success without repeat customers?

Welcome to the forum firstly,

One of the best ways is to have a website as it require little investment, like you said allot of gardening and tree work is not repeat business, but have you thought about various marketing methods, leaving leaflets with clients? Have a board outside your working house? People will always need gardening and while some work will never be repeat you can look at various offers, promotions etc or season changes to help increase your single client base list.

What a refreshingly great question

I wish there was an easy answer! But I do hear your pain.

On our UK business directory, we decided to ditch the annual subscriptions model and offer one off payment lifetime listings. So now we have your problem, after we've sold our services to a customer, the chances are they won't have a need to talk to us again

So we need to make sure we keep up the volume of new clients. Now this will be down to marketing and advertising, and getting this tuned correctly worked for us.

After analyzing on and offline spend / versus results, it was obvious it was online. Our pages need to be appearing in googles results, and the beauty of online marketing is you can monitor and track everything.

Although sounds obvious now, it took a while to realise which advertising and marketing avenues weren't working or couldn't be tracked.

Also, especially after the last couple of years, we decided to diversify and now have different revenue streams, which builds in a safety net if one revenue stream dips.

Headsocial touched on a good point, maybe you could diversify slightly into maybe garden work, or maybe maintenance contracts for local schools/govt etc.

I don't know what actual services you offer, but I know our 1 tree in our front garden gets a hair cut once a year, and we always use the same chap, year in year out. I know he advertises himself as a tree surgeon, but I'd bet a lot of his work is residential tree pruning.

Work on encouraging the referrals? Eg "do you know anyone else whose tree is darkening their life? Would he / she welcome me approaching them? May I cite you as a satisfied customer?".

On the career counselling side, I've had as many as 6 referrals from one customer.

This is a good question. There's several things that I'd recommend...

> Referrals - take time out to go to all teh clients you've had this year, to do a 'routine inspection'... Take a bunch of flyers with you (pref A6 postcards, as they are better for this kinda thing)...if someone can say 'Oh yes, these people did our trees, here's their flyer' you've made a sale.

> Website - Invest a bit of money in a website, amke sure you're listed with Yellow Pages, Qype, Free Index, Google Places and Thompson (Free listing, don't pay), and make sure your designer is one that understands business, not a spotty teenager in their bedroom.

> Outsourcing - Contact every landscaper / developer in the area, offer them a trade rate, should they ever need someone to use, make sure they have your card in their wallet.

> Business Cards - give out cards like there's no tomorrow. Get GOOD quality cards, NOT vista print ones, you want good, well desined, Laminated cards that will actually survive being in someones wallet.

> 'Sound Advice' - the local BBC station here does advice sections - get yourself on one of those programmes, they won't heavily advertise you, but you can share your knowledge and at least a couple of times they'll say "this is steve from steves trees in oxford..."

> Quote Pack - invest in a pack with some glossy inserts about general tree health etc. Maybe an A5 holder, general information in there about your company, tree health, and then write a quote at the meeting and place it in that holder. That will increase your conversion rate - focus in there on why your advanced knowledge and experiance will out perform anyone else, and save money in the long term, backed up by a solid GUARANTEE

> Van Writing - get your van written up properly. Too many people have way too much information on their van, it just confuses it. Your van needs to be in good condition, and with some nice graphics "Steves Trees - Professional Tree Surgery - Call us today for your free site visit, 01234 456789" is all it needs to say.

Those things can really get you started

Steve, I have realized your pain. But still there are lots of things that you can do to increase your business.

Leave your business cards to the clients. The cards look and feel must be more professional. It must be designed with your business name, a nice logo and contact details.
The website idea is good but it wouldn't be as results oriented. because how many of the people are there who google when they have to remove the trees from their lawn.
Place a normal sized board outside your working place displaying your business particulars.
Extend your business services span. Include tree hair cut, grass trimming, thorny bushes cut and other things in your practice.
Get painted your vehicle with your details to get your business a bit registered in the community. You may get painted your vehicle with your business details including your business name, logo, address and contact number.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!!I would like to tell you a little more about my business.This is a full time business for me,not just a weekend thing.I do have newer equipment that looks good,and has my company logo and phone number on it.Me and my guys wear company shirts all the same color with the logo.I get professional business cards made at a local print shop(I know what you mean about those vista print ones)For two years I've been debating on whether or not to diversify more and get more into "tree care"which really is a whole different service,but still related obviously.I've been leaning more towards staying specialized in tree removals,mainly because my equipment and employees are all geared towards this and know it well.Maybe i'm fighting a losing battle and trying to do something that just can't work?I've been able to earn a living doing this but the potential for growth seems small.It's like i've hit a plateau,and can't seem to get beyond this point.I definitely need to have more of a presence on the web,That's something i'm going to look into asap.I don't know anything about search engines and placement,etc.Anybody know a good way to get that done?I'm also going to start a referral program,and use some of the other idea's you all have given me.Anymore idea's?Keep'em coming!!

Don't know much about trees, but can point you in the direction of basic SEO (search engine optimisation).

Depends on how comfortable you are, but a lot of the stuff is quite easy to get your head around if you have the time.

Here's a good starting place for basic SEO stuff.
www.mylocalforums.com/seo-education/

Here's some marketing ideas:
http://www.mylocalforums.com/marketing-help/2662-online-free-marketing-crash-course.html

If you have any questions or there is something specific you don't understand, feel free to ask the question in a relevant forum. Will also get some good tips in www.mylocalforums.com/seo-webrankings-google-yahoo-bing-etc

Apart from business directory listings and website, we find when working at clients home it is a must to have a good livery on your van, have a board outside where you are working saying what you are doing and how to contact you for a free quote and always drop leaflets to adjoining houses.
You are in a great position as neighbours always want what Mrs Jones next door is having and wont want to be missing out.
We usually find if we clean a carpet at number 9, next door will want a carpet and suite cleaned.
The old curtain twitchers always want to know whats going on ..... why leave them guessing.... go give them all the info they need .

Hi Steve, Our business supplying badges has a mix of once-only customers for special events, plus many repeat customers. Repeats sometimes do not occur for 3 or 4 years, so we also have to continually find new customers. Based on our experience I suggest Yell.com, and even the old print Yellow pages, BUT your advert must convey a message. If you do what most people do and make it something like a copy of your business card, why would people contact you rather than those people with the big expensive ads? Tell them something they want to know, other than the fact that you cut down trees. Defy the traditionalists and use plenty of words. Use bullet points if that makes it easier, but narrative text works well. No picture needed - everyone knows what a tree looks like. We bring in huge responses from small adverts, as often as not with no colour.

One more point - you can probably tell as you drive by if a tree is potentially dangerous, or steals too much of the precious little bit of sunshine available. At least drop a flyer in their letterbox. Better still knock and hand it to them without trying to sell on the spot. They will call you if your flyer has a convincing message.

Regards,
Experience