Scaling the Ice Wall to Consistent Revenue

I’ve gotten my cleaning business off the ground, but now the real challenge begins: making the climb up to consistent revenue. I have a few ideas on that...

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(3 minute read)

How it feels like growing a business

Current Monthly Revenue (collected + receivables + booked cleans): $1,709

Marketing Channels I’ve Tried

So far, my business has completed 5 cleans since the start, and I have 2 more scheduled this month.

That sounds great, but none of it is recurring. As quickly as it came it could go.

Keep in mind, all cleans except the first one came from outbound marketing or people in my existing network (the first one was from Google LSA). I intend to keep it that way due to the rising costs of ads

So far, I have found success with running texting campaigns to Realtors, and email campaigns to property managers.

If you want to know how to run email campaigns yourself I wrote this doc that explains exactly how I do it here.

I have also hung up signs but have only gotten 1 lead so far. As of this writing, I have put up an additional ~30 signs in high traffic and affluent areas less than 2 days ago.

With yard signs, I don’t expect any leads for a week due to the Rule of 7. Essentially, consumers need to see an ad at least 7 times before they buy.

I believe this also applies to my signs. Assuming someone passes by them once a day, the earliest I’ll get leads will be in 7 days.

I have also placed door hangers, but I don’t think I’ve placed enough to be able to say if they are effective or not.

I had Google LSA turned on for 3 days which got me my first booked clean, but it came at a net loss of $40. After that, I decided to shut off LSA.

Getting leads for $70 a pop is not a good way to grow a low ticket service business. Especially when my sales skills are okay at best.

Before LSA, I was cold calling apartments and dropping off door hangers to be included in their move-in packets. I didn’t get a single lead from this.

If I had to rank my lead sources based on quality it would look like this:

1. Existing Network

2. Realtors

3. Property Managers

4. Yard Signs

5. Cold Calling Apartments for Move-In Packet Placement

6. Door Hangers (Not sure yet, but probably better than LSA)

7. Google LSA

Marketing Going Forward

Building a business from scratch feels like climbing a vertical ice wall.

One. Step. At. A. Time.

When you think you have a solid foothold, you slip and get set back.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That being said, I’ll continue on with what’s working. 

This means doubling down on getting cleans from my existing network and reaching out to Realtors and property managers.

I’ll still hang up signs and door hangers. There is still low hanging fruit for me to pick.

However, I am also diversifying my efforts into more sustainable marketing, SEO. 

For backlinks, I’m using a combination of Sneaky Backlinks from @ConnorShowler and links from @theseoguy_. 

As of right now, my Search Console looks like this:

Not much is happening, but after some more links and time, my goal is to be able to generate a consistent amount of leads from Organic SEO.

Additionally, I plan on adding customers to email drip campaigns for discounts on recurring cleans and to promote my referral program where both they and their referrals both earn $50 in credits for my services.

Everyone wins here.

Overall, I am excited for this venture going forward. The proof of concept has been validated and now it’s time to keep pushing forward and scale the ice wall.