Need Your Help - VERY LARGE Distribution Operation

[GetShitDone]

Hey guys, I'm on the verge of launching a large marketing campaign that I have tested before hand and gotten good results. I'm dropping hundreds of thousands of door hangers to a targeted affluent demographic of homes for my home care company's first campaign on gaining clients. The goal of this campaign is to create a base/foundation of clients which will further take me onto higher levels of marketing that I want to set out for my company which would require a bit of extra capital.

The large marketing campaign is going to consist of 300k hangers + 100k houses and I am getting 10 people to distribute them all over a 6 week period. I am paying by commission only for every hanger that makes a SALE that they distribute. This will motivate them to drop every single hanger to their allocated suburbs properly. I have found quite a few people who are willing to sign up BUT my question here today is:

How do I manage this large distributing operation to go as successful as possible? What systems do you recommend I set in place to make sure everything falls into place with no problems. We are talking 100k homes here with a whopping 300k hangers. Systems, rewards, etc. ? Anything that would help manage this entire thing with ease. I am giving someone whom I gave a stake of profits for the 1st year only a job that requires them to manage this operation so I have 1 person who can do some work on the phone as a dispatcher/supervisor for the 10 distributors.

Any help would be extremely appreciated. Thank you.

 

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[NewsletterScott]

How do I manage this large distributing operation to go as successful as possible? What systems do you recommend I set in place to make sure everything falls into place with no problems. We are talking 100k homes here with a whopping 300k hangers. Systems, rewards, etc. ? Anything that would help manage this entire thing with ease. I am giving someone whom I gave a stake of profits for the 1st year only a job that requires them to manage this operation so I have 1 person who can do some work on the phone as a dispatcher/supervisor for the 10 distributors.

Here is what I would do.

1) Think about the process and the funnel step-by-step...here is the starting point

-What is on the door hanger?
-What do you want the person who looks at the door hanger (your prospect) to do next? (choices: call a phone number or visit a website)

2) Next step...
If they visit the website, what do you want the website page to instruct the person to do?
(I would Have them fill out a form...where the information can be dropped into an autoresponder (Form Fields: Name, City, Code #(on door hanger - lets you know what rep put it there), Email, Phone Number))

After the lead fills out the form....it is sent to your partner via email to follow up on by phone

If they call a phone number....what does that message say....what will you instruct them to do next? (I would have them go to the website to fill out their information, and if they don't have a computer to leave their information on the message machine.

3) Next step...
What does your guy say when he calls that person who expressed interest?
What is the next logical step and the purpose of that call?

4) Next step...
etc...

Think about every single touch point in the process...and what systems you need to have in place to make sure things don't fall through the cracks, and that you are effective at every touch point.

If you need help with this, feel free to send me a PM. This is what I do. I can help you set up the systems on the backend effectively.

 

[Mrs. BRKb]

Kudos, SuccessKing, for planning on using a commission model. In contrast, there's a classic story in the annals of US marketing about a company that did an expensive broad outreach (superbowl ads) for a narrow target market (wedding invitations). It ultimately left the company cash poor, which led to the beginning of the end.

OurBeginning.com’s marketing bomb

 

[PSDSH]

Hey guys, I'm on the verge of launching a large marketing campaign that I have tested before hand and gotten good results. I'm dropping hundreds of thousands of door hangers to a targeted affluent demographic of homes for my home care company's first campaign on gaining clients. The goal of this campaign is to create a base/foundation of clients which will further take me onto higher levels of marketing that I want to set out for my company which would require a bit of extra capital.

The large marketing campaign is going to consist of 300k hangers + 100k houses and I am getting 10 people to distribute them all over a 6 week period. I am paying by commission only for every hanger that makes a SALE that they distribute. This will motivate them to drop every single hanger to their allocated suburbs properly. I have found quite a few people who are willing to sign up BUT my question here today is:

How do I manage this large distributing operation to go as successful as possible? What systems do you recommend I set in place to make sure everything falls into place with no problems. We are talking 100k homes here with a whopping 300k hangers. Systems, rewards, etc. ? Anything that would help manage this entire thing with ease. I am giving someone whom I gave a stake of profits for the 1st year only a job that requires them to manage this operation so I have 1 person who can do some work on the phone as a dispatcher/supervisor for the 10 distributors.

