Getting Jobs - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

APEXCO · 07-26-2006, 10:12 PM

What is the best way to get some jobs? Have newspaper ad but getting little results.

kbdesigns · 07-26-2006, 10:58 PM

What kind of work do you do?

APEXCO · 07-26-2006, 11:01 PM

Painting interior and exterior residential and commercial

**Double-A** · 07-26-2006, 11:03 PM

I think that Donedat has some very interesting ideas on how to jump start your business. Do a search for his posts and the word "advertise".

Brushslingers · 07-27-2006, 10:01 PM

If you don't have your name out there yet... try starting with turnkeys to gather your money and move on to low end new construction in your town. Once your name is out there, and good... ride the wave. It may take years for you to get where you want to be. Just do us all a favor and don't give in to the dark side of hack pricing.

If I find one more "contractor" bidding jobs at .90 cents a square... i'm gonna go postal.

impainting · 07-28-2006, 12:03 PM

You have to spend money to make money.

Service Magic works great for us, for $1000 a month and 4 leads a day it works for us with a closing rate of 50% on large jobs. We are not the cheapest and very often we get underbided, but we do follow up calls and tell them we are going to do the job right with all the necessary references, bonds and insurance. Always tell them that you leave the home the way you found it. Usually this will get us the job.

Hook up with other Builders, this also has kicked our business in high gear. We just hired 8 more guys.

Woz the Painter · 07-28-2006, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by impainting

You have to spend money to make money.

Service Magic works great for us, for $1000 a month and 4 leads a day it works for us with a closing rate of 50% on large jobs. We are not the cheapest and very often we get underbided, but we do follow up calls and tell them we are going to do the job right with all the necessary references, bonds and insurance. Always tell them that you leave the home the way you found it. Usually this will get us the job.

Hook up with other Builders, this also has kicked our business in high gear. We just hired 8 more guys.

Geez impainting why not open an advertising agency instead of painting. Your advocating spending 25% of your gross, well that's just gross!

lmcgrew79 · 07-30-2006, 10:01 PM

Not good advice if one was doing 1mil in business a year i dont think one would want to spend 250,000 on advertising. Maybe only if you was a softdrink company.

George Z · 07-30-2006, 10:04 PM

10% or less is the norm, a bit more if you are starting out.

Brushslingers · 07-30-2006, 11:49 PM

Agree, 10% is a norm... 1000.00 a month for service master, well i'd rethink that personally, tha's 12,000.00 a year. That breaks down to about an average of 45,000 a year at 25%, granted I broke that in 4 months but that would not include newpapers, phone books, websites, etc.

I do fairly good, but 1000.00 a month for a bid service? Heh.

aspenpainting · 08-02-2006, 04:57 PM

this is my forst year out on my own and ive joined our chamber of commerce and thats given me my most leads then word of mouth, the signs in the yard and magnets on my truck. i just went down and made a bunch of door hangers and im going to have my cousin and his friends go crazy all over town this weekend i let you know how it goes.

lpp · 08-04-2006, 09:01 PM

We have only been in business since feb '06 and this was our process. We started with ads in the local paper with very few results. Then we changed to door hangers and had even worse results than we did with the paper. Out of 500 hangers we had maybe two calls and these were some sharp looking door hangers, but I digress. Anyway, in an act of desperation we tried inserts in our local paper instead of our ad just being printed in the actual newspaper. This was much more expensive and was a risky move for a company with very little money to spend with all the start-up costs we had already acrued, but it has brought so much more business than we had ever imagined. We have been booked a month in advance for a while now and are starting to get referrals coming in from clients who signed after seeing our ad. We have by no means "made it" at this point, but it is a great starting point and certainly more profitable than we had figured we would be less than a year into business. I would imagine it varies by your location, but our newspaper serves over 200,000 people and we choose where to place our inserts by zip code (with a minimum of 10,000 inserts a run). This allows us to better target our market and would not have chosen to run the inserts otherwise. Hang in there...we are and have been right where you are.

KellyPainting · 08-04-2006, 09:33 PM

Inserts huh..... maybe I'll try that this winter.

