Bob’s wife died of cancer 8 years ago. He retired from his job and started caddying at The Old Course. He said that it keeps him out of the house and he gets to meet all kinds of interesting people. And he goes out most every night to the Dunvegan Pub (and drinks very little) to meet more people and have fun with the barmen, barmaids and guests.

Life is not a dress rehearsal.  I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but have you really thought about it and tried to live by it? I’m happy to say that I’ve lived by this motto most of my life and I’ve really kicked it up for the last twenty. Living this way has nothing to do with money, although it helps. I’ve done it both ways.

Here are some ways that I live now. Maybe you could try the ones that make sense to you and add some that you come up with. First of all, I live in my own Kingdom. I am the King and I only let those in my life that I like. If someone is negative and an energy vampire, I have them escorted out of my Kingdom. This started some 35 years ago when I read a book called, “The Magic Of Thinking Big.” David Schwartz, the author said that 99% of your success in life is determined by the people you hang out with. If I feel better about me after spending some time with a person, I let them into my Kingdom. I don’t tell them. I just let them in. By the way, I’ve never written about my Kingdom before. I’ve only shared this with a very few close friends. You have your own Kingdom, but maybe you never consciously thought about it this way. This is the first step to living now. Now you don’t have to worry about negative people, only feel good with the positive ones.

Should I…shouldn’t I? We all ask ourselves this question most every day. It could be as small as should I say hi to that person at the cash register and start a conversation or not. I do. I talk to everyone. I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations with people I just met randomly. Sometimes I see them again, sometimes I don’t. If I like something about someone (man or woman), I compliment him or her. I say “God Bless You” to everyone that sneezes whether I know them or not. When you say nice things to someone, you feel good.

And when you have an opportunity to go on a trip, go on it. Don’t worry about your business, it will survive. It’s a easy as giving yourself permission to go. Never hold back. My Dad told me when I was 40 not to wait until you retire to go on trips. I have not. I now go on 12 golf trips a year and 3 or 4 trips with my wife. If you have kids, this schedule will be different, but you get what I mean.

Count your blessings. Cherish your family, good friends, friends, customers and those great people you meet randomly. If you wake up, it’s a good day. Smile. Say hi to everyone. Walk with a little spark. Whistle. Do something you really like every day. Eat better. Exercise. Leave your comfort zone often. Try new things. Don’t ever rush. Take your time. Open doors. Compliment. Reunite with old friends. Make new friends. Take time everyday for just you. Stop beeping your horn. Have empathy. Feel the love and pain from every person you meet. Be happy all the time.

You are blessed with the life you have. You run your own business and have the opportunity to do exactly what you want. You really do. You have to decide to do it. I am one of you. I live my life now. I get jazzed every day with the opportunity to work with you. I am doing EXACTLY what I want to do. If I won the lottery I would still do what I’m doing now.

To get to this point in my life, I’ve started 33 businesses. I’m on my third wife. I’ve bankrupted 3 businesses and I’ve gone bankrupt personally once. So life has not been a bed of roses for me. I’ve had some very difficult times. I once had only $20 dollars left to my name and I took a long walk along a deep gorge thinking I should end it all. Thank goodness I didn’t. I just started another business. The best part about the difficult times is what you learn, how blessed you feel after it’s gone and what you figure out about life.

Please don’t analyze this little rant of what I think about living now, just take parts of it you like and start implementing them in your life. I’m laying out my soul here and trying to help.

I’d like to know what you think. I’d like to know what you do to live now. Comment below. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. And thanks to Bob for inspiring me to write this.

This is a good one. Do you control you or does some other person, company, circumstance or whatever? Are you in control of who you are, what you do and what you stand for?

I am.

I decided a long time ago that it was my fault.

If I succeed, it’s my fault. If I fail, it’s my fault. I don’t make excuses. And I don’t like those weak people that do. I don’t tolerate it in my business and in my life.