Any help would be extremely appreciated. Thank you.

You have an awful lot of questions that need answered, IMO, well before you undertake such a large endeavor. Why not start small and learn as you go?

If your "employees" don't get any commissions or they end up unevenly distributed between the people, I suspect you will have some very unsatisfied and unmotivated people on your hands very early in the process...like by the end of week one.

When I was in high school I distributed bottled water samples, a quart at a time, and was paid by the hour and by commission. That worked well.

 

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[LightHouse]

I don't understand the model, why pay commissions for door hangers? There is nothing they can do to get someone to buy. You pay commission for things that incentivize someone to sell. They can't do that by hanging a door hanger. It makes no sense. Typically you can get this done for very cheap.

In fact this was my very very first job, when i was 12 I think, I was paid .02 cents for a townhouse and .03-.04 cents per single family home. We took packs of advertisements (3-4 kids per car) and we would get a certain number of bundles and be dropped in neighborhoods. In all we would make $20/day or so. SO really you could pay much less by paying people to distribute then you would in commissions over something they can't control.

 

[SeanKelly]

This is honestly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You just started your business and haven't even learned the business yet... You're going to have the balls to advertise to 100k homes? There's no way in hell you'll be able to service them properly in your current situation. I could go on and on about how poorly thought out that was. Second mistake is thinking you'll find enough assholes to hand out 300k door hangers in 6 weeks and not kill themselves. Why would you even spend that kind of money on that amount of door hangers instead of equipment, uniforms, expenses, etc

 

[GetShitDone]

This is honestly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You just started your business and haven't even learned the business yet... You're going to have the balls to advertise to 100k homes? There's no way in hell you'll be able to service them properly in your current situation. I could go on and on about how poorly thought out that was. Second mistake is thinking you'll find enough assholes to hand out 300k door hangers in 6 weeks and not kill themselves. Why would you even spend that kind of money on that amount of door hangers instead of equipment, uniforms, expenses, etc

Hi Sean, thanks for the feedback

I'm not servicing them individually/sole proprietor, I'm servicing them by SUBCONTRACTING the work out to other companies that are able to service my clients location.

I have found enough "assholes" (in your words) that are willing to distribute door hangers on a high commission paid model. What I created this thread was for the sole purpose to find out your advice on any tips or systems that would make this thing a success in terms of delivering every door hanger.

Why would I spend that kind of money on equipment? Not sure... could be the fact that one of the biggest mistakes lawn care owners make is buying equipment before they even have customers? I have already tested these out and they gave me a good result rate so I am branching out into doing the real thing on a much larger scale. It seems ludicrous to simply throw money at a fancy mower and uniform rather then focusing on a highly researched, detailed, targeted, etc. marketing campaign.

I don't understand the model, why pay commissions for door hangers? There is nothing they can do to get someone to buy. You pay commission for things that incentivize someone to sell. They can't do that by hanging a door hanger. It makes no sense. Typically you can get this done for very cheap.

In fact this was my very very first job, when i was 12 I think, I was paid .02 cents for a townhouse and .03-.04 cents per single family home. We took packs of advertisements (3-4 kids per car) and we would get a certain number of bundles and be dropped in neighborhoods. In all we would make $20/day or so. SO really you could pay much less by paying people to distribute then you would in commissions over something they can't control.

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

The reason I am paying commission is to dodge the big woe of getting people to distribute any advertising material. They can throw it away or not work as hard. However, with a high commission paid model we can motivate them to not drop any door hangers, be lazy, etc. Sure, I'd rather get people to do it on an hourly wage BUT nowadays for my amount of door hangers it will cost 30 grand to distribute. I'm trying to think outside of the box here with this commission model because of the size of the campaign. I have 300,000 door hangers ready to go and with this commission model the entire start up cost will be $0 vs $30,000.

