Advertise your junk removal business! We can't stress this enough - if people can't find you, you can't book jobs. That's why you need to advertise your junk removal business where people are looking for your services - on Google. While there are many ways to advertise your junk removal business, Google Ads and organic search are going to lead to the best customers and the most junk removal jobs! You can have the best looking trucks, the best team members, the best customer service, and know how to move junk better than anyone, but if you can't get the word out about your service, you're going down. Watch this video to learn how to get more, better junk removal customers! 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
What’s up, guys? I am Lee Godbold with Junk Removal Authority, here on a Tuesday afternoon and we got one that I know a lot of you will be interested in recovering: Sales, Advertising, and Marketing. This is not ‘Sales and Advertising,’ it is not ‘Marketing and Advertising,’ it is ‘Sales/Advertising. The reason there are slash marks and not ends is because sales advertising and marketing is the same thing, and not only that, your entire business is sales, advertising, and marketing.
The Basics: Phone Etiquette
If one part of your product and your service offering is not up to par, it is going to detract from your sales. You have to make sure everything from your Website to the uniform your teams have, to the way you answer the phone – do not answer the phone “Hello.”, do not answer the phone “This is Lee.”, [rather] answer the phone “Thank you for calling Junk Doctors. This is Lee. How may I help you?”. Have a professional sound of your voice, don’t be rushed, make sure you include your business name., try not to answer the phone out of breath. It is hard to do when you first start because you are lifting items. It is tough. I know, I have been there. However, one way to avoid that is to use the Junk Removal Authority call center. That way, we have people in an office setting, and they are able to answer the phone very professional. We trained them how to close jobs and have to answer the phone extremely well, and they have a high closing rate. So, the Junk Removal Authority call center could be an option if you are out of breath because you are actually on the truck and doing the lifting. Once you get there, how your team interacts with your customers and how you actually load the truck – are you throwing stuff in there like you just do not care, or you are just chucking the stuff in the truck – then that is going to hurt your sales. You never want just to be chucking stuff in the truck, unless it is like construction debris, or hoarding stuff, clothes that the homeowner is not here. They are not going to care. If they are not there, then they are not going to care. Do not ever just be chucking items into the truck if the homeowner is watching, because even though that is junk, there is a good chance it is going to landfills, not being donated, might not be recycled. It is still their stuff. At some, it was given to them, or they paid good money for it, or they could have feelings toward it. It could be hard for them to get rid of, so never chuck stuff in trucks.
Are you using an electronic tablet? That is much more professional nowadays than an old paper invoice. Never use these sales to order things that you get out of office max. Nothing screams more that you are an amateur than using your own stock sales slip without your company letterhead address or anything on it. If you are thinking you are going to use one of those sales numbers, turn off the video. I do not want you watching this. I do not want anybody to think that I was the one that told you to get out there and just do an annual sales order. Everything in your company is marketing, everything in your company is advertising, everything in your company is sales. Get that through your head, if you do, you are going to blow this down on Junk Removal Business right up. Let us get started.
Investing in Advertising
How much money should you spend on advertising? I would like to see you at minimum 10% of gross. Gross Sales – that is how much money that you bring in total. That is not profit. Profit is everything left over. A gross sale is how much money you would be at in total; minimum 10%. I would love to see you at 20% to 25%. If you want to grow this business, if you want to blow it through the roof, if you want by year five to do what Junk Doctors do and do $2,000,000 in sales, you are going to need to be 20% to 25% back. That is going to hurt your profit, you are not going to be making as much money per job. However, it could very well increase the total amount of money you make because you will be getting more customers. People will look at this percentage [10%], and they will be like “That’s is my max.” That is a minimum. You do not need to be at 10%, you need to be closer to 20% to 25% if you are a serious competitor in this Junk Removal Market. If not, a company like Junk Doctors is going to get in here and blow you straight out of the water. That is how much you need to be prepared to spend.