I might take it a little too far, but this is what I believe. Here’s an example: if I stop at a stop sign and then go and I get hit by some joker that didn’t stop, it’s my fault. Why? I didn’t look good enough. You might not agree, but that’s to the extent I go with this thermostat stuff.

You should be in full control. Do NOT blame others for your failures. Do NOT blame the economy if you can’t make it in your dry cleaning business. Do NOT blame your spouse if your marriage is not going well. Do NOT blame your customers if they’re not bringing in enough dry cleaning and business. Do NOT blame anything but yourself for whatever is not going right in your business and life.

Failure is your fault. Success is your fault.

When you get this through your thick skull, business and life will happen.

Stop blaming. Take control. You are your business and your life.

This is your Friday QuoteLesson

Most college graduates think that once they’re done with college, they’re done learning. Not the case as you and I both know. It’s where the learning is just really beginning.

Try to remember what you learned up until graduation from college (I didn’t graduate, so I have to remember up to the third and half year)? I can’t think of anything. Can you? My point is that you and I didn’t learn too much before we started our first job or business. We were basically stupid!

So what have you learned since then? Alot with lots more to go I suspect. That’s how I feel about this learning thing. I know that I must learn new things everyday to grow as a person and as a business owner. You and I are on a constant path of learning. I hope most business owners other than us are too.

Now here’s the key: When you learn something and it doesn’t work or it went wrong, that you don’t repeat it again. I’ve made the mistake trying a failure again just to make sure. I was never disappointed. It always failed again.

But what is failure? It’s only the chance to try again more intelligently. Every so called failure leads us closer to success. Fortunately in the dry cleaning marketing arena, I’ve made most of those mistakes for you. I’m sure you’ve made your share too.

I actually don’t mind failure, because I just figured out another way that this thing doesn’t work. I can check it off my list. When I started testing the bag drop sales letter, I had no idea it was going to take me 18 months and 17 different versions of the sales letter to get it to work. But each time I was getting closer and closer to my goal.

Remember this: You are on a constant learning journey. Embrace learning and wake up everyday to a new and wonderful day of enlightenment. Now go learn something you didn’t know yesterday!

A big full bag full of dirty clothes. That's what you get more of.

Do you have 5% of the available households? Or better yet (and really good) 10%?

Or do you have a “Micky Mouse” route? A route that two in this track of 1000 houses and one way over 2 miles down the street? If you’ve got one of these, it’s probably costing you more to run the route with wages, gas (and it’s only $4/gal–what happens when it goes to $6?), depreciation on your van and all the other costs.

Why are you doing this?

Probably because you know no better way. That’s my guess. You’ve tried newspapers, periodicals, postcards, direct mail and a bunch of other things and nothing worked.

YOU SHOULD BECOME AS GOOD AT
MARKETING AS YOU ARE A DRY CLEANER!

You heard me right. Why are you not an expert at marketing? What’s holding you back? How did you learn how to clean and press clothes for your customers? You learned from someone. You didn’t just wing it and hope for the best. Someone showed you the ropes. Someone helped you through every step of the way. And then you did it over and over and discovered your own little tricks to make it better and became an expert dry cleaner.

My point is that you did not do it alone. You need someone to help you with your marketing.

I’m raising my hand. I can help you. I have helped over 400 dry cleaners just like you that knew nothing about marketing and how to get route customers.

So before I tell you how to fill in your route I have to tell you about a new video I just put together. I want you to watch it. Watch it now or watch it after reading this article.

Here’s the link: My New Video That You Gotta Watch

OK. Let’s get on with the ways to fill in your route.

Fill-In-Route Idea #1– Testimonial Postcards.  Do you know what a testimonial is? It’s one of your customers saying nice things about you. Send out a letter asking your customers to recommend you in the form of a testimonial. Have them write it on different color post-it notes. If you send out 50 of them, you’ll bet 15 or so back. Ethically bribe them with $5 in FREE dry cleaning to give it to you. And then take that post-it note testimonial and put it on the front and back of a postcard. Start with a heading–something like, “$10 In FREE Dry Cleaning Just To Try Out My Dry Cleaning Service.” and then tell them more about your delivery service. And the most important thing is to have a deadline. You can stamp it in red with a date that is 14 days out.

