How I've been cold-visiting businesses - seems a good way

[Geoff T]

My take on the "sales vs marketing" argument is this...

sales now = sales

sales till I retire = networking

Oversimplistic, and a horrid generalisation I know, but...IMO

How you mix that in is up to you.

 

[Geoff T]

OP - for the smaller potential customers... have you tried the reason "you can make more here than you can in the car/van"?

How much can they earn working vs what you charge?

 

[john a lindsay]

And does yyour philosophy include, " a good salesman can sell ice to an eskimo"?
No skillset matters unless you are consistently marketing,

 

[jncc]

I just looked at this week's totals - we delivered 103 items and earnt £51.51, which is by far the most we've pulled in for one week. The next highest amount was last week at £32.15.

 

[saxondale]

I just looked at this week's totals - we delivered 103 items and earnt £51.51, which is by far the most we've pulled in for one week. The next highest amount was last week at £32.15.

I like you, I really do ...................... but hows this a business?






.

 

[jncc]

I like you, I really do ...................... but hows this a business?

I don't understand... are you suggesting that I take some particular course of action (e.g. give up) because this week I earnt only £50?

Or... no I don't know what you're getting at really.

If you are literally asking "how is this a business", well of course it is literally a business, by any definition of the word. :|
You will need to be direct with me.

 

[saxondale]

I don't understand... are you suggesting that I take some particular course of action (e.g. give up) because this week I earnt only £50?

Or... no I don't know what you're getting at really.

If you are literally asking "how is this a business", well of course it is literally a business, by any definition of the word. :|
You will need to be direct with me.

direct, yes, you only earnt £50.00 last week - how do you see this thing becoming capable of supporting someone?

 

[jncc]

direct, yes, you only earnt £50.00 last week - how do you see this thing becoming capable of supporting someone?

By gaining more clients...?

 

[saxondale]

By gaining more clients...?

okay, living wage, tax, bills etc etc say £250 per week at current rates is
500 items or 10 per hour (plus sales calls) - can you peddle that fast?

 

[MH1]

Have to agree the rate per delivery is way too low, you are a premium service at near postal rates.

At 50p per delivery, no wonder people are using your services. How long did these deliveries take in hours worked, plus the sales time involved etc?

 

[jncc]

okay, living wage, tax, bills etc etc say £250 per week at current rates is
500 items or 10 per hour (plus sales calls) - can you peddle that fast?

(I need £100/week to maintain my current lifestyle.)

We make around £5 on same-day deliveries and one rider could conduct several per hour (if the work was there), so that's up to £100/day from that

We also do next-day stuff for like 25p, and the sky's the limit there. You can get to 200 doors in an hour if they're all adjacent houses.

And anyway this "what if" kind of thing is unnecessary, because many similar services exist that bring in up to £100k/year or more, so it can certainly work.

 

[jncc]

Have to agree the rate per delivery is way too low, you are a premium service at near postal rates.

Our non-sameday rates are below Royal Mail's.

At 50p per delivery, no wonder people are using your services.

Actually barely anyone wants to use us, haha. We'll save them £100s over Royal Mail but they don't want to know.

How long did these deliveries take in hours worked, plus the sales time involved etc?

I have that data, but it's not relevant here really. It's obviously a pathetic hourly wage, but what's that supposed to tell us? That I should wrap it up and go work at McDonalds? Some people run their business at a loss for a whole year or more and don't worry about it. I'm not expecting to make good money right off the bat.

 

[MH1]

I have that data, but it's not relevant here really. It's obviously a pathetic hourly wage, but what's that supposed to tell us?

It's totally relevant, it tells you you need a new pricing structure. Start as you mean to go on.

Why deliver nextday 200 letters at 25p each when you can deliver 80 at £1 each? At least at £1 a pop you might actually make money, which is what being in business is all about. You are much more likely to get clients at sensible rates, many companies probably refuse too consider using you because you are way too cheap.

I'm not suggesting giving up, simply adapting to make a living, your current model is destined for a quick death.

 

[jncc]

It's totally relevant, it tells you you need a new pricing structure. Start as you mean to go on.

There are other conclusions that could be drawn, such as that I need more clients/more deliveries.
Also remember that the £ earnt per mile cycled (or per hour worked) will not remain constant. Imagine the two extremes (we'll use 25p/letter):

1. Low-value extreme:
50 letters spread right across the city could take half a day to deliver and involve well over 50 miles cycled. Maybe £3/hour earnt, and a lot of effort.