 

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[100k]

I would listen to what Sean had to say (I believe he is in that very niche and doing pretty well for himself).... I would like Sean to perhaps think about how he communicates as it is a bit on the offensive side - even though he is trying to give good advice.

My own 2 cents; Do it on a smaller level first... distribute 5-10k leaflets.... get the process right.... then scale that shit up.

Cheers

 

[GetShitDone]

Thanks mate. It's fine though. He comes off as quite arrogant and pretentious but I'm sure he means well

In regards to how he's doing in this same industry, I think he has around 100k in annual revenue after 3 years. Maybe I'm too much of an optimist but I am aiming to make that easily my monthly revenue in my 1st year especially with a 1st campaign like this. Having worked in the landscaping/lawn care industry before, I have seen many fast growing companies that FAR exceeded millions.

Wish all the best, Sean.

 

[Bigguns50]

I agree with 100K as far as starting smaller. Make your mistakes, learn, move on. When you have the process down, then expand. As far as paying commission to hang door hangers....just let us know how that works. I honestly don't know if it's a good way to motivate the workers or not.

 

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[DennisD]

Suggestions from a direct marketing standpoint:

Start small and split test 10K houses. Give 5K one variation and 5K another. Split test your prices. Find the winner, and split test your offer on another 10K. Find the winner, and split test your copy on another 10K. Find the winner, and send this out to the remaining 70K.

Set up different phone numbers so you can track the callback rates from different ads.

TRACK EVERYTHING. KEEP DATABASES. If somebody calls your number specified for a campaign, and they're not on your database, you know a friend shared the information with them. If this is a trend with one campaign over another it looks like you've found the ad that promotes word of mouth marketing!

Rather than just 'guessing' what's right, you'll methodically figure out the best way to blanket an area and get the most conversions.

 

[million$$$smile]

I also think that you might be using a "shotgun" approach which even if it does work to some extent may not be quite as profitable as focusing your efforts on a smaller geographical scale rather than broadcasting to such a large area.

At one time I also had a decent lawn maintenance business and came to realize that having 350 accounts but spread out all over the city wasn't necessarily the best way. I began to focus on my best and most profitable accounts, and decided to see if I could add several more accounts in that neighborhood that would mean I would only have to remove my equipment once for 5 or 6 accounts rather than spend windshield time running all over the place. That can become very expensive when you load/unload equipment and drive time between each account adds up to 15-20 minutes per account.
You can give a small discount to each account if you can get your existing customers to help you, by adding accounts on the same street. Less time waste, more cash in the pocket.
I focused on this model, did very well and sold the business in 3 years for a decent amount.
Just my .02 cents worth...

Good luck!

Randall

 

[SeanKelly]

You're taking to someone who has had success in this field. You don't even know how to do the work/price it yet you're going to trust all of these others to do a sufficient job? Sounds like you thought this one out.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Thanks for the awesome advice guys. I'll definitely implement it.

Sean: I'm sorry but 8k in monthly revenue (considering the expenses too in our industry) after 3 years is not in my intellect of "success". Even if I got that in a year I wouldn't consider myself to be a "success" lol. Therefore I can't agree with that statement since we both clearly have different standards.


I do in fact do know my prices and I am going to offer them to my clients. I am managing everything from an overviewing position.. I am HIRING/CONTRACTING the labour out to professionals who will make my clients happy. Isn't that apart of what being a fastlane entrepreneur is about? Working on your business instead of in it?

Again, as humble as I can be in response to such a psychological napoleon complex: All the best Sean

 

[SeanKelly]

You're a F*cking idiot

 

[nextgen]

If you get a 5% response rate which is a decent number but low, you will have 5,000 accounts. Now lets say it takes an hour per client including driving doing the work (most be some fast a$$ horrible landscaping to do it in an hour including travel) and im banking on the fact that you would have 3 guys with you. It would take you 5,000 hours per month to do those accounts.