I got to say that..I've been in buisness for about a year.. did alot of side work for a few years though.... and I haven't stopped working since I started. I haven't done one bit of advertizing. Just letter my truck and pass out cards. I think it's the word of mouth. Plus who you know and where you get your coffee and eat your lunch. I know alot of people.. I get my coffee where 100 other contractors get theirs... not a drive thru.. we talk and say hi every morning.... that has got me alot of jobs... Ow ya
I got 24 t- shirts ( ben moore special) gave them to the girls that work the coffee shop. next.. I eat my lunch (when I can) at a dinner in the center of town.. where 100 other contractors eat... I talk to the electricians.... the plumers... everyone.... I'm even painting the dinner next month.. I got my guy siding some of it next week.... I had a few beers with the electricians after work today.... his wife says... That I'm the guy to hire around here.. and they are building this year.

It's what people say about you.... I'm currantly 3 to 4 months booked right now.... I haven't takin a day off in weeks. In fact I now take deposits for my summer.. or you aren't on my schedual.

plus it doesn't hurt when the other good company's are too busy to handle all the work.

R&S Exteriors · 08-05-2006, 04:40 PM

I would be very cautious about using Service Majic. Maybe if you don't mind spending that $1000 a month and live in an Urban area. I signed up with them a few months ago. They have a good sales pitch. They tell your that their leads are thoughly screened and have to fill out lengthy online forms therefore they are definitely interested in having the work done. They do tell you that you have to sell yourself to get the job which is fine.

I just made them shut my account down because the leads s*ck. There are not many leads in my area because it is rural and not many people search the internet for contractors. Of the 8 leads I have gotten only (2) actually wanted an estimate. (5) would not even return a phone call or email and (1) actually threatened to report me to the Feds because I was violating the "do not call" they had signed up for. I informed them that I was only calling because of a request that they made through Service Majic. The old man told me they made no such request and I better not ever call and solicit from him again. I have no idea how Service Majic comes up with these names and addresses and just try to get a "credit" from them. They would not even give me a credit for the one that threatened me. Their speal sounds good, but at least in my experience there service is no good.

bergenbldr · 08-05-2006, 06:31 PM

Imho ,if you wan't cra-ola leads ,which is generaly what these online lead sevices provide,save your money and post a free ad on craigslist. I would even venture to say that the quality of leads generated from c.l is better,they may be cheap but im sure they are real customers.

Jonesey · 08-05-2006, 07:24 PM

Ipp, just curios. Appoximately how much did inserts cost you in your market?

cssconstruct · 08-05-2006, 07:47 PM

Here are my two ideas that have really worked for us. Go to your local county clerks office and have them pull the printout for all the locally lic. builders in your area. Only have them pull the last ninety days. You now have names and phone numbers for builders who have not built relationships with all their subs yet. If you can get in with one or two of these guys you can build a long term relationship. Another good technique is becoming friendly with the outdoor salesman at the local lumber supply company. They service a lot of different trades and can get your name out to a lot of different builders. Both of these have worked very well for me.

AllPro_Painting · 08-06-2006, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brushslingers

If you don't have your name out there yet... try starting with turnkeys to gather your money and move on to low end new construction in your town. Once your name is out there, and good... ride the wave. It may take years for you to get where you want to be. Just do us all a favor and don't give in to the dark side of hack pricing.

If I find one more "contractor" bidding jobs at .90 cents a square... i'm gonna go postal.

you got that right ..!!!!!!!!!!!!

lpp · 08-06-2006, 08:18 PM

The price varies based on how many inserts you order. The first run we paid more because we ordered the minimum. That run our investment was around 400 and we generated over 4 grand in signed contracts. Once we saw the return was worth the cost we ordered more to be printed. You don't have to use all of the inserts at once, but the more you have printed at one time the more you save and can just call the rep to schedule inclusion without having to wait on printing again. Anyway, this time our investment was around 300 for the same number of inserts and our return to date has been in the 6 grand range and the calls are still coming in. That ad ran a little over a week ago.
It probably wouldn't be the wisest means of advertising for all paint contractors. Our clients are 95% residential repaints, so this form of advertising works best for us. If you are wanting to work for builders then it would make no sense to invest your advertising dollars geared towards homeowners.

lornmastro · 08-15-2006, 10:38 PM

i also offer a cash incentive/gift checks to my existing customers for any referrals they give me that ends up in work over x amount of $$s. it gives happy existing customers a reason to hand out your cards or brag about your great work...my customers are falling over themselfs to get me work...its great!!