2. High-value extreme:
50 letters on the same street could be done in 15 minutes. That's equivalent to £50/hour and it's a piece of cake to carry out.

Why deliver nextday 200 letters at 25p each when you can deliver 80 at £1 each?

I can't think of any reason. But that's a hypothetical situation isn't it.

At least at £1 a pop you might actually make money, which is what being in business is all about. You are much more likely to get clients at sensible rates, many companies probably refuse too consider using you because you are way too cheap.

I'm not suggesting giving up, simply adapting to make a living, your current model is destined for a quick death.

Can you really see that working, lol?

How do I convince people to triple their postage costs?

Pay 36p with good old Royal Mail, or 100p for some **** on a bike to deliver it? I know which I'd choose.

 

[CellarDoor]

I agree with Lucy. You are not approaching decision makers and if they are chatty, you may be find yourself spending too much time with them! Perhaps you should pop in, introduce yourself, state your business and leave an information pack. I think you should not leave without obtaining details of the decision maker(s) and the name of their PA/secretary, and possibly what system/supplier they are currently using. There is a limit to how much you can ask the receptionist and you are right to look at their body language. As a non-Director or non-Decision Maker, the receptionist may not be as passionate about saving money/improving systems etc as the bosses will be, since they have invested in the company.

It's an interesting approach but I feel that a phone call to the decision maker is more time/cost effective. Just my humble opinion!

 

[MH1]

How do I convince people to triple their postage costs?

Pay 36p with good old Royal Mail, or 100p for some **** on a bike to deliver it? I know which I'd choose.

You simply do not understand your market, pay RM for 1-3 day delivery, or pay someone like yourself extra for guaranteed next morning delivery, plus extra charges for before 9am etc. All RM deliveries tend to take place after 11am now, since the early shifts have been abolished, businesses biggest bug bear with RM is late mail, some gets delivered after 4pm!

As I mentioned, get to know the market, more importantly can you ever expand earning potentially £3/hr? Who will you ever recruit to work at such an illegal rate?

I used to own a courier company and would charge an extra 25% for guaranteed morning delivery, plus an extra 25% for before 9am etc. Not everyone would pay the extra, plenty do. I dare not mention the extra costs for unusual out of hour deliveries, I have delivered at 1AM sunday mornings for members of the public when required, as long as the job warrants the cost.

 

[saxondale]

.... because many similar services exist that bring in up to £100k/year or more, so it can certainly work.

no they don`t.

 

[saxondale]

I'm not expecting to make good money right off the bat.

you never will make money - whatever the economy of scale, thats the point your missing

 

[CellarDoor]

I am pleased for you that business is picking up for you. It's all a steep learning curve and from what I can see, with your positive, can-do attitude you will learn fast and give your clients what they want today and tomorrow.
Good Luck.

 

[jncc]

no they don`t.

Perhaps they all made some kind of accounting error. A few extra zeroes - it's easily done.

 

[jncc]

You simply do not understand your market, pay RM for 1-3 day delivery, or pay someone like yourself extra for guaranteed next morning delivery, plus extra charges for before 9am etc. All RM deliveries tend to take place after 11am now, since the early shifts have been abolished, businesses biggest bug bear with RM is late mail, some gets delivered after 4pm!

Good idea, I could offer that as well. Perhaps as simply as you suggested later in your post, +25% for next morning, +50% for before 9am. Currently most of our first-class stuff gets there in the afternoon, and most second-class actually arrives along with it, because it's just easier to us to consolidate it all at this stage.

(Still it's not even getting to half of your £1 amount mentioned earlier - what kind of delivery was that for?)

As I mentioned, get to know the market, more importantly can you ever expand earning potentially £3/hr? Who will you ever recruit to work at such an illegal rate?

See my above post explaining how the earnings would change with increased numbers of deliveries.

 

[Tej]

(I need £100/week to maintain my current lifestyle.)

Don't you have any bills to pay.. like rent, utilities, food, etc, etc?..

or do you live with parents freebie.

How old are you, if I may ask?

 

[jncc]

Don't you have any bills to pay.. like rent, utilities, food, etc, etc?..

