Lee talks about positives and negatives of Groupons and other discount offerings. Check us out at https://www.junkra.com Subscribe to this channel for all the best junk removal industry info Like and follow us on Facebook at Junk Removal Authority
Good afternoon guys! Just headed out from the office. I’m going to have a quick bite. He wanted to get a little information out, something I was thinking about today. In our Charlotte market we offer Groupons. Some of you all wouldn’t even listen to the rest of this video because you’re against Groupon. Listen “Groupon is not fun. I don’t like the concept in a way I wish they’d go away.” Let me talk to you about the positives and negatives of Groupon deals. The deal we have, it’s probably almost a little aggressive. I don’t even if that’s what you all should go with. Let’s open up this sunroof here. See that beautiful North Carolina sky. Fairly cloudy today actually, but anyway Groupons. The deal we do is $99. Customer’s Groupon $99. They get a quarter load of junk removal that’s typically $205. They’re paying $99. They’re getting $205 worth of service and that’s $160 discount. If it’s just $160 discount, you can actually do that and generally make money. You can make a little bit of money in the quarter load sometimes depending on what it is. The kicker is Groupon, it’s going to take. You can negotiate with them and get them down to 35% or 40%. So, Groupon is going to take 35% or 40% of the $99. All of a sudden, they’re taking another $40. You’re getting $60 for $205 worth of junk removal. That means in that case, it’s a $145 discount. It’s going to be tough to make money. It’s going to be tough to make money even own an upsell. A lot of our Groupon customers do have more than the quarter load space. So, that can get to the point where you sort of break even. You’ll make some money on probably three-quarter loading and up depending on what it is. Again, so maybe on your Groupons you limit it. It’s only good for garage clean out. Anywhere else there’s an additional labor rate and so. We don’t do that, but I think we’re going to change that. I think we’re going to do that. This is good. If we can pull right up to it and load it.
Anything else, it’s an additional hourly rate of whatever $50 an hour. Whatever you to charge. Pro-rated, maybe $100 per hour. Whatever you choose. Make sure people understand it when they schedule. Make sure they understand if it goes over a quarter, they’re paying more. There’ll be told up front, but they’re paying more. Exclude rock and gravel. You can exclude really heavy stuff. Really heavy stuff where your disposal fees are going to be higher so you can limit it to decent stuff and have upcharges. You’re going to have some customers. They get mad, but you need to be firm on your Groupon upcharges and that can be tough on your truck teams. These Groupon customers, they’re discounted. A lot of them are discount customers. Not all, but a lot of them. Especially if they were shopping on the Groupon site, so they can be tough to deal with sometimes.
You got to make sure your truck teams do not give in and just “It’s only a third of a load. Add a few more items. I’ll do it for a quarter.” They have to understand you’re not making money at a quarter. Make sure you aren’t making money if you add a third. So, they’ve got to make sure they charge an extra 20 to 30 bucks and the hourly rate should it not be located right in the garage. The other thing is, is I would limit it one per customer for life. When they schedule that needs to be something’s covered now. Just want to make sure you understand this is the only time you can use this Groupon deal. You cannot use two at the same time. You cannot use one ever again. You need to have a system that catches if they try and use another that you would go ahead and you tell them. “I’m sorry you’ve used one of these” Explain to them.
Listen, we don’t make money. This is a way of you to get in there. You to try out our service. For you to see how helpful and good it actually is. We’re not making money. We’ve got, we can’t keep giving you this discount because we’re losing money on it. We’ve got to charge more if you come back and be straight out with it. Most of the time people understand. If they don’t understand, it’s fine. It’s not a customer for you. They can go to somewhere else or do it alone. That’s something you need to think about. Here’s an advantage of Groupon. Every single time those trucks are on the road. They’re being seen in neighborhoods. They’re being seen going up and down the highway. That’s advertising and exposure. Every time your trucks are rolling, we get somewhere around two grand a month of business from people seeing our vehicles. It might even be more than that because chances are subconsciously they might be seeing them. They might not be realizing it, but they’ve heard of Junk Doctors.
They might just not know how. So, we ask them how they heard about us. They can tell some completely different. At least two grand a month comes from people seeing our vehicles. Every time they’re going up and down the road, that has value. The more job you have, if you do a Groupon and you’ll get jobs. In Charlotte, we’d probably get 10 jobs a week off of Groupon. I just make it restrictive and have upcharges in it. Where you can actually at least break even, make some money. Again, when you approach advertising and you’re brand new. Especially when you’re brand new and even when you’re more established. You approach advertising as break even or maybe even come close to breaking even or make just a little bit of money. If you can, you do it.
You bang that advertising as hard as you possibly can. You bang it. You bang it until you can’t bang it anymore. You bang it until it falls off or whatever. You hit it so hard until you finally can’t hit it anymore. You keep doing it. If you’re breaking even or making a little money, it’s working. Keep doing that advertising. That’s more repeat customers. You can get more referral, potential referrals you’re going to receive. That’s more reviews that you’re going to get on Google, Yelp, and any other platform. When people actually see those reviews, that’s a greater chance that you’re advertising your CAM. If you’re doing JRA or SEO, your AdWords That’s greater chance you’re going to convert on that money spent because they’re seeing those great reviews.
It’s not one thing. People make a mistake, thinking it’s one thing. It isn’t one thing. It’s like Junk Doctors get a $2,000,000 a year. It’s a lot of stuff put together of which none were super profitable, but everything together as a package. It’s thinking long term, so have that long-term outlook. Groupon deals. I’m not telling you, you should do them. I’m not telling you shouldn’t do them. I am telling you should consider them if you’re brand new and if you have no other business at all coming in. Unless you have money. Unless you already have a good amount of money saved up where you can handle some operating losses. I would not do a Groupon deal, but if you already have some other business coming in and profit in business is coming in or you have several thousand dollars to handle some losses. Groupon is not a bad way to get going in a new market for sure.
I hope this was a value to everybody. Those of you are considering Groupons, if you want to talk about that or anything else. You can call me at +1 919-466-9322. Happy to talk to you, a little bit of time you know for 10 to 15 minutes or whatever. We’ll kind of go back and forth. If you have a couple of questions, I can answer them. Anything beyond that after the first 10 or 15 minutes call, we can set up a consultation. $150 an hour, that’s way too cheap. I need to be probably $300 to $400. $150 an hour, I promise you. You’re going to get 10 times that value. It’s actually unlimited. If you give me a call and schedule consultation and go forward with it.
I always enjoy doing these videos. I’m glad people are commenting. We’ve got people that are calling saying how much they enjoy them. That kind of feedback makes me sure that I’m going to continue bringing this content out there and giving you all this content. It allowed everybody to really improve their business. Always enjoy it guys. Maybe we’ll do another video today. If not, we’ll talk to you tomorrow. Just a couple of days away from Junk Removal Made Simple. This upcoming Junk Removal Made Simple. It’s got to be on starting cheap. For those of you, you don’t have any money saved up at all. You might not have another job currently. I’m going to tell you how you get started in junk removal. For those of you that has the money coming in, and you’re wanting to get started. I will address that also. I’m going to help you get your stuff straight. I’m going to help you get your business started. I’m going to help you go from somebody that just talks about doing it, to actually doing it. I’m going to get you from being somebody that just does it, to continuing to do it and making it successful. Call me at +1 919-466-9322. Looking forward to talking to everybody. You all enjoyed this video? We’ll be back before you know it. Lee Godbold with JRA.