A great way to get "new movers" too!

Fill-In-Route Idea #2– Greeting Card. That’s right, a greeting card. But it’s not your normal run-of-the-mill greeting card. Inside this greeting card is a $10 Gift Card. For some reason, when you include a gift card, your response goes way up. And it’s important to make sure you have a faux (fake) magnetic strip on the back of the card. It makes it more real. On the outside of this greeting card (which I print on my own printer or you can go to your local printer) I have a picture of myself standing in front of my van. And on the inside I tape my gift card and tell them what the offer is–just like the postcard. Make sure that you hand-address the greeting card with NO return address. Why do you do it this way? Because you want curiosity to get the best of your prospects and that they open yours first. This is a great way to get “new movers” too. Take this idea and run with it.

Fill-In-Route Idea #3– Referral letter to your existing route customers. You can use the same gift card with the referral letter to your existing customers base. Explain to your customers that the primary way that you grow is by referral. Include two or three of these gift cards. And tell them that you’ll give them $10 in FREE dry cleaning too when their neighbor uses your delivery service. And this is the most important part: make sure that you thank your customers for referring their friend or neighbor. If you do not do this, that customers will never refer again. You want to make a big deal out of this. They want the thank you more than the free dry cleaning, so make sure you thank them with a letter. And I’d include another gift card in the thank you letter.

Well, there’s three ideas you can run with. If you want the exact postcard, greeting card and referral letter that all you have to do is edit with your dry cleaners info, then you’ll have to watch this video to find out how you can do that.

Remember how you became so good at dry cleaning–someone taught you! Let me teach you how to get customers.

 Is Groupon a smart way to advertise your dry cleaning pick-up and delivery business?

I have the benefit of my membership trying Groupon and giving me their feedback. Some were good, most were not. BUT, I will outline the perfect situation to give Groupon a try under YOUR strict guidelines.

First of all, if you’re not a big operator and you do not cover all of your city and surrounding area, Groupon is not for you (maybe). What if you get a customer from Groupon way out in the middle of nowhere? You can’t make any money servicing them. Your route should be concentrated so that you can rake in $25-$35,000 per month per van. If you’re spread out all over the place, this will never happen. I’ve run into dry cleaners than spend 40 hours on a route that only brings in $10,000 per month. You can’t make any money doing that.

If you’re not covering your whole city, you can try to get Groupon to limit your customers to the part of your town that you’re covering. This will not be easy, but lately they’ve given in because these “deal of the day” companies are everywhere. And I’d check out Living Social and some of the other “deal of the day” companies in your area. It might be better to start with a smaller company to limit your liability and you’ll learn some things about your market and how to handle your prospects (more on this later).

So let’s say that you get Groupon to limit your offer to the areas you service, what do you do next?

The next thing you want to be concerned about are the “mooches.” The mooches will ONLY do business with you once. Groupon loves the mooches because they make a ton of money on them. You don’t. You lose money on the mooches. So how to you limit the mooches?  Here’s what my successful members do: They offer $99 worth of dry cleaning for $49. Most mooches won’t have $99 worth of dirty clothes to dry clean. You’ll get a few, but you won’t get many.

If you want to try a less dollar amount offer (which I don’t recommend), make sure that you limit it to one transaction. You don’t want to run out to some mooches’ house 3 or 4 times for $50 bucks, do you?

By having a $99 offer, you’ll only get the serious people who do lots of dry cleaning. And that’s exactly who you want. Groupon wouldn’t take this kind of a deal a year or so ago, but will are now. You’ve got to be firm in what you’d like to offer. And if Groupon doesn’t take it, some other “deal of the day” company will.

When Groupon announces your offer, you’ll get hammered with phone calls. You don’t want to be spending all day on the phone everyone the same thing about your delivery service. So what do you do? You set up a separate phone number, record a sales message and give that phone number to Groupon to put in your ad. You’ll have a few that look you up online and call your regular phone number, but it won’t be many.

