Dry Cleaning Marketing

I’m Italian. We stash money for rainy (or better yet, sunny) days. Sometimes we forget where we stash the cash.

I lost 30 pounds and I’m trying on a suit that I haven’t worn in 3 or 4 years. I notice a lump in the left inside pocket. I put my hand in their and to my surprise is 20 $100 bills.

I just found $2,000 big ones!!

I was surprised. Just the day before I found a bunch of pennies and a dime in front of my supermarket. I always bend down and pick up pennies. I think it’s good luck.

Anyway, I found some hidden money.

Do you know where the hidden money is in your dry cleaning business?

There is hidden money and if you know how to take advantage of it, you can make a ton of extra profits. In an extreme case, I just showed one of my members how to make an extra $40, 000+ per month. No he’s got a $4.7 million dollar dry cleaners and I gave him one technique and he had the balz to put into action. It’s been 2 months and he’s $80,000 large the better.

If you’ve got a big dollar volume dry cleaner, call my office @ 888-661-7992 and get a call scheduled with me.

Let’s move on.

(I’m assuming) you’ve got customers that love you because you do what you say you’re going to do and you’re quality is second to none. If you’ve got this kind of business, you’re leaving money on the table. I teach the concept of a “mini-conglomerate.”  This is where you get into or partner with all kinds of products and services to sell that loyal herd you have.

Simple services you can offer:

Rug Doctor Rental (I’ve got the program to do that)
Rug & Carpet Cleaning – farm it out
Duct Cleaning – farm it out
Grass Cutting
Painting
Roofing
Etc

I’m sure you get the drift. Build your “mini-conglomerate,” you deserve the extra money that you’ll make from your loyal and trusting customers.

I was.

So were a bunch of my members until I explained it this way:

Just click the button in your brain and raise your prices 10%. It really is that easy!

First of all, let’s see what raising your prices (in this down economy) would mean to your pocket. Remember, there is no expense to this. All of the price increase ends up immediately in your pocket.

If you raise your prices 10%, what does that mean in extra spendable cash to you? If you’re doing $500,000/yr, that’s an extra $50,000 cashola.  And all you gotta do is have the BALZ (and the computer skills and spending 30 minutes of hard labor in your dry cleaning software program) to raise your prices.

What if you’re like my member Bill? Bill is doing over $3,000,000 per year. Bill just raised his prices 10% across the board. He just added a whopping $300,000 in moola to his coffers this year. Bill had to be talked into raising his prices just like I’m going to talk you into it.

What’s your net? 15%? 25% 30% or whatever?

Let’s say it’s 25%.

If you lost 25% of your business because you raised your prices, you’d still make the same amount as you do now. Do you think you’re going to loose 25% of your business? I don’t think so.

Last time I raised my prices, which was 3 months ago, I lost 1 customer. That’s right, I lost one customer from my route of over 1,000 customers. That’s not even 1%–that’s 1/10th of one percent.

Raise your prices!!  It’s time. Price is not what your customers love about you. As long as you’re in the ballpark for the level of service you provide, your prices are not the first factor your customers consider.

They look at your reliability first, your quality second and then finally they might get to your price.

That’s all I got. If I was talking to your directly right now, I would challenge you to change your prices today. I’d make a bet with you to see if you’ve got what it takes to make it happen.

You’re a business owner. Get a set! Raise your prices.  And if you’re gonna raise them, don’t go one or two percent…go the whole 10%!

Promise me in the comments below that you will follow through and raise your prices. Or if you just raised them, what happened?  Are you still in business? I wanna know.

Colosi member Arik Levey of the Laundry Locker is featured in the Chase Credit Card ads. I found this one today in the New York Times in the business section.

Colosi Member Arik Levy, Laundry Locker featured in Chase Ink Ad

Congratulations Arik!!

This post was written by member David Whitehurst. It talks about how to get positive reviews with Google, Yelp, and the other review sites. Take his advice and get some reviews fast.

Click on this to make bigger.

I mailed my monthly newsletter last Saturday with a request for customers to review my business on Google, Yelp and Angie’s List. As of Tuesday morning, I have gotten 16 favorable reviews spread between my 3 location listed in Google Places. Just Google “Champion Cleaners Birmingham Alabama” and take a look.

Getting reviews is something that should be important to everyone. It can have a positive impact on your business. When you ask your customers give you a review, I believe most often it will be a positive review. If you wait until you have a problem customer and that customer is trying to punish you for whatever she perceives you did to her, there is no doubt it will be a negative review.