Now, most of the guys that work in the landscaping business as in the workers do not like to work long hours i mean over 40 hours per week. So if you have 160 hours per month you'd be able to have that many *accounts*. By the way your talking your expecting to buy this equipment once you get started so that means you would need 31.25 different crews to be able to hit each property once per month for 1 hour including travel you would need at least 2 people per crew for a total of 61.50 people we will round up to 62 people. So now I'm assuming that you have the resources to hire 62 people purchase 32 trucks with trailers 2 mowers, a backpack blower (industrial stregth) and at least one weedwacker. I would also assume that you have the ability to store all these inside as landscaping equipment is stolen alot.

Do not bash other people because you don't think its successful or is not in your "intellect" of success. Because as far as I'm aware you have no success. You have no knowledge of the business. Most likely you do not have business insurance, you don't have proper licensing by your state or city in which you live in, you don't have the licenses to spray pesticides, you don't have access to a large amount of equipment fast. Basically all I'm trying to say is that typically when OTHER people have success in a particular business you don't piss them off.

FYI, my Uncle, friend, and 2 other family members own landscaping businesses and they are doing amazing. Then again the area that I live in the landscaping business is very competitive. Seankelly don't get to upset.

 

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[SeanKelly]

I couldn't agree more, nextgen. This guy sent me several private messages asking for my help and advice and then tries to flip the situation as if I'm some type of idiot.

 

[Mike39]

From what I have read on here, SuccessKing why don't you just start out with a campaign half or a quarter of the size you are planning? That way you know if you can handle more clients and scale and grow accordingly. There would be nothing worse than having a couple hundred people coming to you asking for your business and you either having to turn them away or you not being able to deliver your services on time.

I don't know this business but that is what I would do, I'm all about fast growth but sometimes you can slip trying to climb the mountain too fast.

 

[GetShitDone]

If you get a 5% response rate which is a decent number but low, you will have 5,000 accounts. Now lets say it takes an hour per client including driving doing the work (most be some fast a$$ horrible landscaping to do it in an hour including travel) and im banking on the fact that you would have 3 guys with you. It would take you 5,000 hours per month to do those accounts.

Now, most of the guys that work in the landscaping business as in the workers do not like to work long hours i mean over 40 hours per week. So if you have 160 hours per month you'd be able to have that many *accounts*. By the way your talking your expecting to buy this equipment once you get started so that means you would need 31.25 different crews to be able to hit each property once per month for 1 hour including travel you would need at least 2 people per crew for a total of 61.50 people we will round up to 62 people. So now I'm assuming that you have the resources to hire 62 people purchase 32 trucks with trailers 2 mowers, a backpack blower (industrial stregth) and at least one weedwacker. I would also assume that you have the ability to store all these inside as landscaping equipment is stolen alot.

Do not bash other people because you don't think its successful or is not in your "intellect" of success. Because as far as I'm aware you have no success. You have no knowledge of the business. Most likely you do not have business insurance, you don't have proper licensing by your state or city in which you live in, you don't have the licenses to spray pesticides, you don't have access to a large amount of equipment fast. Basically all I'm trying to say is that typically when OTHER people have success in a particular business you don't piss them off.

FYI, my Uncle, friend, and 2 other family members own landscaping businesses and they are doing amazing. Then again the area that I live in the landscaping business is very competitive. Seankelly don't get to upset.

Whats with the massive ignorance? First of all I do have insurance, second of all I DO have a business license. Third of all I DONT need to have a spraying license/"access to large amount of equipment fast" if I am CONTRACTING THE WORK OUT to multiple companies. Please don't blindly assume things just because Mr.Kelly (with sheer class) says "YOU HAVE NO EXPERIENCE U F*ckING IDIOT".

I noticed that you keep thinking that I am going to hire employees and buy equipment. That simply isn't the case if you actually read my posts. I am going to subcontract to multiple landscaping companies who are in the DESIGNATED areas/locations of my clientele. This reduces the long travel time and equipment buying hassle that you're exaggerating about. If I get hundreds of clients I will hustle my way to striking as many deals as possible with the companies that are serving those clients' areas. See the beauty of this as opposed to hiring workers, buying equipment, etc. ? Don't get me wrong, I might just branch out into creating jobs by hiring people later on but at the BEGINNING I am planning on contracting the work out to keep things simplified.

PS: I would absolutely LOVE to have 5000 clients right off the bat but unfortunately that is MORE then just a "decent number that is low", haha. Thats a bit of an unrealistic number and I think this campaign will net me 500-700+ clients. That slashes your number predictions by around 10.


Sean: You never replied to any of those either and I was just trying to get to know another lawn care entrepreneur on the site. The only time you messaged me about my business endeavours was here where you called me a "F*cking idiot" and the "dumbest thing you've ever heard". It's perfectly fine though, I never wanted to flip the situation at all... it just seems that way to you since you keep using your ego instead of professionally reading/replying to my points.

Please read my posts correctly instead of aimlessly demonising me and not replying to what I actually said about how I'm going to structure this start up in terms of serving my clients. All the best.

 

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[theag]

Whats with the massive ignorance? First of all I do have insurance, second of all I DO have a business license. Third of all I DONT need to have a spraying license/"access to large amount of equipment fast" if I am CONTRACTING THE WORK OUT to multiple companies. Please don't blindly assume things just because Mr.Kelly (with sheer class) says "YOU HAVE NO EXPERIENCE U F*ckING IDIOT".

I noticed that you keep thinking that I am going to hire employees and buy equipment. That simply isn't the case if you actually read my posts. I am going to subcontract to multiple landscaping companies who are in the DESIGNATED areas/locations of my clientele. This reduces the long travel time and equipment buying hassle that you're exaggerating about. If I get hundreds of clients I will hustle my way to striking as many deals as possible with the companies that are serving those clients' areas. See the beauty of this as opposed to hiring workers, buying equipment, etc. ? Don't get me wrong, I might just branch out into creating jobs by hiring people later on but at the BEGINNING I am planning on contracting the work out to keep things simplified.

PS: I would absolutely LOVE to have 5000 clients right off the bat but unfortunately that is MORE then just a "decent number that is low", haha. Thats a bit of an unrealistic number and I think this campaign will net me 500-700+ clients. That slashes your number predictions by around 10.


Sean: You never replied to any of those either and I was just trying to get to know another lawn care entrepreneur on the site. The only time you messaged me about my business endeavours was here where you called me a "F*cking idiot" and the "dumbest thing you've ever heard". It's perfectly fine though, I never wanted to flip the situation at all... it just seems that way to you since you keep using your ego instead of professionally reading/replying to my points.

Please read my posts correctly instead of aimlessly demonising me and not replying to what I actually said about how I'm going to structure this start up in terms of serving my clients. All the best.

I'm really looking forward towards your update after the campaign.

 

[GetShitDone]

Whether you think I'm going to succeed, fail, or just don't know.. with pleasure: As am I !

 

[southbayrider]

that sean dood needs to roll over and die for his F*ckin attitude. the dood's asking for advice not for you to grill him.

 

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[theag]

Whether you think I'm going to succeed, fail, or just don't know.. with pleasure: As am I !

I'm not thinking anything. Just interested how it turns out. Personally I would start smaller and scale up the marketing as soon as I know what works, like some people suggested. You should definitely follow Dennis' ideas about tracking.

 

[SeanKelly]

that sean dood needs to roll over and die for his F*ckin attitude. the dood's asking for advice not for you to grill him.

Lol another brain surgeon on the thread

 

[nextgen]

If you cant get 5% out of 100,000 there is something seriously wrong and that means you didnt do any split testing or any kind of marketing research before hand.

P.S Good luck

 

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[Mike39]

that sean dood needs to roll over and die for his attitude. the dood's asking for advice not for you to grill him.

Was that really needed?

You criticize Sean for grilling SuccessKing; and yet in the same post you are grilling Sean, hypocritical much?

