business gets overwhelming, hopefuly.. 2 good jobs from 200 flyers a day would be nice.. Also will be working on yellow pages, news adds, referals, etc..   But the flyers I am thinking will help me get throught the first few hardest start up months.

 

Pirate for every 100 flyers I hand out I get 2 or 3 jobs. The flyers I have a full color artwork 6x9 both sides have artwork and they are uv coated they are very eye catchy. When I hand them out to private homes I get a much better response. When I hand them out to apartments or co-ops I am lucky if I get one call out of the 100.