Yellow Pages - !!!!!!!!

[TREETX]

Just got done talking with my YP's rep. Came 2 deep breaths away from knocking his chicklets out. I am moving to a smaller ad because the YPs bring in a lot of people who are just shopping and are all for the "free estimate". My best clients are references from LA's, nurseries, etc. The YPs rep was so set on selling me a bigger ad for $500 a month. I told him that was not the direction I was wanting to head and I just wanted to be in the YPs to give some people a sense of legitimacy as a business. He had the nerve to tell me that I do not take business seriously and am micromanaging, and need a big ad to improve my client base. That is when I had to say back the (f)truck up! Who are you to tell me what I need and judge me?? I had to write the ad for him because he was still set on the bigger ad. I gave it to him, signed the contract and kicked him out.

It annoys me to no end that they have no clue what it is like to run a business and yet tell you what you "should" do. There is more than one kind of business model. My is to target clients where I can provide the best service, have the highest prifit margin, and most references. NOT a shotgun everybody is my client model.

I have his email address so I guess I will get busy now signing him up for all of the free **** via email I can find.

Any other YP's horror stories out there?

 

[Acer]

When I took out a YP ad, it probably LOST me around £300..I never made enough money from the few leads I got to cover the ads. Most of the leads where I actually got into the garden, I was in a queue of several others. Getting desperate, I started to lowball a bit just to be seen to be doing work in an area, hoping to get into the word of mouth circuit, and still got undercut. The companies who use YP round here plan on giving bottom prices, and make their money by turning over lots of jobs very quickly..so you can imagine what the quality is like. Trees become a commodity. And, yes, I still get the YP flannel every year, but I feel sorry for the sales people in a way. They don't put too much pressure on you, but they do sound desperate..and they are..they're virtually on dead commission.

 

[TREETX]

I must admit I never stopped to think about his comission and paycheck. That is still no reason for this little fat man to try to bully me.

You said it best in that it puts you in more of a commodity position.

Maybe I am mad because he made me actually second guess myself for a minute.

 

[kf_tree]

the yp was my primary ad tool besides word of mouth. i had a 1/4 page ad for 1900.00 a month in brooklyn and was in 2 other books with smaller ads for 350.00 each in different areas. i wanted to down size my brooklyn ad to dollar bill size but since i had the ad for over 5 years it was discounted. the dollar bill ad still would have cost me 1700.00 so what was the point with a smaller ad.

the free estimate thing is a pain in the butt. but it's the nature of the business. one snowy sunday morning i was driving up to hoboken nj cursing myself for being nuts. why am i even getting out of bed to look at 1 job. but i picked up a 3400.00 job that we banged out in a day. you never know what that call could be. in the summer it was common to look at 20 jobs a day. it would be nice if you could weed them out on the phone , but you can't. i say go and look at every thing. you never know what might be a score. yes there are days where you look at 10 jobs and you don't want a single one of them. but tree work is all about taking the good with the bad .

 

[murphy4trees]

I never say free estimates in any advertising anymore...
around here free est. ad might as well say... jerk my chain..
God Bless,
Daniel

 

[TREETX]

I have learned to qualify people on the phone pretty well. Still improving though. Big indicator for a negative is if their first question is "do you give free estimates". It is an ok question but it is nicer if the tree is the first thing on their mind, not having to pay $25 for an estimate. Ask if it is a reference. Ask if they are taking bids and who else is bidding. I have no secrets and expect that info to be shared. One of my first and #1 qualifiers is "where do you live?" Is it with the peeps and the homies on the eastsieeed? Another is how you get along on the phone. I don't have much time for people that are stiff and abrasive from the get go. I find that now I get more calls like "Could I speak to Nathan? I was referred to him by Mrs Xyz." I find that you can easily place them then. I go the extra mile for those references - the referred person will then give you a ref and the original customer feels good about the whole thing and gives even more refs.

The YP's are a necessary evil.

 

[kf_tree]

treex

i help help but disagree. i think all calls should be looked at. just because some one does not communicate well on the phone does not mean they are a undesireable customer. alot of people shop, you may price a job cheaper than your competitors because you may be able to do it faster. so why rule out shoppers. i've gotten plenty of jobs where i was not the lowest bid, but i was hired because of rep or a good sales job or they just took a shine to me.

i did alot of work in bed sty. an area you would not walk in after dark. i even set up payment plans for the poorer people and only got stiffed about 1 every other year. in some of the "bad" nieghbor hoods they call every one in the book. most people won't show up. if you show up to give the estimate you usually got the job.

i don't know the size or volume of your business but what about hireing a secretary and an estmator to free you up? i had an excellent secretay that was with me for about five years. i also had some one else do the estimating. i would double check the estimator by looking at the big stuff. but i rarely talked to customers on the phone. i went out and climbed or ran the crew. more work got done if i was on the jobs. with an estmator all calls got looked at regardless of how they were on the phone.

unless you have more work than you can handle. why not look at every thing. get more work and put on a second crew. if your worried about another climber not pruning to your standards, just set up a removal crew.

 

[Jumper]

Salesmen

Sales people can be obnoxious and this guy chose to pull the wrong chain with you. Perhaps this approach worked with his last customer?

Glad you stuck to your guns, if more people did we would not have the overwhelming crush of consumer and corporate debt here in North America. Reminds me of the time I went into a GM dealer in Pembroke, and was virtually ignored because frankly I looked like a new Private soldier earning peanuts. Finally I got the salesman's attention to answer some questions about a real inexpensive truck (I was buying a house that summer)and the attitude was so blase UNTIL he found out I was an officer (Captain) earning big bucks,and Boy "Shouldn't I consider a Corvette!" What an a**hole! I walked out and bought a Nissan truck the next day.