You can go to Kall8.com and pick up a phone number for $2/month plus 7 cents a minute. And then you’ll record a sales message for all of those Groupon prospects calling like crazy for the few days after the offer. This recorded message will give every prospect the same consistent sales message over and over again. This is much better than you or one of your people giving a different message each time someone calls. You want to go over your offer and let them know that it’s for pick-up and delivery ONLY and that you must spend at least $30 per month for this service to work for you. You want this info in your Groupon offer too.

40% of your new customers will take you up on your offer within the first month. And then over the next three months another 40% will redeem their deal. And then 20% or so won’t ever redeem. That’s found money. It might be less depending on your offer.

So this is the skinny on Groupon and the other “deal of the day” companies out there. I hope this helped.

If you’d like to listen to a coaching call that I had with my members on this subject, go to: NoDoorKnocking.com/groupon/

And please give me your comments below. Thanks.

You gotta listen to this coaching call I did on, “Who is your ideal customer and how to get him/her.”

And go here to find out more on how to get involved with my group of ENTHUSIASTIC dry cleaners all getting route customers on demand: https://gjc956.infusionsoft.com/saleform/nathnifti

I’ve seen this authored by many in one form or another, so I don’t have an author. The Facebook guy has this plastered really big on a wall in his offices.

And Mark Zuckerburg is right. It is a huge risk not taking any risks. If you don’t take any risks, you can’t grow your business or your life. It’s all about risks.

When I was younger, I’d bet the farm (my house) on starting a business. I don’t do that anymore. I still risk everyday, but it’s always a risk that won’t break the bank. Most of the risks I take today are small ones. I like small risks.

In the business of dry cleaning, raising your prices is a risk. It’s scary thinking about taking that shirt price and raising it ten, twenty or thirty cents. It’s scary. I know you’re feeling a little anxiety right now just reading this. I am.

But if you don’t ever take a risk, you won’t grow your business or your life. Remember (if you can think this far back) when you first tried to ride a bike? It was scary. You tried and you fell a couple of time. Then you were able to go 5 yards without falling. Remember how weird you felt? You would of never been able to ride with your friends and siblings if you didn’t give bike riding a try. So with that peer pressure, you tried and overcame your fear of getting on that bike and riding it.

The same goes with business. Take a calculated risk. Raise your prices 1% and see what happens. I can tell you this, you won’t have a mass exodus of customers. They will all stay. Try some of the marketing ideas that I talk about throughout this blog. Go search after reading this and find one idea and start working on it today. Can you do that for yourself? Because if you don’t start taking some risks right now in your business, you’ll probably fail. It won’t happen overnight, but over time you’ll start to lose revenue.

Risk taking is not a risk. NOT taking risks is the riskiest non action task you can do. So get off your arse and make it happen.

Comment down below and tell me what risk your going to take today! I look forward to your comments.

I got this quote from Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook.

It’s amazing that someone so young follows this mantra. I’ve followed it myself for 30 years. It’s better to have it done than waiting to get it perfect. Why? Because perfect takes so long. And when you think it’s perfect, it’s not and you’ll end up changing it. So get it done (unperfectly) and get it out to the marketplace.

Those that wait for perfect, never get there. They waste their time in the “sphere of illusion” that there is such a thing. Nothing is perfect. There is always something that can be improved. Get it out there and fix it on the way. Your marketplace will give you the suggestions you need to make it perfect for them. Even Steve Jobs the perfectionist, started loosening up. They introduced Siri in beta. He’s never introduced something in beta.

This is what I do: I get my prospects and customers involved in making whatever I just introduced better. I tell them that it’s not perfect and I need their help getting it the best it can possibly be. Doing it this way, you engage your customers in the process of building your services and products. It’s a great way to build loyalty and getting feedback on what you’re building.

If you’re one of those “perfect” people, you better change because it’s killing you. All the anxiety and stress of getting it just right is driving you crazy and it’s not good for your health. And it’s not good for the health of your dry cleaners either.

