What is the most effective way to get jobs?

[mdspowerwashing 14]

Hi,

I currently have a full time job and do pressure washing part time. I would really like to do pressure washing full time. I've been using service magic to get most my jobs, and it kinda works. I probably land about 20-30% of the lead I recieve. I know I need to advetise more, too get more jobs. I have a yellow page ad in 2 seperate areas, 1 book is already out(serves maybe 80,000 people) and the other book comes out May 10th or so, and serves maybe 400,000 people or so. I have not recieved one call from the first yellow page book which came out in January. What do you guys suggest I do to generate some jobs? I have enough money to advertise, as I have been doing at least 2-4 jobs a week, but currently, I only have 1 deck job in progress, and 1 house wash left to do. I'm thinking of either advertising in the local newspaper, or sending out a brochure/mailer, or maybe both. I know some things work for some people in some areas, and don't work for other people. I'd just love to be pressure washing every day! Please give me some advise! Thanks in adance.

[Kory 14]

Odd Jobs can you post the site you get your postcards & addresses from I haven't found anything that cheap!

Thanks

[HotShot 34]

I am member of the Chamber of Commerce...they let me put flyers in the monthly newsletters for free. Don't know if it's like that everywhere, but just a thought.

[Curb Appeal 14]

I used printdirectforless They offer 1000 postcards full color, glossy, front AND back for $125. I bought a mailing list of 3000 addresses from them for $90, and they addressed and posted the cards for an extra $115 plus postage ($0.17 each).

Please, If think you may use them for your printing or mailing lists, click on the banner below to get to their site

If you place an order, you'll get 20% off & I get a referral credit to my account with them. Disregard the Friday deadline. It's an ongoing promotion. :lgbounces

[Kory 14]

Did you do the design or did they? and can you post it on here I'd love to see it.

[Curb Appeal 14]

I designed my own and I must admit, it's obvious. This is my first stab at advertising and if it works I may get one professionally designed.

There is also some ad copy on the back along with my logo and a light background pic. I can't seem to find the file right now...

[mas3372 14]

ODDJOBS,

Trying to do a address search and I keep getting errors. Did you do it online or did you need to call and speak with someone.

[Curb Appeal 14]

First click here

You'll see the options for the lists they offer on the left and a "Data Request" area on the right. Fill in your name, phone & email.

In the "Geographic Area" you can enter zip codes, a city, metro area, radius around an address etc. This is the area that your list will come from. I entered the 3 zip codes nearest to my house.

In the "Demographic Requirements" box, enter in the parameters for the search from the options on the left. For example, in this box I entered the following:

Estimated Income - $60,000 +

Home Value - $200,000 +

Housing Type - homeowner

Year home built - 2000 or earlier

Click the "Submit" button and they will get back to you within 24 hours with the number of records that match your search parameters. In my example, they found 1700 or so addresses for households with $60K+ income, who own a house valued at $200K+ that was built prior to 2000.

They will send you an email with all of your info and you can decide whether you want to buy their list or refine or expand your search.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions...

[mas3372 14]

Thanks Joel,

I tried that last night but kept getting errors, but it worked today. As for you artwork for the post card, did you just upload what you made?

[Curb Appeal 14]

Good. Glad it worked this time. Yes, I used Adobe Illustrator to create my logo and then used Adobe InDesign to put it all together. I then exported it as a .PDF file and sent it to them. They got back to me very quickly with a proof and, after I accepted it, they started printing! Easy as pie. I really like them and they made it very easy. I will definitely be using them for all of my printing needs.

Good luck!

[Curb Appeal 14]

OH! BTW, I just got my magnetic signs yesterday. What do you think?

I got a really good deal on these. Got 4 full color 12"x24" laminated magnetic signs for around $60.

[mas3372 14]

Great price on the magnets. I paid $60 for 2 of them. The two adobe progams, are they shareware of do you have to buy them?

[Curb Appeal 14]

The Adobe programs are pretty expensive, $1200 directly from http://www.Adobe.com but it's cheaper elsewhere, and you can try them out free.

There are cheaper programs out there. Just search google for publishing programs or page layout programs.

