National Clothesline

The last couple of months have been interesting regarding route building. In fact, the Question of the Month is a compilation of a number of questions that I have received by e-mail regarding route building and those who are involved in it.

Most of the questions were regarding a person who sells himself as a no-door-knocking route building guru. According to the e-mails I have received, this person sells his service for $1,500 to $2,000, plus a monthly payment.

Let me phrase the question of the month this way. “Should I spend thousands with someone who says he will help me build my business?”

I have to give this route-building person a lot of credit. When I learned about routes, I visited a company that had 14 routes in place. Mr. No Door Knocking (Mr. NDK) has one route. It appears to be a lot easier to make money selling route building services to drycleaners than it is selling drycleaning to consumers.

Another thought of mine is if this route building technique is so great, why does Mr. NDK have only one route? Am I missing something?

If you provide Mr. NDK with your e-mail address, you will be inundated with e-mail sales pressure. I congratulate Mr. NDK for his e-mail marketing. He probably worked on it a lot harder than he did on building his drycleaning route. I also congratulate Mr. NDK for taking the 1-800-Dryclean sales methods to the next level.

Obviously, 1-800-Dryclean has had some success as has Mr. NDK. Have they had the success that I have had personally when I grew five routes in five years to over $1.25 million in sales? Have they had success like the company with 14 routes? I wonder if there is anybody selling route-building services that has owned and operated multiple routes?

One of the tools both use is a bag dropped at the prospect’s door with a letter or some other means of communication about their route service. On occasion, some franchise drycleaners have been financially hurt. One disgruntled franchise holder posted his lack of success at www.unhappyfranchisee.com.

I will quote what the disgruntled franchisee said on the unhappy franchisee website regarding this method of route building.

“The marketing bag w/kit to hang on people’s doors cost $1.65 each. I had already passed out 8,700 bags, which is about $14,355. I spent a total of over $19,000 for marketing and advertising materials over a three-year period. I have 135 customers from that, and this is what they are promoting as a successful marketing program.”

All of that money was in addition to a franchise fee of $45,000.

I thought that I should investigate further so I next spoke to a new 1-800 franchisee. This person is using the 1-800-Dryclean method of marketing with bag drops. In my opinion, he was quite successful. Perhaps the reason he was doing better than most is that he is an experienced drycleaner who was not simply dropping the bags and running to the next house. He was knocking on the doors and talking to prospective clients.

After dropping 400 bags, he had about a 10 percent response, approximately 40 new customers, and that is excellent.

The goal I had for my own routes was 150 active customers in three months. Once that was achieved, the next goal was to reach 300 active customers. In marketing material from Mr. NDK, the cleaners appear to be happy to achieve 150 active customers in a much longer period.

Here are some quotes of cleaners who have used the Mr. NDK system and are not quite successful enough, in my opinion.

BF: “38 customers in first 6 weeks.”

BR: “Five weeks, about 15 customers.”

TD: “31 customers in 6 weeks.”

Of course there are some who have better reports.

One reported 110 customers in 13 weeks. Another had 119 new customers in five months, and still another had 117 new customers in eight weeks.

The number of bags dropped is not mentioned. I wonder why that number is not discussed. Why isn’t the response rate talked about?

I contacted a relatively new client of Mr. NDK who had dropped 600 bags and picked up 20 new customers. This individual did not knock on doors.

The methods that were used were by the NDK book. The response rate of three percent is about the same as a direct mail campaign. If I paid my $1,500 or $2,000 for a three percent response, I would not be a happy businessperson.

Maybe that is why the number of bags dropped and the percentage of success is not discussed.

Route building secrets?

Some of the route-building techniques that Mr. NDK suggests and charges for have been made available to you at no charge if you have read my columns over the last two and one-half years.

The following are all part of the marketing material. “Ask for referrals; fund-raising program and get some schools involved; I Want You Back letters; networking get togethers; send out a sales letter to your non-customers; send out postcards to get new customers; optimize your website for the right keywords; start a pay-per click program with Google, Yahoo and MSN.”

Apparently, there are plenty of people who need to be taken by their hand and led through the processes of building a route. They would rather part with money instead of using their own time and capabilities to build a business.

I hear from people every week who want free advice on how to build a route. They do not want to pay for my services or the services of anybody else. They are too lazy to write a business plan. They want an immediate clientele because they see others who have reached some modicum of happiness and financial success in the drycleaning industry.

Many cleaners have not used the Mr. NDK system or 1-800-Dryclean and have achieved great success building routes. All you need to do is a little research to discover the cleaning plants with multiple routes. Those are the drycleaners who have climbed the mountain and reached the peak. I know, because I have been there and done that. It took a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, but in the end, it was worth it.

My answer to the question of the month is: You do not have to spend $1,500 to $2,000 plus a monthly fee, or a franchise fee, to build routes. You can do it yourself if you want to take the time to make it happen.

The vast majority of drycleaning plants in this country with multiple routes did not pay another company on an ongoing basis to provide the methods of successful route building.

The choice is yours.