I offered to give $5.00 in free cleaning to anyone who gave me a review. Just belfoe my newsletter went out, I had second thoughts about whether this was an ethical thing to do…giving free cleaning for a review. But I wrote that in my April newsletter on about March 15 and it was already being printed before my ethics kicked in. So it went out and now with the reviews coming in, I have reviewed those customers giving me the reviews. At least half are very new customers wanting the free cleaning, I assume.

The new customers writing the reviews are now…sort of…committed to me. And they have $5.00 in free cleaning. And the best thing yet is there is no cost to doing this…other than a little time.

I’ve concluded that this is not such a bad way to:

1. Get positive customer reviews
2. Have a personal connection with a customer
3. Encourage that customer to return to my business
4. Give a “treat” to a customer who reads my newsletter…so they will likely read it again
5. Encourage the readers of the newsletter to contact me if they have a problem with their cleaning or service.

Here is the paragraph I included on the first page of my 4 page newsletter:

Could You Do Us a Big Favor…And Get $5.00 For Your Efforts?

Would you go to Google and search for Champion Cleaners here in Birmingham and give us a rating in Google Places? It would mean a lot to help us build our on line reputation.

Are you a member of Angie’s List? You could rate us there as well.

We’re also active on Yelp so if you use Yelp, give us rating there, too.

Naturally, I’m hoping for good ratings. If you have something bad to say, call me at 902-1093 and let’s talk about it

I’ll give anyone $5.00 in free dry cleaning for helping us build our on-line reputation (no matter what you say) with any and all of these ratings. Just shoot me an e-mail at david@championcleaners.com and let me know you have rated us…and I will credit your account as a “thank you.”

One last comment about Customer Reviews. Don’t stop trying to get positive reviews. A review on Google Places that is 3 years old does not do much good…especially if you have negative reviews coming in since then. This process needs to be on-going. There is a “recency” bias with reviews. I’ve even read that a review older than 1 year has only a small benefit. I hope the same is true for negative reviews…but if you pile a number of positive reviews on top of an old negative reviews, you will dilute the caustic effect of the negative review.

Be proactive and get those reviews!

Comment below!

Do you know how to write a press release? If you don’t, you’re in luck. I just wrote one for Dan Forster, a member of the Colosi group. Take a look at it.

That's not a picture of Dan, it's me. But you get the idea, right?

You can double click on the press release above to make it bigger.

I’ve also included a template that you can use in your dry cleaning business. Download it here: Dry Cleaner Press Release Template. It’s in a .doc file so that you can fill in the blank and use the exact format. I hope this helps.

Watch this video first:

Are you clear on what you want your dry cleaning business to accomplish or are you just on the business treadmill? Are you aimlessly going through each day wondering how to get new customers? Or do you have a plan? A plan is better.

With a plan, you’ll know how many new customers will come in this week, this month and this year.

The book is only $19.95! Click here to get me to the order page!

Or get it on the Kindle for only $9.99: How to Get Route Customers WITHOUT Knocking on Doors

You might think you are, but you’re probably not.

“Don’t tell me Greg that I’m not.”

You’re probably keeping very busy, but busy on the wrong things.

When I used to drive the van.

Are you working “in” your dry cleaning business, or “on” your dry cleaning business.

Working in your business are tasks like, pressing, driving the van, counter work, fixing the machines, filling in when someone is sick and other $10 an hour work that you end up doing because you don’t let anyone else do it.

Working “on” you business is setting up a 1 page marketing plan. It’s coming up with a script that your front-end people can use to get counter customers on your route (because they’ll spend more, stay longer, and won’t switch to the new dry cleaner that offers them route service). It’s working on getting a relationship with a carpet cleaner that can bring you in additional income. David Whitehurst, a member of the Colosi group did this 6 months a go and is making an extra $1,500 or so per month. You could hire a full-time person at $10 an hour couldn’t you?

Successful dry cleaners don’t do the pressing. They don’t drive their vans. They DON’T do $10 an hour work–they do $50/hour work and up.

“So what do I do Greg if I’m stuck between a rock and a hard spot and I can’t afford to pay someone else till I get out of this hole I’m in?”

First of all, don’t throw a pity party for yourself. Man up and take responsibility for your business and for your life. Lots of my members were in that hole.  I’ve been in that hole. There is a solution.

The first thing you must do is DECIDE that you want to get out of the vicious cycle of doing all the menial tasks in your dry cleaning business yourself.

The next thing you must do is set a goal of when you won’t be doing  that stuff anymore. For example:

“By June 30th I will have hired and trained someone to drive my delivery van for me.”

What one task can you start to get you out of your $10/hour hole? What one thing can you do today to start on the path of recovery? I know what it is, do you?

Get yourself a brand new route customer today. Start by getting a new customer everyday. What can you do today to get a route customer?

