How do you find a service company?

As you can see by my username, I'm in the service industry. I was recently talking to lady who owns a cleaning business, and we were wondering about how people choose a business to hire. Do the Yellow Pages motivate you to call? Do you read the coupons in the mail?

I have tracked my companies estimates for years, and most originate in the Yellow Pages, followed by personal referrals. Among those, the personal referrals have a much higher closing rate.

I'd have to go with the majority of the folks here. Referrals first and the yellow pages second.

However, something I have found even more important is if you are going to give someone a bid to do work, be prepared to honor that bid, then show up and DO THE WORK.

Case in point, I recently needed to have my driveway re-surfaced. Its asphalt and due to a poor original installation, it had sunk in places. I just needed another layer added and the whole driveway smoothed over. I asked for bids from 6 different companies. Only 4 bothered to submit bids at all, and then one by one, after I accepted their bid, each of the companies either refused to do the work or wanted to scheduled the work 9 to 16 months down the road. It finally took someone just starting out in the business and wanting to make a name for themselves to get the job done. And I might add, they did a great job too.

I'm also finding this same problem with plumbers and electricians at well. Most are ready and willing to give you a bid, but when it comes to fitting you into their schedule, your lucky to even get them to answer the phone.

I hear this a lot. I tell young people to think about the service trades. Opportunities abound.

Would be interested in your thoughts on this subject.

Referrals, I would also canvass the neighborhoods where I had satisfied customers. Make some fliers and have kids pass them out, tell the neighbors that you are around and have happy campers.

I've heard that kind of problem from the customer side a lot and I have avoided it myself, but sometimes I wonder if that's because I don't have all the business sense I should. The other side of the equation is that, for the contractor, getting out and bidding work is the sales side of his job and, as you probably know, sales is a "numbers game". You need to talk to 3 people to get 1 sale. If a contractor or service provider is getting enough calls coming in, then he's actually likely to end up selling more jobs that he can possibly do. If he were selling 'widgets', that'd be great, but he's selling his own time or that of his employees (or both) and you can't just order up some more of that to fill the orders. Some guys will take the order and then try to figure out how to juggle things around to fill it - or they keep their prices low enough that they get a bunch of orders that insure that they'll have a backlog of jobs to keep them always busy. It's a dliemna - a balancing act - which both the customer and service provider have to work at. Under good conditions, i.e. where I have enough people to talk to, I figure that if I'm getting more than 1 out of 3 jobs I look at then I'm probably not charging enough and, since I can't really do more work than 1 out of 3, I need to raise my price. Besides, I'd bet that I've lost more jobs as a result of being too low than I have from being too high.

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