The first thing you do right as soon as you want to start up is going to be you get your free advertising set up. So, what is your free advertising? Free or very minimally expensive. Nothing is really free, because you have the time setting this up, and you got time managing it. Well, when you first start anyway, you are talking work a whole lot. Your free stuff that is going to be your social media. You need to be on Facebook, you need to be on LinkedIn – LinkedIn is huge -, you need to be on Twitter, you need to be on Instagram, you need to be on all of the different social media platforms. You need to learn how to market, and that is something Junk Removal Authority can teach you, and actually do for you. You need to learn to market using social media. Use your personal page. When you first start your business, your best source of jobs is going to be from your base, the people you already know, the people you are friends with, your family, the friends and family of your family members. When you first start this thing, everybody has to know that you are running a junk removal business. You have a valuable service to them, and generally, they want to help you out. Make sure they do, you have a business, and have them be your cheerleaders. If they refer something for a job you, then you would need to be sending them a thank-you card – handwritten thank-you card saying “Thank you for your referral.”. Always send up thank-you cards for referrals. You do not have to necessarily send money, or gift cards, or anything like that. Send a thank you card, it is huge. It does awesome. Thank-you cards are the bomb. Your social media page, use your personal account. Not Craigslist. I hate Craigslist. Craigslist sucks but, it was a valuable tool when we first started, but we do not use it anymore. I do not think Craigslist is nearly as valuable as it once was. I just think that a lot of people that are going to it are afraid of getting raped, and murdered, and beat up, and all that kind of stuff. But still, you should be on when you first start and place a couple of ads per day. We used to repost like three or four times per day. Now, Craigslist is now your ideal customer. Generally, they are cheap. I hate cheap people. I got where I hate cheap people. Cheap people do not appreciate good service, and cheap people also shore themselves. If you are thinking cheap on your expense in, and you are thinking you are cheap on your income in, then start thinking more in terms of value, getting things done, and even on the expense end. Price factors into, and you do not want to get ripped off but pay somebody well for their time. They are going to jump on your job quicker if they know you pay on time, you pay well, and you don’t complain when you get an invoice. That is more than just a few dollars. Do not be cheap on your expense in. Be reasonable so do not ever overpay, but do not nickel and dime everybody. It upsets them, and you can never get stuff done. I hate cheap people.
Establish and Expand Connections
Call-related businesses, professional organizers, moving companies, estate sales companies, and just general service professionals and everything – call them up, schedule time to meet them, introduce yourself. You are building a relationship there. All this relationship marketing you might want to look into setting up a referral program where you actually pay them for early a lead. Do not just blast off out in the mail. Mail advertising without a prior relationship, you might as well let me give you my address and just send the money on what you are going to pay for mail advertisement. Just send it to me, and I will put it to better use than sending out those flyers to people when you have no prior contact. You are just wasting your time. Pick up the phone and call those people, get their name. Keep calling them, follow up, and that is a good social lead. Going back to social media, one thing that often gets skipped, one social media site ‘nextdoor.com.’ Next-door is neat because you can actually set up an account, you can set up a place or whatever they call it, and it is free. If somebody is asking for a referral, which they do all the time, and they tag, and they say “Hey, I recommend Junk Doctors, or 123Junk, or Best Junk Removal.” or whatever your business name is, it will actually notify you “Hey, you got a referral. You were mentioned.”. Also, you can put out little ads – “My name is Joe Schmoe. I just started junk removal, and we’re in your neighborhood, and we’re doing something in your neighborhood.” – Or whatever. But you see, nextdoor.com, it is free, and a lot of times people like those posts. You do not want to overdo it, you will be too spammy on that site necessarily, but I will post every now and then to give people who like supporting local businesses. That is another reason you want to go to local, not a franchise. Junk Removal Authority can hook you up if you are lucky and interested in the franchise system you want that additional support, If you want that you don’t have to figure all this out on your own, I will give you value BOMs information all the time. But if you don’t want to figure out everything on your own if you want us to be right there all the whole way through the process, and really have good form, and procedures and all put in place. I am giving you a bunch of important information, but everything is packaged well with our Jump Removal Business package, so let us know if you are interested in that a.