You must realize that your unperfect is the new perfect for you. Get your new service or new product out there. Remember, “done is better than perfect.”

I enjoyed talking to you today. I hope you liked today’s QuoteLesson. Comment below. Thanks.

An irresistible offer is something that is specific, tangible and has a very, very clear benefit to your dry cleaning prospect or customer (if you’re selling them something). It has to be so incredibly exciting that it captures the attention of your potential customers. You want to make sure than when your prospective customers see your offer, they want it and they want it NOW!

Have you ever seen a Groupon offer? They are very good at this “irresistible offer” thing. Go take a look at the ones for dry cleaners. Go to Google and type in Groupon+dry cleaner and you’ll get a bunch of them. I’m not advising you to use Goupon in your dry cleaning business because it’s a little tricky. Next post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of Groupon and how to craft an offer that will work for your dry cleaning business. Some of my members got a ton of new customers, but most of them were coupon shoppers. And then some other members got great retention. Anyway, I’ll discuss that in my next post. Let’s continue with irresistible offers.

I’ve tested a bunch of “irresistible” offers for myself and my members going after new route customers.  First, let me tell you what doesn’t work: all the percentage off offers don’t work. And believe it or not, “I’ll clean your first month’s dry cleaning for FREE,” doesn’t work either. Actually, it was a major BOMB! What we’ve found that works best is the “FREE dry cleaning dollar amount” offers. For example: $10 In FREE Dry Cleaning.

I’ve tested “$50 In FREE Dry Cleaning” and it goose-egged. I also tested, $40, $30 and even $20 (just recently again) and they got nowhere near the results that “$10 In FREE Dry Cleaning” got!

Why?

I don’t know exactly, but I surmise that $50, $40, $30 and $20 sound too good to be true.  “And when it sounds too good to be true…it usually is, is what we’re all taught—right?” And with all of these offers we tell the prospective customer that there are no strings attached and no surprises, just an honest offer to try out our pick-up and delivery service.

Getting back to Groupon, I’d like you to notice the language they use in their offers. It’s very entertaining. Which brings me to another point; use language that your customers and prospective customers can understand. Don’t write like a college professor. Don’t write in “corporate speak.” Write in a fun and entertaining way that brings out your personality. Write as you talk. Write as if your talking to you neighbor over your fence. Your prospective customers don’t want to deal with a big faceless dry cleaner—they want to deal with you!

And don’t forget to test. Test all of your advertising. Don’t listen to the sales rep. The sales rep’s goal is to make the biggest commission they can. You can test your postcards and sales letters to as little an audience as 100 people. I do it all the time. 100 is a good sample to test with. But you’ve got to make sure that your list is a good one. Don’t mail to people who work in factories, mail to those who have white collar jobs and make a certain income. Any list broker worth his salt can help you out with this.

I’ve cracked most of the code for you. The tough part is done. This little “$10 In FREE Dry Cleaning” gold nugget of information took me 18 months of testing all kinds of percentage and dollar amount offers. It was painstakingly tough to get through all of the offers that I thought of. And I’m not saying this is the best irresistible offer there is for our industry. Actually, I’ve come up with another one and initial tests are looking really good.

That’s what I do—I use my dry cleaning pick-up and delivery business as a marketing laboratory and test all kinds of mailings, advertising and offers. Most fail. Only a very few make money. And those are the ones I bring out to my membership.

Opt in to the right and find out how you too can get route customers on demand. Opt in now!

After 12 years in business where I was still a one man operation. I have been with the Colosi group for almost 2 years and have 4 bag droppers. Next week I am out of the van and I become a marketer. I start training a driver next week. Before starting with the Colosi Group, my business had declined approximately 20%. Since then I have increased 35%. You newbies out there… follow the system and watch your customers pour in.
Bernie
South Joisey

You too can get the results that Bernie gets. Join my 300+ members that are getting route customers on command. It’s no mystery with the Colosi NO Door Knocking Route Magic System.Go here and start getting the route customers that you deserve:

http://drycleanerprofits.com/free_report.html