Yes, that's why I need £100/week and not £0!

 

[Tej]

Yes, that's why I need £100/week and not £0!

Pay all that, and maintain your "current lifestyle".. whatever that might be.

Noted you did not answer the other 2 points.... for whatever reason.

 

[MH1]

http://www.cycle-link.com/post.htm

This is another forum members site, and you will notice he charges a sensibly higher cost per item than yourself, a rough minimum of 30% extra on a letter, and a lot more on larger items.

The idea more deliveries will give higher earnings will not work on your rates, since you will not be able to pay for anyone else too collect and deliver for you when you yourself are not earning anything.

As I mentioned, get to know your market. The £1 a letter was a figure plucked from the air from years ago, couriers used to have to charge a £1 minimum many years ago to protect the RM from competition. End of the day you need to increase your rates to allow yourself to firstly survive and then grow.

 

[jncc]

http://www.cycle-link.com/post.htm

This is another forum members site, and you will notice he charges a sensibly higher cost per item than yourself, a rough minimum of 30% extra on a letter, and a lot more on larger items.

Yea I've spoken to one of the guys who runs that company - if you look you'll see a 23p rate for small, 2nd class letters, which is similar to my own. Most post is, unfortunately, small and 2nd class :/
I would of course charge more than that for larger or more urgent items - our rates are pretty similar to theirs, as are those of several other companies that do this work. They're all basically Royal Mail's prices minus ~20%

The idea more deliveries will give higher earnings will not work on your rates, since you will not be able to pay for anyone else too collect and deliver for you when you yourself are not earning anything.

I'm not sure I understand this to be honest. As far as I can see, the more deliveries we get, the more money we earn - in total and also per hour worked (or per mile cycled, etc.)
And then like any other business there would come a point where I can't really manage any more work on my own, so I'd just give a share of it to someone else. We'd likely then both work part-time, hopefully both becoming full-time later, and so on.

As I mentioned, get to know your market. The £1 a letter was a figure plucked from the air from years ago, couriers used to have to charge a £1 minimum many years ago to protect the RM from competition. End of the day you need to increase your rates to allow yourself to firstly survive and then grow.

I'm certain that if I increased my rates all of our existing postal customers would immediately move back to Royal Mail. In talking to a lot of potential clients about this, none at all have asked anything about delivery schedules or getting things delivered by a set time - the first and last question is "How much does it cost?"

If I bumped up out same-day prices I'd lose most or all of our clients there. They grumble about paying a few quid as it is. But I'm ok with those prices - if anything I think they're a bit steep - I sometimes feel a bit cheeky asking for the money.
People don't really realise what a low hourly wage it works out to, and I guess it's a lot easier to ignore the cost by letting it sink into the vast expense of a company car/van.

I will, however, see about offering a firster-than-first class service, like you suggested, at a higher rate, incase people should want to use that.

 

[saxondale]

Perhaps they all made some kind of accounting error. A few extra zeroes - it's easily done.

you seem to have, yes - you cannot deliver in the quantity required to make money - ask Royal Mail

 

[saxondale]

I'm not sure I understand this to be honest. As far as I can see, the more deliveries we get, the more money we earn - in total and also per hour worked (or per mile cycled, etc.)
And then like any other business there would come a point where I can't really manage any more work on my own, so I'd just give a share of it to someone else. We'd likely then both work part-time, hopefully both becoming full-time later, and so on.

see my point above - you seriously need someone to explain the figures to you, at the moment your working for less than £3.00 odd per hour.


Obviously the govt is funding this vanity business somewhere down the line.

 

[Tej]

see my point above - you seriously need someone to explain the figures to you, at the moment your working for less than £3.00 odd per hour.


Obviously the govt is funding this vanity business somewhere down the line.

LOL.. if he makes £50 for the week... thats a lot less that you mention.

I thought that the days of "bob a job"... or even "quid a kid".. were long gone.

Guess I was mistaken

 

[jncc]

at the moment your working for less than £3.00 odd per hour.

Correct.

Obviously the govt is funding this vanity business somewhere down the line.

What?

 

[jncc]

you seem to have, yes - you cannot deliver in the quantity required to make money - ask Royal Mail

hmm, well a chap in plymouth who works alone and serves less than half the area we do has delivered over 20,000 letters in his first year. That's between £5,000 and £10,000 just from the letters.
I think there's plenty of potential in this side of the business - perhaps you have some anecdotes or figures to explain why there isn't?