Then, you got your mid-level pricing, and your mid-level is going to be Angie’s List, Home Advisor, Thumb Tac, Groupon, Yard Signs, Luncheons – this will be for Realtors or other groups. What you would do is that you would sponsor their luncheons; basically you buy the food, and in return they let you set your booth up, and you kind of introduce yourself to all the Realtors. We have done this before with moderate success. It is a good way to get your name out there. -, and Door Hangers. So, you Angie’s List used to be very good advertising, it is less so now. My opinion is that Angie’s List, within the next year to year and a half, is going to be balled out probably by Home Advisor. Home Advisor is just kicking their tail. They are taking them out the woodshed just beating the absolute mess out of them right now. You hear a lot more about Home Advisor. Angie’s List is even trying to go to more Home Advisor model of the lead generation thing. I am not certain yet, but I’ve seen your changes, it seems like they might be going that route. The problem with Home Advisor is you got to be really fast calling your lead back. What happens is they say “I’m looking for Junk Removal” and blast information out to however many companies – one, two, three, four companies – and basically, we have found the first person he calls is probably one that gets the job, or it is a customer that is not really interested in service, or not interested in paying, or it is the wrong service. You can request credits for bad leads, but you cannot request if they do not just like the pricing or anything like that. It is only for the wrong type of service. In-Home Advisor you can get leads from it, it is in the mid-price category, but that might now be correct, it might be in the higher-priced end. It is kind of like Google AdWords depending on what your cost per click is set on AdWords. You usually breakeven on AdWords job. We actually jumped on, because we lose money on AdWords jobs, because we are trying to get a customer up front, and then put them in our sales cycle, do a good job, get referrals from them, keep them long term. Most of you will not be in the position to do that. That is why it is hard to compete against a company that is doing $2,000,000 a year. If somebody opens up new in the Raleigh market, or with a Charlotte market, or the Greensboro market, it is going to be tough to hang with us, because we have so many sales. That is the reason you got to hustle. You got to kill it, guys, you got to kill it when you first get going really, so you can get to that 2-million-dollar level. You could be there when this economy tanks whenever it does – tomorrow, in an hour, next week, next year, 10 years from now – the more sales you have, the more money you have, the more resources you have, the bigger your war chest, the better you are going to make through a downturn in the economy. Even though junk removal companies do well the downturn, still, the bigger your war chest, the more weapons you have to go to war with, the better chance you are going to come out victorious once the economy turns back around. Home Advisor – it is okay, you can generally break even. It is a lot of work, and if you are on the truck, I will not do this.
Thumb Tac – we have used it a little bit. It is okay, you can dismiss from it.
Using Promotional Websites
Groupon, I don’t really like Groupon, it kind of has the same people as Craigslist, maybe a little trendier, but just as cheap. And what do we say around here? We hate cheap people. Groupon, the nice thing about it, if you are on the truck, you are going to hate Groupon. However, they keep your trucks on the road. The truck is a billboard. So, the truck should be on the ‘Free’ end. A good graphics on the truck is big. Groupon, again, you make very little money. We have stopped doing Groupon, and that tells you something. We stopped on the Raleigh market. We started focusing a bit more profit Raleigh market. The other problem with the Groupon job is they are not very good at repeat customer a lot of times. We get some, but they always want my Groupon price, and that is tough. You do not make money in Groupon jobs. If you do a good Groupon discount, you maybe do a quarter low, you better be a three-quarter low, or you are going to lose money or barely break even on that job. It is always an option to keep the trucks running, keep the guys busy, you keep them busy, so they are being an advertisement.
Yard Signs – we like Yard Signs especially when you can get them out on your customers’, people you have already done jobs for. Customprints.com is a good resource for Yard Signs, good cheap Yard Signs.
Door Hangers – nice thing about Door Hangers is if your crews are in between jobs, and they have a gap, that is a good way just to keep them busy. There is a chance you get some more. We have not had a whole lot of luck on door hanger flyers, and flyers in general, but we get jobs from time to time.