You can write up a little one-page letter explaining to your current route customers that if they recommend a new customer, you’ll give their friend $10 in FREE dry cleaning and you’ll give them $10 too. Do this and you’ll start to get route customers now.

And click here if you want an easy way to do that and go check out my “NO Door Knocking” Route Magic System.

It all starts with recognizing that you shouldn’t be doing the ten dollar stuff and then making a plan and setting a goal.

Posing in front of my van making believe that I still drive it. This was taken about 4 years ago. Been out of the van for 5+ years now. I know the oranges don't match!

If you don’t get those emails, you’re throwing money down the toilet!

You worked hard to get your customers. They like you. They trust you. They want to do more business with you.

So what does email have to do with this Greg?

When I need to fill a slot in my house cleaning business, I send out an email. The first time I did this was about 2 years ago when the beginnings of the recession hit. Upon that news, we lost 4 customers immediately. I sent out an email, and within a week we signed 4 new house cleaning customers and had a waiting list of two more.

I schedule our “Rent-A-Doctor” by email. I email out our specials. I have a variety of other services that I broker like lawn services, plowing, painting, home improvement and so on. I use email to get the word out on those. It’s such a simple and dirt cheap way to make money. You’ve got the customer, why not get more business from them. They’re buying this stuff anyway. It should be you that they’re buying it from. David Whitehurst, one of my long time members sells rug cleaning through his emails and last month he made an extra $1,800.  And David just started collecting emails about 6 months ago.

That is the power of emailing.

I know. I know. “It’s hard to get emails Greg, so what should I do?”

First of all, from now on you gather their email when you sign them up for your route or over the counter. For your route, you should have it on your sign up form. All your route customers should be on credit cards, so you can tell them that you’ll be emailing out their statements.

With your counter customers, it takes a little more work to get their emails, but they’re easy to get once you have a system in place.  When you’re counter person is asking a new customer for their name, address and phone number (which is something else you want to make sure you have–we’ll cover this one in another post), they should also start asking for their email too.

The key to getting your new customer’s email is the delivery of asking for it. You must assume that you’re going to get it. You counter person should say something like this: “and your email address.”  And they should say it matter of fact. If your new customer puts up a stink, you can say: “It’s part of our commitment to going green. Instead of paper, we use email.” Most will give you their email after saying that. And if you’re not a “green” dry cleaner, you just started. It’s your beginning of green.

With current customers, you update their info when they come in and use the same scripts.

If you consistently get your customers emails, it will reap huge monetary benefits for your dry cleaner down the road. It has for me and my members and it can for you too!

My latest and greatest business just failed. I couldn’t get off the couch. I was spending the last of my kid’s communion money. All my savings was gone. My credit cards were maxed out. My house was being repossessed by the bank. And I was $200,000 in debt from money I borrowed to keep my business afloat.

My three brothers and sister

I remember this day like it was yesterday. My wife’s family was having a picnic in Letchworth State Park which is about an hour from us. We all set up the picnic under one of those covered areas. After that, all the kids went off to the pool. I told my wife I was going to take a walk.

In this park is a huge gorge. You can walk along it and with no trouble fall over and kill yourself. That though was dominant in my mind as I walked. I looked down with fear and guilt.  I had my last $20 in my pocket and I had no idea what I was going to do to make money. Tomorrow was Monday and I had no plan. I had no job prospects, no new business prospects. I was riddled with guilt with what I put my family through.

I was the only one that really knew my situation. My wife didn’t even know. My brothers, sister and my parents had no idea. I’m the positive one. I’m the one that always bounced back. I’m the oldest of 5 and suppose to be in control of my destiny.

I’ve started 33 companies and I think this was around the 25th or so and I always was able to bounce back quickly. I wasn’t able to this time. I bet the whole enchilada on this last company and it failed miserably.

I had NO back-up plan. I had no secret stash. I had only the $20 in my pocket.

The good news is that I didn’t jump. What happened in the following 2 weeks is still a blur to me. I don’t know how I survived with only the $20 bucks. I went out and talked with other business people and asked if they were ever hit rock bottom. I was surprised. Everyone had a story for me. I started to own my misfortune. Lou Bivona told me to wear my bankruptcy as a badge of courage. I started to talk about it. My confidence was coming back.

And that’s all it is, it’s your belief and confidence in yourself–PERIOD!

I’m happy to say that I started contacting companies and did what I did best and that was showing them how to get customers in their doors with direct response marketing. And that’s what I do now, only it’s just with dry cleaners like you now.

If you’ve hit rock bottom, you understand what I went through. If you never have, I hope you don’t. Just understand this:

If you never ever give up, you’ll always succeed. It’ a universal law.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you’ve got a rock-bottom story please comment below. I’d love to hear about it. It’s good for all of our souls.