Reviews Finally

I received a couple of really positive reviews today on my yelp listing....almost makes me blush.  I don't solicit reviews, figure I will let the customer drop them if they choose to without my coaxing.  It is more organic and real that way, but it was nice to see them pop up this afternoon.

I consider that a very good sign that I am moving in the right direction.  The Sun even came out today after 2 weeks of grey sky and cold weather, we even hit low 70's.  I should be able to start rolling the box truck this week and hopefully the phone keeps ringing.

Hope everyone is making good progress and things are picking up.

Glad I could help;)

HAHAAHA....thanks Matt.

That's great! I'm on yelp too, but I hardly ever get views. Never any reviews, on any medium that I know of.

I only jumped on Yelp because of your advice Freemind. In my area, the "Top 10 Carpet Cleaners" listing is the first organic listing on the page (4th over-all). Within that link, I am the 5th behind 2 out of town franchises and 3 local, but only one of the locals is still in business and he only has one review....a negative one and no website.

So, far, that is my highest exposure resource and seeing some reviews on it tells me people are using that resource, so it is even better news.

That is great news. Glad you took the plunge and joined it.

I don't regret joining it, but I wish people here actually used something other than Google, that I could tap into.

Bear in mind, the franchise cleaners are probably paying for a listing too. So you may not rank ahead of them unless you pay. Myself, I wouldn't pay. Were I in LA like DP, I would.

I feel the same way about buying the ads, it doesn't seem all that valuable in my little market area. I am still finding that referrals are the main source for work in this area instead of the internet, but things have improved enough for me to embrace the part of the market that exists via internet.

If you're on 5th organically, I wouldn't pay for ads, especially if the other 4 are not too much of threats.
I just got a call from a yelp rep and he game me an extra $ 150 / month for 3 months to boost my ads, I was like wow, okay, I'll take free ads any day, lol.

I just talked to a rep. A yelp listing helps get you to the top with the partnerships they have.
But, for $150 + 275ish for clicks(about $20/click),,, not doing it. A couple of bad/wrong click blows the budget. I could do a nice simple postcard plan for that $.

Did they say the average is $ 20 / click ? That sounds really high ?
Down here last time I checked the average is around $ 10 / click.
And my fixed fees before the click costs is $ 25, not $ 150, the lower plan ( $ 300 / month ) is supposed to have $ 75 in fixed fees ( enhanced profile fees is what they called it ), but since I usually kick it up a few notches during summer months, they charge me $ 25 all year round.
You should ask more questions Matt, I'm sure Yelp can help you down there in your market.

dp1 wrote:Did they say the average is $ 20 / click ? That sounds really high ?
Down here last time I checked the average is around $ 10 / click.
And my fixed fees before the click costs is $ 25, not $ 150, the lower plan ( $ 300 / month ) is supposed to have $ 75 in fixed fees ( enhanced profile fees is what they called it ), but since I usually kick it up a few notches during summer months, they charge me $ 25 all year round.
You should ask more questions Matt, I'm sure Yelp can help you down there in your market.

Oh, I told him that $20/click was way to high. He said those were fixed. I said , no go at that rate.
Correction, the enhancement fee was 100, not $150 that I stated.

Damn ! That's fixed ? That's crazy !
I'm going to have to ask that question when I kicked my ads up a few notches, if it is $ 20 / click, I may not want to increase my ads. Thanks for that info Matt.

Twenty bucks per click seems really high, I would not be interested in that at all.

It is high ! But after I think about it, in 20 clicks, I'm bound to hit a good size job, especially in the summer, and a good size job in my area can be well over $ 500, so may be, just may be, I'll have to do some deep thinking if it's that much though, I'm hoping it's not.
I also thought about the mark up, if he was trying to get $ 100 from Matt for the enhanced profile fees, while I'm paying $ 25, that rep might just try to get a lot more than he should, Yelp reps can be a big stupid jerk at times, not attitude wise but certain things that they can do but they won't do it because that cuts their commission by a lot, what they don't realize is they also are not going to get anything if customers are not buying.

That brings up the question, weren't we better off before the internet? I remember the old days working for Phil (Jamaican owner) before internet was a thing, you bought a listing in the Yellow Pages and chose a name beginning with "A" and you were done. Remember all the "AAAA Cleaners" back then?

It seems that now there are at least a dozen people trying to reach in your pocket to pay for their business....we have become just an employee to the marketing companies. This is not a good trend and it really rips us all off in the end. Then as those marketing companies grow, their need for money grows, and we get raped even worse on the costs.

I am starting to think that I need to find a different industry with a brick and mortar business....like a gun range.

In a service business, your income is limited to TIME. There are only so many hours in a day you can sell your labor and only to as many customers as you have working bodies for.

I think of that, then I think of a company like ebay, that is making money round the clock that is only limited to making money by how many listings it has. While it is still a service, it's a product seller too. Just think of the millions of dollars a day that is sold there, and they are taking 10%+ off every sale.

I couldn't agree more guys, I believe what you all are trying to say is we are in the wrong business, I get it !

Pretty much, yes, we are in the wrong business.