Setting Up Your Own Website
One thing I did not list on here is a Website, and this should go without saying you need a Website. Do not use your diagonal Facebook page as a Website. Guys, spend a little money. Do not be cheap. Get a good website. You want the ultimate website? Go to junkremovalauthority.com. Now, as of this video, junkremovalauthority.com is not a very good website. It is an interim Website as we are developing the kick-ass site we are going to be debuting here soon. JunkDRS.com is our new Junk Doctors website. Check it out, it is awesome. Does think great things, we are going to do some final edits right now. That site is available for sale for $10,000, set-up and ready to go, or it is included in a Junk Removal Authority business package. For those of you wondering, I did not just do a Taylor Swift wardrobe change. I had to have a pause this video to run and catch this basketball game – NC State played Boston College and won a little while ago. Let us get back to this video, get wrapped up. It is about 10:00 in the evening right now so I am trying to wrap this thing on up. Your Website – these were your mid-priced items here, your high price items of advertising.
We are going to be Google AdWords SEO [Search Engine Optimization], and Radio. Of these three right here, AdWords is what you need to do. It is the higher price, you could spend some serious money on it. Every year we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of Google AdWords, so we say it is a huge expense. It is close to our largest expense. You need to do it though because it is going to give you a good placement. Let us face it, people search on Google. Google is a huge source of business. The vast majority of people, if you go on Google, or if you’re searching for a company, unless you happen to know of a company, where are you going to go? You are going to go to Google. If you do not do AdWords, you are going to fall behind. Now, if you have money not to spare, but if you have more money to invest, if you are not relying on this junk removal company to give you a good income, or any income for your first and second year is purely an investment, and you are willing to give away short-term profits for long-term prosperity, spend a lot on AdWords. Keep your cost-per-click high that helps your positioning, watch your quality scores. Now with the Junk Removal Authority Website, your quality scores are going to be high, because we have done the research and testing to give us quality scores high. What do high-quality scores do? High-quality scores keep your cost-per-click lower and give you an edge for your competition. If you are going against one of your competitors, and they have unlimited AdWords budget, you have an unlimited AdWords budget, quality score is going to make a difference. It is going to be who has the best quality score. If you are in a particular market and you are going to get somebody who can actually raise your budget, you have more money to spend, you are willing to spend more money on AdWords advertising, then a good quality score which is eight and above will help you out. Good quality scores 8/10, 9/10, 10/10, every point you increase will decrease that cost per click that you must get to get a certain position on AdWords. AdWords is good, so I strongly encourage you to learn AdWords.
Junk Removal Authority, if you want us to manage your AdWords campaign, we will do it. Do not just turn it over to us. We are going to do the job, we are going, to be honest with you and manage this campaign well but you need to understand what’s going on. If you deal with Junk Removal Authority mainly because you know your local market better than we do. We do research, we learn about markets the best we can, but you are there. You know the sort of the areas that the whole areas that support the whole foods that your higher income clientele is. You know the good areas, you know the bad areas. We know some which you are going to know better because you are in that local market. You are going to be able to recognize the negative keywords a bit better more so you can work with us to get your keywords right. If you are not going to go with Junk Removal Authority, learn AdWords, learn how to manage yourself, or find a company you really trust. That was one last thing that I turned over when I was kind of giving away tasks so I could focus on the bigger picture of Junk Doctors and Junk Removal Authority with AdWords. You are never really 100% confident that when you turn an AdWords campaign over to a company, are they really doing what they are supposed to do. You do not ever know. But we will do a good job for you should you choose us. If you do not choose us, I highly encourage you to do it on your own, unless you know and trust somebody who has AdWords experience. Do not just go with your brother-in-law that designs websites. He very well could not understand AdWords. Go with somebody that knows AdWords or get out there and learn it yourself.