One company out there has some very good products. All free. http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/ They are all somewhat limited, of course, but they are free and you can upgrade to a more feature packed version for just a little money. Look at PagePlus for design layout (compareable to Adobe InDesign), PhotoPlus for photo editing (compareable to Adobe Photoshop), and DrawPlus for vector drawing (compareable to Adobe Illustrator).

PagePlus has templates available to help you get started with postcards but you can only save your work in the native PagePlus file format. Most print shops want a .PDF, .JPEG, or .TIFF file to work with. To get this capability out of PagePlus, you have to upgrade. I think you can upgrade to ver. 9 for $9.99 and it has the export to .PDF capability.

There are a ton of other programs out there to do what you need to do and all of them have learning curves. My suggestion is to find a program that does what you need it to do and stick with it. With each job, you will learn more of the ins and outs of the program and you will become better and better. It takes a lot of time and energy to switch programs and go through the learning process all over again.

Hope this helps...

[mas3372 14]

That helps a great deal. Thank you for all your help!!!

[mas3372 14]

Excellent website you found odd jobs. They did a search for me for the following

Homes worth over $350k,

House hold income of $125 and up

Age 25-60

100% owned homes

homes built between 1990 and 2004

all within 10 miles of my house

they came up with 1150.

I will buy 1000 for $30,

This saves so much on targeting and wasted postage to so many homes.

Now I just have to design my post card and have them send it out. I think the whole package with the posting and sending will be about $275, can't beat that.

[Christopher 102]

Hello Joel, That is a really good deal on the magnetic signs. Did the same company that made your cards do the signs also? I checked out their site from the banner and did not see anything about magnetic signs. Please let me know who did the signs. Has everything been good quality from the company that did your cards? Thanks.

[Curb Appeal 14]

Chris,

No, I had a different guy do the signs. Believe it or not, I got them from a guy on ebay. Here's a link to his store:

http://stores.ebay.com/MAGSIGNS_Magnetic-Signs_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ2QQftidZ1QQtZkm

Really nice guy and turnaround was pretty fast. I emailed him my artwork and he pointed me to his auction that would best suit my needs.

[Christopher 102]

Thanks Joel for the info. How was the quality and thickness of the signs? Do they stick good or are they kind of thin? I have some ideas for some signs for my truck and trailer but I am not that artistic. I will send him an email to see if he can work with my ideas. Thanks again.

[Curb Appeal 14]

Thickness is good. I think it's 30 mils. The signs stick to the truck well, no sliding around.

I was very happy with what I bought.

Good Luck,

Joel

[Thad 135]

His prices are *very* nice.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Most effective way to get a job... do it for free!!! Seriously... Convience store / gas stations are a great job if you can get them. We started by offering to clean one for free 2 years ago... For the same company Last year I got paid to do 13 of them, this year I am in the middle of cleaning 29 out of thier 62 locations.. Huuuge contract from doing the store around the corner from my house for free

[Ron Musgraves 240]

Matt,

Your not suppose to tell my secrets. Most guys will start calling you nuts like me.

That a great story Matt, I can testify that it works and couldn’t tell you how many multi store accounts over the years I have gotten.

In my corporate agreements I do all new store coming on regular maintenance for free.

Matt you may get ridiculed for being a low-baller, I believe this saves me steps.

Many of you have seen my post where I require my sales people to give at least one location a week away.

Be careful, its not as easy as giving a location away. I would say you need to qualify the potential customer and get a commitment from them if they like the free service they will sign up for regular service. If you get that its almost money in the bank.

[Curb Appeal 14]

While we're on the subject, does anyone have any thoughts or tips on getting commercial, retail jobs (store fronts, restaurant fronts, etc...)? I see dirty concrete everywhere in my town. Either no one is here offering the service or the retail stores don't want to pay for it.

Any one tried to tackle this area in their part of the country? Marketing strategies would be greatly appreciated...

[EnviroClean 15]

Talk to decision makers at these places. More often than not..the store manager is not the decision maker, you need corporate offices management.

This has been my experience.

[Ron Musgraves 240]

Either no one is here offering the service or the retail stores don't want to pay for it.

That’s all I do, I have info on *** if you want to search for it.

[A and J POWERWASHING 64]

Hey could you send me at info please mcbrda@comcast.net thank you:lgkick: