Passing out brochures

[Secret Chimp]

2) I live in a nice neighbood and hate to see and pick-up the leaflets that blow off the boxes and wind up in my yard.

This point is the one worth noting. Because all it takes is one pissed off resident to call the police and contend that your leaflets that find their way to the ground and into people yards is litter. Then the police give you a call or pay you a visit. After all, they have your address and telephone number right on each brochure! Then they hand you a nice littering fine....

SC~

[Secret Chimp]

What kind of business networking groups did you join? What exactly does that entail?

I gave you lots of info via pm. I think I`ll start a new thread to let folks in on what I have been doing differently to get business.

SC~

[DetailCad]

Would you be happy with them IN your mailbox?

Our neighborhood is rather snooty and most of the residents get nervious with people they don`t know cruising around. Also that there is a lot of theft from mailboxes. How is someone to know you aren`t stealing mail?

And, to answer the question if I would be happy with a properly mailed advertisement - not really. Most people I know generally deal with people from whom we`ve gotten referrals to from other satisfied cusomers.

Even if I didn`t detail my own cars, I sure wouldn`t go to a detailer that drums up business by going door to door or in this case mailbox to mailbox.

I`m here not to put anyone down but I just want to answer the original post about mailbox leaflets. I know it is hard for many professional dealers to get a good client base. I hope you can come up with some good ideas as I hate seeing dirty cars.

I work in a large office building with so much business from workers in the building that we have two different mobile detailers come by up to two times each per week. Check with large employers about detailing employee cars. They like it when their employees can take care of personel issues without leaving work. Most will cooperate with you if they don`t already have a detailer.

Oh, and also please don`t put leaflets or cards under wipers of cars in parking lots. That is also frowned upon.

Edited to add: Another reason we have two detailers is because I don`t care how good you are, someone is not going to like you. Therefore, when we had only one detailer there were some employees that didn`t like him. So, a second detailer was brought in to provide a choice. So, if you talk to a large employer that already has a mobile detailer, try to talk them into providing their employees with a choice.

Generally, these guys are here just to do exterior washes and interior vacuuming. One of the detailers will do a full job on-site. The other one will not as he says he can only do his best work at his shop. Therefore, therefore, he will take those people`s cars to his shop for the full treatment when they make arrangements in advance.

[scottabi]

Thanks for your insight.

[The Fuzz]

[The Honoable Tyrell Fuzzard]

Title 18 Section 1724 of the US Code states:

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such
as statements of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like
matter, on which no postage has been paid, in any letter box
established, approved, or accepted by the Postal Service for the
receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to
avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such
offense be fined under this title.

The Domestic Mail Manual (Section 3.1.3) goes into more specifics. It states no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle.

Section D041 of The Domestic Mail Manual also states the penalty for violating this section is that you pay the postage that you would have paid had you actually mailed your flyer.

[/The Honorable Tyrell Fuzzard]

So in other words, DON`T PUT ANYTHING IN THE MAILBOX. Specifically you don`t want to put anything in the mailbox that leads them directly back to you. I actively report every piece of non stamped mail that ends up in my mail box. I guarantee you that the Post Office takes that seriously and you will get a call from the Postmaster General almost immediately.

[tubafeak]

You could go to a local speed shop and, in exchange for a periodic detail of the head manager`s (or someone of similar decision-making power`s) personal car (probably rather nice looking if they manage a speed shop), you would ask them to hand out your brochures/cards and verbally reccomend them. Thsi way you would get a better return on your investment, you`d establish a more dedicated client base (who were probably already doing hand washes with actual car wash soaps) who would genuinely appreciate the work you were doing. Local paint shops would be good too, provided of course that they didn`t have their own "detailing operation" in house.

[Schuma Detail]

Mailbox drops (from history) generates a response rate here in Australia of about 1 - 2 %, and then that would be affected by the area you are targetting / dropping them in, and then furthermore on the design of your brochure.

Im printing off about 15 000 leaflets to hand out my local area very soon. In the meantime I gear my business towards "Quality over Quantity", and deliver it in the more `expensive` areas of my suburbian area. Of these 15 000, about 5000 are geared toward someone who can `spend`, and 10000 are geared toward someone who wants great value. Figure where i`ll be dropping each type

[onemeanmachine]

I have it fairly easy because all my friends are fairly young (20`s) and eager to make any extra cash they can so I have them network for me by giving them business cards and having them put their name on them and I tell them that for every customer I get by referral from them they will get a nominal fee depending on the package the customer buys....you wouldn`t believe how much business I`ve gotten that way without having to do practically any advertising myself...my customer base literally exploded after I thought of that!