Search Engine Optimization – learn it some, but it is like a black card. In SEO there is nothing quick about it. The reason I said make sure you go AdWords, and I did not say that about SEO because in Search Engine Optimization when you’re going to get to the national companies, it is hard to compete. Our Junk Removal Authority Website, we will show well in your area. We will not say every single time we are going to be ahead of your Got Junk or your College Hunks or your Junk King. We will be right in there, some markets and some keywords will be higher, some markets will be a little lower. We are probably going to be on your own local page. You are probably not going to be able to compete with our page, Got Junk’s page, Junk King’s page, College Hunk’s page as far as Search Engine Optimization. You do want to share well, so make sure you’ve done all the basic SEO stuff and that stuff you can do on your own if you are doing your own website, or you can just make sure your web person who did your Website get incorrectly.
Radio Advertising – we have done some T.V. advertising, we have not done radio ads. In our market is something that we likely will move into soon. Radio is going to be the last thing you are going to work on, and that is half of your grossing minimum $1,000,000, and probably closer to $2,000,000. After you gross into that, looking into radio is a good thing. The key on the radio is consistency and showing all hours of the day, especially when people are listening. Do not go cheap. There is no reason to choose a radio ad at 10:00 pm at night just because it is cheap. As we were talking about before: we hate cheap people. Cheap people get cheap products, cheap results, and they keep they income down low because they think cheap. They think they are worth a lot less than they really are, they make less money, and so, in turn, they pay other people less money. You go cheap on the radio, you might as well just get my address to Jump Removal Authority, just send me the money. I will take it, and I will put it better use than putting it on a 10:00 o’clock radio ad.
These are all of your different media to use when you advertise. Both of these should be used on a limited budget. Again, you got to do AdWords. If you have a limited budget, keep your cost-per-click low. You want to show almost all the time. Do not show between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
The final thing that I want to mention, up, here again, sales advertising marketing, they are the same sales. Pick up the phone, call people, call commercial companies and other business owners, call your friends. Call people, talk to them, pick up the phone, make that call. Cold calling is not dead. Matter of fact, I think it is making a resurgence because there are a lot less people that do it. Yes, you get robocalls, and you get the call center in India where Ralph talks about your product that he knows nothing about, tries to say something that he knows nothing about. That type of cold calling might as well be dead. It must work some because they still make the call, but a cold call from a business owner to another business owner, to another professional is you need to be doing it. It is huge, it is a lot of money. The key is the mindset. When you pick up that phone call, you just think to yourself “This person I’m talking with, I’m doing them a favor. I’m the one in control here. I am the one that has the product to make their life better.”. Yes, the sales are going to improve your life, but you have to be 100% confident that your service is exactly what they need. If you are confident in your product, if you are confident in your service, if you feel like that customer is doing a favor from you by taking your call and by buying your service, you get a fail on cold calling. Cold calling is a mindset. Say this is the best price in the world, this product is the best for the person I am calling and if they do not choose to do it, then it is their loss because this product is what they need. Also, make sure it is what they need. If it is something that obviously they might have a better solution, you might not want to force down their throat, but if it is something you are a 100% confident that you have the best service, you need to make that sale. You need to feel confident when you talk to these people about selling that product.
The single most important thing to you as a Junk Removal Business Owner do is marketing, is sales, is advertising. You could have the best processes in the world, the best systems in the world, you can know how to move and jump better than anybody, you got the best customer service in the world, if you cannot get your word out, if people will not buy your product, you are going down. This is where you got to learn, this is going to be your best course to get to the promised land, to get that $1,000,000 revenue, to get that $2,000,000 revenue and beyond.
Call Junk Removal Authority 919-466-9322, 919-466-9322. You may e-mail me at [email protected], [email protected]. junkremovalauthority.com is our website. It is not a test site, but an interim is in place now. One of our guys actually put that site together for us. We have another great website that is getting ready to go up for Junk Removal Authority. The current one has got great information, but the new one is going to be much more refined it is almost going to be similar to our junkdrs.com site.
Enjoy your night, guys! We will be back with you before you know it. Our own Junk Removal made simple by Junk Removal Authority.