I'm much more interested in the same-day work, which can be very valuable at times and could pull in £3-500/week, say. But, finding people who want to use us for that is even harder.

 

[saxondale]

hmm, well a chap in plymouth who works alone and serves less than half the area we do has delivered over 20,000 letters in his first year. That's between £5,000 and £10,000 just from the letters.
I think there's plenty of potential in this side of the business - perhaps you have some anecdotes or figures to explain why there isn't?

I'm much more interested in the same-day work, which can be very valuable at times and could pull in £3-500/week, say. But, finding people who want to use us for that is even harder.

I think your doing that quite well by yourself.


20K, 4 letters an hour for 12 hours a day 365 days of the year ............

to make £1.20 an hour.


we have to work a whole minute for that.




.

 

[Tej]

There is a member here.. Mersey distribution... who is in a similar business.. ( I think... could be wrong)

It might be worth while asking him for advice.

 

[jncc]

I think your doing that quite well by yourself.


20K, 4 letters an hour for 12 hours a day 365 days of the year ............

to make £1.20 an hour.

Where did that come from? Even now I get 10-20 letters delivered per hour, and they're scattered across 60 square miles of city.

 

[saxondale]

Where did that come from? Even now I get 10-20 letters delivered per hour, and they're scattered across 60 square miles of city.

20,000 letters anualised .................. 60 sqr miles ................ it just keeps getting better


JSA?

 

[jncc]

20,000 letters anualised .................. 60 sqr miles ................ it just keeps getting better

That's the spirit!

JSA?

No thanks

 

[MH1]

hmm, well a chap in plymouth who works alone and serves less than half the area we do has delivered over 20,000 letters in his first year. That's between £5,000 and £10,000 just from the letters.
I think there's plenty of potential in this side of the business - perhaps you have some anecdotes or figures to explain why there isn't?

This guy as you mention covers half the area you do, which means he can be a lot more productive, your money is made collecting and delivering the mail, not for the cycling between jobs.

You need to think backwards for a while, decide on the annual income you need, the amount of hours you will work, then decide if the number of letters you are likely to get will allow you to get anywhere near this figure.

BTW if I was in charge of RM in the near future I would seriously consider introducing free or half price delivery within 5 miles of the dispatch point to kill off competitors such as yourself.

Have you also covered the problem of who will do the work if you are ill or injured, holiday cover etc? Once a hard gained client is obtained the last thing you would want to do is lose them.

Just because everyone else is doing the job at one rate does not mean you can make it work, they might all go bust in the next year or two.

 

[saxondale]

cold selling 20K letters, love it

 

[jncc]

This guy as you mention covers half the area you do, which means he can be a lot more productive, your money is made collecting and delivering the mail, not for the cycling between jobs.

So I could just split our area in half, and have one person cover each - no problem.

You need to think backwards for a while, decide on the annual income you need, the amount of hours you will work, then decide if the number of letters you are likely to get will allow you to get anywhere near this figure.

No I wouldn't ever make enough just from post, I think. Well, I easily could if I got some really big clients like the local authority, universities, things like that. We'd be looking at ~500,000 letters/year just from the council.

More likely, most of the money will come from same-day stuff.

Have you also covered the problem of who will do the work if you are ill or injured, holiday cover etc? Once a hard gained client is obtained the last thing you would want to do is lose them.

Yea I have an endless list of people who want to work for me, that wouldn't be a problem.

Just because everyone else is doing the job at one rate does not mean you can make it work, they might all go bust in the next year or two.

You're quite right - this small-scale intra-city postal service idea is only about 18 months old. This guy was the first who tried it, pretty much: http://www.citycyclecouriers-plymouth.com/

34,000 letters in 12 months, he says. In three postcodes in Plymouth. It remains to be seen how long he lasts, I guess.

 

[jncc]

BTW if I was in charge of RM in the near future I would seriously consider introducing free or half price delivery within 5 miles of the dispatch point to kill off competitors such as yourself.

Royal Mail apparently deal with 95 million letters per day... we're not even worth them thinking about - they have much bigger fish to fry, and unless we were handling over 50% of all local mail, they'd not profit from killing us off with a half-price offer.