Know Your Numbers

This week started amazing. Lead #2 Kim (from Erika's recommendation) hired me for cleaning. The story of the hire is worth sharing. They were weary of keeping their old cleaner as they were uninsured and minor property damage occurred. I educated Kim on the risk of hiring uninsured cleaners. This lead to a great in-person discussion and estimate. I sent the proposal directly after and they hesitantly agreed. The hesitancy came from her husband that I didn't speak to. He was strictly comparing prices and said I was higher. I pushed back and recommended that they don't allow the current cleaner to come back into their house without proof of insurance. Kim took the advice and her cleaner gave an excuse. They hired me right away.

The main topic of this episode is to know your numbers. When I used to buy leads through HomeAdvisor, I paid $20-$40 per lead. In this case, I paid Erika $50 for Kim's referral (only after they booked). This is a far better investment. Paying per lead depends on your trust and closing rate. 

HomeAdvisor Example: 1 lead costs $30, 10 leads for $300. I closed 20% on average. A closed biweekly house cleaning client was worth at least $3,000 per year in revenue. Thus, 2 closed leads at $300 cost created $6,000 in new revenue. This equals $150 per new client or 5% marketing. 

Paying for Referrals: Paying per client from a referral has built in trust and you close many more, but only pay on the ones that hire you. When I paid Erika $50 for a new client, I gained $3000 in new revenue for $50. This equals $50 per new client or 1.7% marketing.

As you can see, it's way more cost effective to pay for new clients verses paying for leads or ads. A few other significant updates happened this week. I had a 20 minute call with Lead #3 Monique (from Erika) and an in-home estimate that went very well. She has had issues with other cleaning services ranging from no-shows to poor quality and wanted a change. Speaking of paying for clients, this could be the second $50 I pay to Erika! I also wrote my monthly cleaning newsletter called "Dirt + Disorder = Overwhelm + Anxiety" after adding my entire Tuesday local networking group of 27 members. My newsletter went out to 77 people local to me. My hope is to have over 100 subscribers on this email list by the next newsletter. I also repurposed this content to Facebook (personal & business), LinkedIn (personal & business), Google My Business, and my website. Lastly, I completed the proposal for Asher's Chocolates and referred my friend, James Hardy, for floor & carpet cleaning.