Lets get back on track with the original question, large scale distribution of flyers D2D:

How do I manage this large distributing operation to go as successful as possible? What systems do you recommend I set in place to make sure everything falls into place with no problems. We are talking 100k homes here with a whopping 300k hangers. Systems, rewards, etc. ? Anything that would help manage this entire thing with ease. I am giving someone whom I gave a stake of profits for the 1st year only a job that requires them to manage this operation so I have 1 person who can do some work on the phone as a dispatcher/supervisor for the 10 distributors.

 

[SeanKelly]

If you cant get 5% out of 100,000 there is something seriously wrong and that means you didnt do any split testing or any kind of marketing research before hand.

P.S Good luck

Actually response rate is typically one percent for flyers and door hangers. Sometimes you are lucky to get 1%

 

[GetShitDone]

Nope, he's right to an extent. Response rates vary from campaign to campaign depending on targeting, testing, target audience, copy, etc. I've heard of campaigns that have received 0.02% and campaigns that have received (believe it or not) 50% response rate.

In my case, I am predicting I will get a 1% due to the large scale of homes. I am also using multi step marketing which is hitting 3 door hangers to each home over a period of time which further penetrates the barrier. That and many other things involved in my campaign are what keep me confident that I will hit 1000 enquiries. Contrary to what some have assumed, I have in fact tested these door hangers out and they got me a good response. That is why (like I said in my posts) I am making it go further on a LARGER SCALE. However I will definitely take the advice into consideration of starting off with a quarter/half of the campaign rather then going full out. Mainly because it would help me get a taste of what to expect when rolling a door hanger distribution project out.

Mike39, thank you for being the first person to address my original question at hand. THAT is the main reason I created this thread, not to have a war with Sean's massive ego complex. (So any ideas on what systems/tips to roll out to make sure this entire distribution campaign goes successfully?)

 

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[JEdwards]

If you cant get 5% out of 100,000 there is something seriously wrong and that means you didnt do any split testing or any kind of marketing research before hand.

P.S Good luck

He will not get 5%.. He will be lucky to get 2 or 3 out of every 1,000..

Also, he is just opening a lead generation company.. I don't think he ever mentioned actually doing the work.

300,000 mailers over 6 weeks is a very tall order, not something I would do, but then again thinking about it, probably something I would do.

Are all 300,000 of these affluent houses in one city or you doing this in multiple cities?

You are doing the one stop, yard/pool/etc deal right? Do all your lawn care businesses also do Pools,etc. like what is the deal? what is your split or are you just charging for the lead? What are you training the guys on?

I see a bigger problem is not the calls it is facilitating the calls in a timely manner with someone with experience and no how to quote correctly.

Also, I see a great opp here if it can pull.

 

[theBiz]

Normally these types of businesses sell franchises to guys who want to work for themselves. You sell them a truck, equipment, give them navigation systems, train them, and when a phone call comes in, a office will divert the call to a local franchise owner...

I have always thought about doing something like what you are doing, but wasnt sure if i could successfully sub things out. Again not really sure of your entire plan, selling territories is better IMO and charging monthly fees to purchaser shows they have some skin in the game and take things seriously... they DEPEND on your leads... subs may have better opportunities and disappear.

I think leads will be the hardest part as usual. So this is good the way your doing it, before you waste time buying equipment and so fourth you can just sub it out and have headaches... if it works... slowly transition to selling territories or franchising it. Pretty sure Jack did this back in the day with multiple companies.... remember him saying he helped out a friend in which the figures didnt work and they had their own employees and trucks. Honestly it comes down to how much you can generate a CLOSED lead for.... If your CPA on lawn care is $1 this will obviously work.... if it $2,500, most likely wont.

By all means go out and create a great company, i do however see some issues i as a business owner would not want to deal with but that just leaves more money on the table for you.

Also, why direct mail? Television is actually cheaper than people think, so are production costs if you shoe string budget it. Just wondering because this type of business... generally they utilize every single possible marketing channel possible, tv, snail mail, email, affiliates, radio, ppc, seo and so fourth.