 

[budroe69moni]

any of y'all advertise in the local paper??????
i never read the ad's myself.
just curious,
budroe

 

[rbtree]

Treetx,

I have the same problem with the YP reps, but not quite so bad. I have downsized from one 1/4 page ad to a few bus card size over the last few yrs, or none at all in one book. Boy, I hurt their feelings when I tell them of the poor results their ads bring.

I just doubled one ad to dollar size, and added a full color photo of us in action- should bring some results. Now I'm down to 2 books.

Bus card size seems too small, especially in the one area, Bellevue, I went in. I switched from Verizon to Quest last yr, neither book returned me even 10 calls a year!! for around $1500 per yr...So I'm outta there!!

We keep pretty busy, and would do better if I'd do some good marketing. But there are tons of tree services out here, both good, and not so, so some YP ads are needed.

 

[Stumper]

Budroe, Yes, I advertise in the local paper. That and word of mouth are my primary ads(every now and then I've been conned into ads on phone book covers,Free directories etc. (those generally generate 1or 2 jobs which pay for the ad but net nothing). I used to advertise in the Yellow pgs. Everyone elses complaints about the type of calls they generate are valid. The YPs do generate business though. I got sick of the high pressure sales people and the ever increasing numbers of phone books. I now have a yellow pages listing in one book-no ad.

 

[TREETX]

Spike sound very customer service oriented, I like that.

The YPs were necessary for me . It was my true birth as a business. I have been in there a while and have clients so it is not so important. I really hate the commodity based situations the YPs have put me in. Which is not to say that I haven't picked up some great jobs from there. I have just focused a lot more on pressing flesh with the right people so I can get jobs before the YPs are even considered. People with enough money don't touch a YP book. The have their assistant or house manager call their LA. The LA will want to jump though his ass to keep them happy so if he can trust you. Bingo - instajobby job. I just don't think it is where I want to focus now. I may be wrong. Seriously wrong. I will let you know. I am sticking to my guns and riding it out.

 

[rborist1]

:Eye:

 

[Jock]

WOW!!! I know North Americas big but here we pay £450.00 a year for yellow pages ad...not a big ad I admit , but very effective, plus we do around £5000.00 a year on local newspaper ads, which i personally find most effective, I've tried keeping records of where clients get my number but along with tax , vat , risk assessments etc I gave up, and just try to keep on top of the work......must be doing something right somewhere......Jock

 

[Toddppm]

A YP horror story? How about this, I just upped my ad to a Half page in 2 of the little local yp which is 5 different books for the areas I want , half page in 2 of them , inline ads for the rest in 3 different categories. Expensive!!!! New book comes in the mail 1 month later and it has last years ad in it!WTF!! I was hot and called the rep. Turns out the books are on different rotations which I knew but 2 of the books including 1 with a half page ad already went to print, so I'm paying in advance for next years book about $400/mth. NOT good They get my money 11 months in advance and I get no benfit, I've already paid for this years books. Rep was supposed to figure something out and call back which he still hasn't , 1rst payment is due right now, still debating on this.
Yr. before last in the big local YP's they never sent a proof or my dollar bill size ad, they actually spelled my last name wrong which is part of my business name along with a couple other mistakes , didn't pay for that ad at all that yr. , hardly got any calls anyways, I don't have an ad with them this yr. theres even more to the story but I'm sure y'all don't want a ?????fest
Been putting a small ad in a local community paper that only serves one neighborhood(about 3000 homes) and been getting alot of calls and work there already. Bonus! $5 /mth!

 

[Treeman14]

The Yellow pages work, BUT only if you have a half-page or larger. If you go with a smaller ad, it gets lost with all the others and that's when you get stuck with "the shoppers", looking for the cheapest price. The larger ads are for serious buyers only, the people who want the best and are willing to pay for it. I've had a half-page ad for three years now. Before that, we had slowly moved up to 1/4 page and were experiencing all of the negative effects mentioned already. Lots of calls, but not a lot of work generated from those calls. The larger ads are very expensive, but its worth it. Last year, our yellow pages ad cost about $40,000. BTW, there are over 150 tree services listed in the Tampa book. We have to do something to stand out from that crowd.

 

[Stumper]

Treeman, You hit the reason for big ads at the end of your post--150 listings in Tampa!. Past experience for me was that when there are 3 or 4 tree services in the area you don't need a huge ad. In fact it can backlash-"These people must be big and expensive I'll call the other guys so I can deal directly with the owner."

 

[Nickrosis]

Exactly. That's how I feel about our area. Spending $40,000 is unheard of. Advertising in more than one or two books is news to me! Up until a couple years ago, there was only one book. Now, there's two, but it's a new development.

SBC Ameritech also makes it very difficult to get rid of/shrink ads.

Nickrosis

 

[The Big Hurt]

Just rememebr those YP guys are pressuring you to buy a bigger ad because they are just interested in getting your money. They will tell you about the possibilities of a bigger ad so you will think it sounds good. Just ignore the somamabeech and do what is right for your business. Let him pressure some other fool into a bigger ad so he can increase his overhead uneccessarily.

 

[Treeman14]

Who's making more money in your market area? The guys with the big ads or the guys with the little ads?

You have to spend money to make money.